Bo Women Crave Admiration More thin Love ?

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 73

Bo Women Crave Admiration More thin Love ?

— The Secret of Many Domestic Tragedies. — ~f Do women crave admiration more than they do love? As a sex, I think that women put admiration before everything else in life. It is the thing that they desire most; that they Hunger and thirst for from the cradle to the grave. Indeed, it may be said without exaggeration that admiration is an absolute necessity to a woman. With-it she is happy, although she has nothing else besides. Without it

she is miserable, e.l though .she " walks in silk attire and silver has to spare."

Of course, women think that they desire love above everything else in the world; but the thing about love that is the most alluring to them is its flattery.

The song of the successful suitor is a strain of adulation.

The young woman drinks in the honeyed words with greedy ears, and because she could listen to this paean of praise for ever she thinks she is in love. She honestly believes that her heart has been touched, when in reality only her vanity has been tickled.

Women are not aware that love plays a secondary part in their winning, but it is true nevertheless. It takes no prophet to foresee what would be the answer given to a man who was bold enough to tell a woman the truth, and say : "My Dear Jane, — You are a Jaomely little soul, with nondescript hair and eyes like burnt holes in a blanket, and no complexion, and a figure that looks as if it had been cut put of a cartoon, and you are not particularly clever, or intelligent, but you are as good as gold, and amiable and industrious, and you'd make just the sort of wife I want. Will you be mine?"

Would not Jane draw herself up and say: " How dare you insult me? Another word and I'll call my father." Another interesting "sidelight on the subject, showing that it is really admiration rather than love that women crave, is to be seen in the attitude of married women toward their husbands.

Thus a woman whose husband is working himself to death to make her comfortable will consider herself a poor, neglected, unloved wife simply because the man to whom she is married has ceased to pay her compliments.

It is this craving for admiration that a husband is too busy or too -preoccupied or too careless to give that is at the bottom of almost all the domestic tragedies. A man marries a woman and takes it for granted that henceforth she will know, without more -words, that he loves and admires her. But the woman is not built that way. She pines for praise as a flower does for water.

In all life there is nothing sadder than that there are millions of wives who are starving for a little admiration, a little praise from their husbands.

The final proof that women crave admiration more than love is to be found in the fact that even the women who are happily married envy women who are in the public eye. Naturally there are many exceptions, but it is broadly true that no sound is so alluring to a woman as the voice of praise, and that' she craves admiration more than love, and estimates the depths of love by the warmth of its admiration. — Dorb'thy 'Dix, in the New York American. '