DO YOU KNOW YOUR HUSBAND?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16861, 11 October 1922, Page 10

DO YOU KNOW YOUR HUSBAND?

(By A MARRIED WOMAN.) Whenever a marriage ends in shipwreck inhere are wiseacres who declare dogmatically that the aggrieved part ner should have known the other's faults before marriage. This sounds sensible, but is it possible for a man to become really acquainted with a woman before marriage or for a woman really to know a man? To these questions there will be two answers. Matrimonial amateurs who are still enjoying single blessedness and who have no experience to guide them will say, “Yes.” Those who per sonally have attempted to solve the marriage problem will say, “ No.” It is one of the pathetic facts of existence that experience always comes at the wrong end of life; and no matter how intelligent, how cautious, how prudent a man or woman may be, there is no possible way by which he or she can judge beforehand whether a man or woman will make a good husband or wife. What can a woman know of the real disposition and character of a mau whom she has never seen except when he was shaven and shorn and fine as his tailor could make him, and bending every energy to please her? What can a man know of a woman whom he has never seen except when she has had on her smartest clothes and manners and was striving to win his admiration ? In such circumstances neither dis closes hiis or her real character. Roughly speaking, the virtues of a good husband are sympathy, considera tion. tenderness and generosity. Those of a good wife are an amiable disposition, a faithful and loving heart and a skilled hand. It looks as if it ought to he easyenough for every man in search of wife and every woman desiring a bus band to find out if the prospective part ner possesses these qualities, yet it is practically impossible to do so. Men seem even more helpless than women in appraising character in the op posite sex. When they are waiting to be won. all girls are so amiable and sweet that it seems really a choice among angels. A man cannot judge 01 a girl’s disposition by what her familv say of her, for they are not going to betrav her faults. He cannot go T»v her girl friends snv. for no girl its booming another's stock in a depress ed matrimonial market. It is not safe for him to marry a poor girl in the expectation that, as she has