MANNERS FOR MARRIED COUPLES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 3

MANNERS FOR MARRIED COUPLES

Small Details of Polite Living Promote Marital Happiness “In a strange crowd one can often spot married persons by their rudeness or indifference to each other.” The small details of polite living promote marital happiness, writes Margery Wilson in Your Life, New York.

SPHERE is no real reason why one should not be as civilised after marriage as before. But for many people, though they don't seem to know it at the time, there is a little evil magic tucked away in some word of the marriage ceremony that gradually send them back to prehistoric behaviour. In a strange crowd one can often spot married persons by their rudeness or indifference to each other. If marriage could only be regarded as a privileged state rather than one of ownership! But so long as a man and a woman regard each other as personal and private possessions they run the risk of treating each other like eld shoes or yesterday's newspapers. When each says silently of the other, "This person belongs to me and I shall and may treat him (or her) as I jolly well please—and I’m not so pleased at that"—there is trouble ahead. Most persons approach marriage as though it were the looking glass in Lewis Carroll’s story. They expect an enchanting world beyond, where one is constantly delighted, amazed and entertained, when actually it’s a job like any other type of partnership. When they discover that the only magic involved is the amount they themselves supply, they are disappointed? Marriage is like solitude—there's nothing in it except what is taken into it by both parties to the contract. And there's nothing that helps preserve and extend honeymoon happiness so much as good manners. Happy marriages—and there really are a great many of them —have one

common denominator. Love, worthy of the name, seems to have inspired every true lover with the tenderest consideration for the object of his affections—even if he is married to her. And she gives him an illumined attention and interest though the years roll up challenging anniversaries. When people .are unhappy it is because something has happened to break down this ideal consideration. The beginning of the day presents the greatest strain. Many a marriage is wrecked at the breakfast table. Are you the kind of person who wants to read the morning paper at the table? If so, then you really are indifferent to your food and should be able to get the meagre amount required yourself. Don’t demand that your wife arise to serve you and watch you, unless she is also a paper reader. I have heard a few women say that that they believed the secret of their married happiness lay in the fact that they rose in the morning when their husbands got up—that they were gay companions at the breakfast table—that they groomed themselves perfectly—that they waved their husbands off to work. It has often been said that every woman should see her husband well under the influence of alcohol before she marries him—on the theory that his real nature will be revealed. But I have known of men who passed even this rigid test with flying colours, to display after marriage a vi'c morning disposition. But suppose a husband has a cheerful morning disposition and the wife is the sort that actually is annoyed by prebreakfast whistling and bath-tub singing. Suppose she grudgingly gets up and potters about frumpily in the unbecoming garment carelessly thrown on, the whole topped by a frowzy head and sleepy face. Is she to be very surprised when her husband one day develops a great deal of out-of-town business? In all the preparation for a happy marriage, a thorough, mutual understanding should be had about morningmanners and dispositions. If they don’t match somewhat, the marriage will not be a go. Next to early morning strains there are none so telling as those of the end of the day. Manners are for bedrooms and bathrooms as well as for living rooms and public places. Hair left in a comb or a dash-basin, a pool of discarded clothes left by the drop-kick system—these are indeed damaging to an aura of loveliness and woefully discouraging to passion. And no use laughing airily at advertisements about 8.0. and halitosis, unless one can really afford to laugh it off. Love, beautiful and delicate, cannot be nourished by anything less than beauty and delicacy. Love can survive great shocks and major disappointments, but it dies

when deflated by little pricks of di: illusionmen t.

The door that shuts out the rest of the world should lock in a lubricating amount of courtesy. Privacy and intimacy are almost always more exacting than the rest of the world. Many a man rises to his feet in the presence of ladies but never gets up when his wife enters the room. Is he advertising that he doesn't regard her as a lady? Political and religious differences pale before impoliteness as a cause of divorce. Financial difficulties and even adultery take second place in the breaking up of homes—both marching behind rudeness. Truly courteous people do not try to absorb and own and direct other human beings. They do not relinquish their rights of assertion and privilege—but such harmony surrounds their entire beings that it isn't often necessary to defend it outwardly. I wish I could whisper In every bride and groom—" Keep that smile, that illumined look. Don’t interrupt each other's talk —especially don’t take the talk away from the other. “Don't quarrel over nothing—or anything, for that matter—it leaves little scars. Don't ever go to sleep with any strained feeling between you.” If you want to preserve your happiness, don't let down in small courtesies. I once knew a man who told his wife that he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce in order to marry his new discovery. His wife started to say something. He started speaking at the same time. Both of them waited, instead of shrieking on, then apologised for interrupting each other. They repeated this process of starting and apologising until they both burst out laughing. A wave of sentiment over all the laughter they had enjoyed together brought them into each other's arms and the other woman was forgotten. Just one more marriage saved by manners’