ON CHOOSING A WIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3882, 7 August 1928, Page 63

ON CHOOSING A WIFE.

By Plain Jane. (Special for the Otago Witness.) Nearly one hundred years ago Cobbett, master of vigorous Anglo-Saxon, a pattern for those who would to-day write vigorous and good English, published his “ Advice to Young Alen, and Incidentally to Young Women.” Alany years ago I read the book, sent it on a mission of goodwill, from which, alas, it has never returned. So I read recently •with relish an article in an English review from the pen of Edith Sellars, the theme being ■Cobbett and his “ advice.” It was like meeting an old friend, and I enjoyed the meeting. Cobbett lived many years in advance of his time, how many is a matter of opinion, but he was an Englishman who loved his England. His “ grammar,” very unlike the ordinary grammar book, is worth more than most books to-<Uiy. As Cobbett’s “ advice ” is tendered to young men in love, it is evident that he deemed them at such a period most in need of guidance. As to the responsibility for tendering advice he declared ' that “it is the duty, and it ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience to instruct youth and come to the aid of inexperience.” Perhaps our age is the most impatient of advice, and yet who knows? I am frequently asked for advice, so there must still be many who do not know everything. Cobbett was kindly as well as-wise in his generation, and he warned young men, and incidentally young women, of the danger, to say nothing of the folly, of making a bad choice. His “ advice ” was for real lovers, “ for young men who, although in love, are not yet bereft of their reason by their love.” He recognised that advice to those in whose minds passion overpowers reason would be useless, which goes to prove that Cobbett was also wise. He was not concerned with those who were eager to secure rich wives rather than good wives, which indicates that Cobbett was an apostle of true morality.

A good wife must be good looking—in the eyes of her husband. ‘‘ Beauty is but skin deep, but it is very agreeable for all that.” Cobbett was strong for all the virtues, even insisting on propriety in conduct. “ Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls may be very amusing, but they are not of the sort the wise marry.” Good temper, he insists, is most important, and special pains must be taken to be sure of this. “By good temper I do not mean an easy temper, a temper which nothing will disturb; for that is a mark of laziness.” And laziness is a terrible vice. So is sulkiness. “ A sulky man is bad enough, what then must be a sulky woman, and that woman a wife! ” Even a scolding wife ,is better than one who sulks. To marry one who is querulous is equally dangerous, for no one likes to hear eternal plaintiveness; while everlasting complaining shows a want of patience, and, indeed, of sense. “As for a cold, indifferent wife, from that, indeed, God in his mercy preserve me,” he prays. From a pertinacious wife he also wishes to be preserved; for a longing to have the last word must be very troublesome in a wife,” he is-sure. He is sure, too, that “ an ounce of that sort of thing in a maid will become a pound in a wife.” Pertinacious girls are, therefore, to be shunned, he warns young men. So are melancholy girls; for of all bed tempers theirs is the worst. “ They carry on misery-making as a regular trade, and are always unhappy about something either past, present, or to come. Thus marriage with one of them spells a life of wailing and sighs.” And woe betide the young man who marries a wife who does not know her business; who has, in fact, no more notion of cooking or housekeeping than the average latter-day shop girl, girl clerk, school teacher, or young lady who has spent her life acquiring accomplishments. For, as Cobbett remarks: “It is cold comfort to a hungry man to tell him how delightfuly his wife sings; lovers may live on aerial diet, but husbands stand in need of solids ” —a fact to which he draws the special attention of wives.

“ That well cooked food, a house in order,- and a cheerful lire will do more to preserve a husband's heart than, all the accomplishments. Eating and drinking come three times a day; they must come; and, however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about choice food, about cookery, we very soon get tired of burnt bread and spoilt joints of meat; we bear them for a time; for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament inwardly; about the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honeymoon that will keep us from complaining; if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to repent . we discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a helpmate, but a burden.”

Extravagance in a wife is fatal, and Cobbett argues thus: — “ If he finds that a girl, in choosing her clothes, prefers the showy to the useful, the gay and fragile to the less sightly and durable; if she has a taste for rings and bracelets, is full of admiration for the trappings of the wealthy nnd of the desire to imitate them, he may be pretty sure that she will not spare his purse when once she gets her hand into it.” The sooner he says good-bye to her, therefore, the better; for to marry such a' girl is really self-destruction, Cobbett warns him:— “ Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig; earn the gig, she will want a chariot; get her that, she will long for a coach and four; and, from stage to stage, she will torment you to the end of her or your days.” Although a girl must be frugal in clothes as in everything else, she must, if she is to be a good wife, always be becomingly dressed, and clean; for the charm of spotless cleanliness never ends with life itself. That is a point to which Cobbett draws the special attention of young women, as well as young men, and for that young women ought to be grateful, he maintains, as he says only What all men think, and it is a decided advantage to them to know what men do think. ’’ Men may be careless as to their own persons; they may be slovenly in their own dress; but they do not relish this in their wives, who must still have charms. Oh I how much do women lose by inattention' to such matters! For no man can ever love for long a slovenly wife, or will ever knowingly marry a slovenly woman.” And slovenliness is easily detected, women are warned, at.any rate by any man who has eyes in his head and does what he Is told to do. The weak point in Cobbett’s armoury is his insistence on all’the virtues *and excellences for women and no rights.

In his mind women should not have votes, because “ the very nature of their sex makes the exercise of this right incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society.” It sounds very unconvincing to-day, but as Cobbett wrote a hundred years ago we may well forgive him. Especially is this so when we find much that gives us food for reflection, to say naught of help.