WE MUST LEARN “MONEY MANNERS”

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20917, 23 September 1939, Page 16 (Supplement)

WE MUST LEARN “MONEY MANNERS”

TAKE AS GRACEFULLY AS YOU GIVE Have you ever watched two women going over the bill in a restaurant, working out the separate items over coffee and a cigarette, consulting the menu to see the cost of each dish? "I had a roll and you hadn’t.” ‘Yes, but 1 had grape fruit to begin with, remember.” And then, in their painful honesty, they appeal to the waitress to sort things out for them, till the onlooker might well think each was afraid the other was trying to cheat her. They mean well I But I, at least, feel that I would so much like to say to them, “Can’t one of you pay this time and the other the next ? Or, if you must share, do halve the bill and have done with it —even if it does mean that one of you has let the other pay 4Ad more than she should have done.” However excellent their intentions, there is an unpleasant loss of dignity when two women squabble in a bus or taxi over who shall pay the fare, both trying to snatch the bill from the waiter, both pushing in to reach the box office first, each perversely intent on forestalling the other in something she is obviously anxious to do. The fact is, our sex has such a reputation for gold-digging, for always taking and never giving, lhat thousands of women feel that they can only disprove it by living up to the most rigid code of honesty, paying their own way all along the line and never accepting a penny from anyone. As usual, we have exaggerated a virtue till it becomes a positive vice that makes everybody uncomfortable all round. For you can’t enter the give and take of friendship in a profit and loss account, totting all the items up till they balance to a penny. Yet that is what women are constantly trying to do. You may think that it shows your independence to insist on paying back. But paying back is perilously near getting even—and it doesn't sound so well put that way, does it ? To a woman money is much more than just money. She knows how hard it is to earn, and she is as conscientiously, painstakingly careful of her friends’ money as her own; often more so. The Right Perspective on Giving and Taking We have always been the hard-up sex, and that's why we have not yet got used to treating money casually, gracefully. This is where men can teach us everything. Y'ou never see two men arguing about money. Some enviable instinct always seems to tell them who is going to pay for a meal or a drink or a fare or a ticket. in time, we too shall learn not to be self-conscious about these things. Practice will teach us to keep money in its place. Meanwhile, excellent as independence is, we might try and look at it another way. If hostess has more money than guest, why worry ? Have you so little faith in yourself as to think your turn will never come ? Or is your company worth nothing to your friends ? Do you give them no pleasure in return, that you must always be counting up the shillings and pence and trying to repay in the same coin ? If you and she are much in the same boat, what is all the fuss About ? Does it really matter which of you has done more for the other by the end of the year ? Is anything worth those constant arguments and calculations while you pursue each other with small change ? And if a friend has less than you have, you should most certainly make a point of deliberately taking something from her occasionally, just so that she shall not feel that it is she who is always in your debt. You can help her out in other ways a dozen times over, can’t you ? If it comes to that, if friends do succeed in giving you more than you give them, don’t you know someone worse off than yourself to whom you can gratefully pass on their kindness ? If you must square the account, don’t indulge your pride by pressing a return on people who have never missed it. There are plenty of charities badly in need of the benefits that worry you so. And isn’t there something rather small-minded and domineering About anyone who never allows other people to give to her for a change ? II you really believe that it is more blessed to give than to receive, isn’t it time you let other people have a little of the pleasure you are so selfishly keeping for yourself ? You enjoy giving —why shouldn’t others ? It’s easy to give. The test is, can yo<u take ? You may be generous with your money but you haven’t proved your generosity of spirit till you can swallow your pride on occasion and take as gracefully as you like to think you can give. —E. D. Abb.