WHY WE DON’T WANT TO MARRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21019, 7 May 1930, Page 14

WHY WE DON’T WANT TO MARRY.

Before marriage you husbands would thought yourselves the outside edge if your fiance had had to ask you to pass the jam. Now, when she makes her merry request of “ You might pass me the 'marmalade, John,” you frown weightily and exasperatedly at the gross selfishness and inconsiderateness of the woman, actually defrauding you of your newspaper prop! And the nmrmalade-wanter, when hey husband reads out a “ good bit,” doesn't exhaust herself to the extent of glancing up, but contents herself with a mumbled “M’m!” and goes on with her bit of paper or letter. - s In the days before John became the marmalade provider, of course, she would have listened with glistening eyes and rapt expression to any old piffle he liked to read out, even if she had read it all before! And did you ever hear of the man who grumbled and groused when his fiancee suggested he should carry her coat, book, or anything else she’d had enough of yanking around. Never! Not on your life! Why, there was often a pretty little struggle as to who should have the privilege of carrying the beastly unwanted coat or book —the man, of course, being an easy winner. Just you ask John these days to carry the coat that’s grown too hot and heavy You’ll learn in a few bright, terse sen tencea that you’re positively the world’s worst everything. That anybody, anybody but you, would have known you wouldn’t need the beastly coat, and now, of course, the something, something walk is going to be spoiled, anj it’s a pitv you over set out on it; it’s the sort of thing you always do, "nd oh, a whole lot more! And the walk is spoiled, any how, and you do think it’s a pity you ever set out on it, and you vow most passionately you’ll never, never do it again. And would you, friend John, before marriage mysteriously conferred upon you the privilege of being destestably rude and hurtful, have ridiculed and laughed at Eve’s efforts at golf or bridge, or anything else she was heroically trying her inept hand at in an effort to keep pace with you? You know you wouldn’t! And you, Eve, would you in the old days have taken all John’s little attentions for granted, without so much as a “ thank you,” as you do now. Vou know you wouldn’t. That sort of thing’s bringing life down to a pretty cheap level. And that’s the sort of thing that puts the onlooker off marriage