WOMEN AND HOME

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 78, 28 June 1928, Page 8

WOMEN AND HOME

NOTES OF INTEREST.

THE, GIRL I. MARRY. (By an Average; Man). ■ I have! just come across a family where they are bringing u -p their daughters to marry, micfl to live at home until they succeed hi marrying or be branded as failures for ever. Somehow or •. other;: this family has survived the war and its disorgani sating forces,, and people tell me there .are many others like them'! I think they survived it because they were too stupid even to notice it, or to notice anything else their grandmothers had not taught them to expect. EXPENSIVE RUT POOR, "EDUCATION.". They had begun by giving: th'-j girls an expensive but poor education, that seemed to consist in a few minor accomplishments, a certain deportment, and a. superficial appearance of cultu're. They took them away at sixteen, apparently because "men do not like these-' dreadfully clever girls." At home |, they went on training them by felling them bluntly that "men don't Hke a woman who has too much to say," or "a man likes a woman to he a good listener." They did not seem-io feel that there was anything crude about it either. BAD FORM.

I tried to talk to thosegirls, but I found it hard. They ,hatd excellent manners ("good tb'rie" I fancy the old woman called it), r. b'tifr. they; were entirely ignorant of anything under the sun. They even seemed to think that a mild seriousness was bad form — a presumption on.so slio'rfc an acCmaintaliice. At.h-ist I gave up entirely, and, while I listened to the general talk, I learnt that men did hate a woman who "always gave an opinion,'' and that nien did appreciate a good cook.

I came out of the' house with feelings of mixed anger and disgust—at the' crudity of training girls for nothing but to be liked by men, at the futility of training them so that 1, for one, would never want to marry them; "First of all, 'T thought, "I want to marry a living creature, not a doll. 1 should hate to have my wife discuss my affairs if I knew she was stupid and half-educated, but if she had a brain as well-trained as my own, why should 1 be anything but glaidl? And cooking! Well; intelligence makes a good housekeeper, but housekeeping doesn't make for much intelligence, so we'll put the cooking last instead of first!" .* I am tired of • the girl who just because she's a girl thinks five miles is a long walk and a day's driving the next thing to death. I'm tired of the good managers who" won't disarrange the meals, of the houseproud woman who can't go out because they think . they've a full-time job at lioYrie, of the women who want you to be interested in' Mrs. Robinson's hat, and of the women who will read you extracts out of the gossip pages of the papers. , ; .

THE BIGGEST THIN T G. But the biggest thing of all isn't any of those, tly wife will have a great influence over 1 my children*, and 1 don't wl.vnt my children brought, up by a fool, or a prude, of a creature of petty habits, or a cook. I want them watched from a distance, without, too much fuss, by an intelligent young woman. 1 don't know, but I suspect those lady-like young women who had been brought up to marry were not allowed to think about Ihbies. They were just, taught to call them sweet, and.say "Oops-a~daisy" at thein, and ruin their digestions by jogging them up and down. I don't rehlly know because that* most important thing T wouldn't have dared to ask.