KEEPING A WIFE YOUNG.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4715, 5 August 1893, Page 3

KEEPING A WIFE YOUNG.

" A cerjtain amount of! social life ie abso. lutely essential to all of üb— to the old as well as to the young, writes Edward W. Bok in the Ladiea' Home Journal. A womah never grows so old that Bhe ceases to enjoy the company of others, and generally the'older she grows the more Bhe enjoys it. It is always a pity to see a man fall into a state whioh he explains by saying: "Oh, we're getting old, and don't care for so much variety in our lives." In the pure unselfishness of his soul he always . speaks of "us" and "we," as if it naturally follows that because he is getting an* tiquated his wife must keep pace with him in his decline.. Men all too often make their wives too old. It is a greater credit to a husband to keep his wife young than to make her grow old. His aotions and his habits necessarily influence those of his wife. Let him keep in touch with the world, and both he and his wife will be the better and the younger for it. I , like to, see a man ., proud of his wife because she keeps young. Old age is beautiful and has its advantages, but a man makes a great mistake when ' he rushes a woman unnecessarily toward it. And he does it most perfectly when he deprives he* of those enjoyments which every man should give hia wife. No economy is so false, so hollow and so misguided as that which seeks to withhold one pleasure from the life of a good woman, a true wife or a loving mother. The best home a man can give a woman becomes " poky," as one woman I know .expresses it, if she is asked to live in it three hundxed and sixty-five days out of every year. The good Lord knows that woman's life in this world is hard enough. She travels a path of endurance and suffering, to which man, be he ever so heavily afflicted, is an entire stranger. It was given- to man to make that path as pleasant, as easy and as bright as possible. Every shilling whioh a man spends for the happiness of the woman of his home will come back to him in double, nay in four-fold measure.