WOMEN WHO WON’T LET GO."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 20 (Supplement)

WOMEN WHO WON’T LET GO."

BY MARJORIE BOWEN, The Famous Authoress. A convention of former days was that feminine interests were entirely confined within four walls, her own four walls where she sought to gather and keep all she held dear, and where she ruled supreme, sometimes as a queen, sometimes as a tyrant. The four walls have not been.battered down, but numbers of women still show an eagerness to grip and cling to those they care for, which, whether it spring from affection, or selfishness, or vanity or jealousy, is always disastrous. Women have a great capacity for devotion, loyalty and self sacrifice—how often have these virtues—pushed to excess, made tragedies! It is very often easier to “sacrifice” oneself than to admit that your “sacrifice” isn’t wanted; now less than ever does anyone care to accept service or affection that entails an obligation, that is bound to end in a reproach, mute or articulate, a weight on the conscience and on the heart.

Not a few of the miserable stories of shipwrecked families are due to these intolerable claims of love, these clogs of respect and duty—mainly to women —sometimes to men, but mainly to women; the epitaph of many a stifled aspiration or hope or desire was “ I can’t hurt Mother ” —or “ there’s my wife.”

It is largely because families are less consolidated now, because the members move more independently of each other that there are fewer “ black sheep,” fewer of those dreadful “ skeletons in the cupboard ” which poisoned so many lives; still, numbers of women perhaps through an unconquerable instinct “ can’t let go.” The desire to be all in all to the loved object shows most powerfully in the relationship of mother and child, and here it is most dangerous. Under enlightened conditions of upbringing, so prevalent nowadays, the child is very early independent; from his earliest years he may really not want you at all, except as an unguessed at guardian and provider and he certainly won’t love you just because you are his mother or set in authority over him as he would have been supposed to do a generation ago. And when he (or she) is older, he will, of course detach himself more and more, unless you deliberately chain him with the spectacle of your tenacious love, hobble him with reminders of your great devotion, clog him with remembrances of your toil, care and sacrifice. That is why it is better for woman to cultivate some other interest in life besides the children, so that when they are independent (and they are independent so soon nowadays) she shall not be either a hindrance to them in her tiresome appeal for notice or utterly stranded without them.

The sense of obligation to parents, especially mothers, the sense of this craving, hovering affection, has been a positive nightmare to many young lives, the fear of giving offence or pain to women who “ wouldn’t let go ” has absolutely hampered and even paralysed whole careers.

And too often these tender, loving, pathetic mothers had not been either understanding nor companionable and many had no common cause with the next generation.

Between brothers and sisters, sisters and sisters, between women living together, between husband and wife, do you still frequently find the woman who “ won’t let go,” who makes of her love a burden that can weigh the recipient to the grave, or react in herself to the point of insanity. Even the delight of lovers is often cankered by this feminine tenacity; some men are afraid of what should be harmless, pleasant flirtation or companionship because they dread that the woman will exalt it into a “ grande passion ” which is the most inconvenient thing in the world and nowadays generally ends in the Coroners’ Court and the sordid glare of cheap publicity. Constancy, devotion and self sacrifice are noble attributes, but as far as general happiness is concerned, it is better to possess the knowledge of just “ when to let go.” This will, very likely, involve the hardest sacrifice of all—but it might be remarked as consolation, that the women who are ready to “ let go ” —are usually implored not to! (Anglo-American N.S.—Copyright.)