BETTER THEN?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21545, 18 January 1932, Page 10

BETTER THEN?

OURSELVES WHEN YOUNG I am often asked by my friends of. both sexes of the younger generation whether I really think I had a better time in my youth than they have now (writes “An Edwardian” in the Daily Telegraph). -■ The first time the question was put to me I answered, perhaps without proper deliberation, that I believed I and my contemporaries certainly did; life may not have been' so free and easy, but the reflected worries of one’s parents seemed fewer, and when holidays did come we were able to do more and get more out of a small expenditure than is now the case.

However, my questioner, who happened to be a young woman, refused to accept my opinion. As she was an intelligent girl, I pondered a good deal over our conversation, and have come to the conclusion that, so far as girls are concerned, she was right. They do have a far better time than they used to have, but young men certainly do not. Girls nowadays are free and untrammelled by restrictions. No longer is it necessary for a young lady to be accompanied by her maid if she .wants to go shopping in Bond street, no longer is the suburban mother uneasy at the thought of her pretty daughter going to her work in town alone. All mothers have come to realise that girls can be trusted to look after themselves. Where before it was the accepted idea that they should live in entire ignorance of all life’s pitfalls and temptations, now the reverse is the case. The war altered all that. For the first time in history girls en masse went into the vortex unprotected, and knowledge resulted; and knowledge nowadays is a girl’s surest armour. * Young men and girls now meet on terms of equality. If they like each other they will probably call each other by their Christian names in the space of a few days, perhaps hours. There is no harm in it, and it is this “hail--fellow-well-met ” sort of intimacy which, even if it does curtail sentiment, allows young people the more readily to appreciate each other’s mental qualities at the same time as their physical attractions. It is because girls and boys are allowed complete freedom of speech and thought, without the constant intervention of their elders, that matters of sex have become a secondary consideration. . V I am not attempting to minimise the importance of this consideration, but a young man and woman who fall in love and who have opportunities—never given in'my day—of being alone together and getting to know each other’s character, have far more chance of being happily married than was the case five-and-twenty years ago, when, unless it were stolen fruit, meetings alone were almost impossible until the engagement was announced; and if illusions were then shattered a sense of “ doing the right thing ” made it too late to prevent a miserable union.

Young men certainly do not have as good a time. In most classes and professions they have to start, work earlier and stick to it far harder in order to succeed —not a bad thing eithfer; but their recreations cost them more. A young man in the army in piy day, with £4OO a year besides his pay, could easily afford to hunt. Now he cannot; neither can he shoot, as nine shoots out of every ten are turned into syndicates, and he can afford neither the time nor the money to join one. I like the youths of to-day immensely. They have excellent manners, and are no longer afraid to voice their opinion, but they do so quietly and deferentially. Many have the sense now to choose their own profession, instead of having oneprobably unsuitable—chosen for them. If they commit indiscretions and get found out they accept responsibility without demur; they do not curse their bad luck or attempt to shovel the blame on to someone else. In fact, boys and girls of to-day are just as nice as they were impossible immediately after the war. i-