MEDITATIONS

Waipa Post, Volume 38, Issue 2270, 19 February 1929, Page 7

MEDITATIONS

NIGHT PROWLING HUSBANDS. (By Helen Rowland.) Every married woman's heart probably went out in sympathy to that woman who recently applied for a divorce because her husband wouldn't put out the light and go to sleep nights. Only a woman who has blinked her life away beside a night prowler knows what "refined cruelty" in its most ingenious and intensive form is like.

Whether a man inherits this night prowling instinct from some of his prehistoric ancestors, or acquires- it from never going to bed during his bachelor days, no woman knows. But it is the domestic "third degree" through which seven wives out of ten are put, every night from the wedding day to the grave. It is the main cause of twin beds, companionate marriage, husband shooting, and most of the travel to Reno.

It is the secret sorrow which has caused many a devoted little wife to spend a lot of time wondering wistfully what a divorce would cost. A man can think of more things that he wants to read, eat, say or do after ten p.m. than in all the rest of the day put together. He may doze off in the armchair immediately after dinner and remain in a state of semi-coma all through the sprightly "home evening." But at the stroke of ten, when his wife's eyelids begin to droop and he hears her' winding the clock he is a perfect little Bright Eyes, and as full of playfulness as a kitten.

Many a man who is "too tired" to eat a mouthful" at dinner time develops a fine, healthy appetite around midnight, and insists on going out and raiding the pantry or cooking himself a hearty supper.

Many a man has acquired his whole acquaintance with t'he classics at the expense of his wife's beauty sleep. Any girl who can't sleep with a bed light shining in her eyes had better be wary of marrying the man who brags that he reads himself to sleep every night. Where did men get this atavistic habit of prowling around the place all night? Apparently, the average man can never go to sleep until he is convinced that his wife has reached that stage of nervous tension where she won't be able to close her eyes for the rest of the night. Then he can roll right over and drop off into a sweet symphonic slumber that will last until long after the alar mclack has gone off. Half a womans life is spent in wailing, "Oh, won't you go to bed, dear!" and the other half in shouting "For heaven's sake, get up!"