MARRIAGE—AND BEYOND

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 20

MARRIAGE—AND BEYOND

“W/’HEN we are married, we’ll have sausages for tea, sausages for tea, sausages for tea,” warbled dear little Meggie Albanesi in “A Bill of Divorcement.” DesiPient as the lyric is, how truly it '

represents the average girl’s attitude towards matrimony. A wedding to her signalises the end of restriction, and the opening of a great and glorious freedom, a period which will be freely punctuated with blissful pettings, new frocks, hats and slippers and plenty of good things to eat and drink. She will be a “missus,” and will command the respect or jealousy, and certainly the social seniority, of all her single girl friends, older though they may be. How much farther does Molly look? How many of them looked beyond the honeymoon? How many beyond the wedding ceremony? When Miss Molly Trefusis, of Austin Dobson’s poem, married, the poet abandoned her, though doubtless with a tear or two. “Thereupon .... but no further the student may pry, Love’s temple is dark as Eleusis, So here, at the threshold we pari, you and I, From dear little Molly Trefusis e-An After 'Flan I’M not so sure that love’s temple would have been so dark if a rhyme had not to be found for Trefusis. But granting the poet his

metaphor, there is no reason why girls should be encouraged to leave their post-wedding futures to luck, Adventure and discovery there must be, but matrimony should certainly not be a plunge into darkness. Molly

should be prepared with a plan; for marriage is a threshold, not a back door. How many girls realise that when they return from the honeymoon they will be confronted with the problem of what they are going to do? “Why,” Molly will retort, “there will be the running of the house or the flat, and people to visit, and games to play, and books to read and everything.” Well, it is astonishing how little time it takes per day to supervise efficient servants. It is astonishing how little use the young married woman soon has for visiting and being visited. A certain amount is inevitable, but it lessens in quantity and is apt to pall. Of course games must be played, and the theatre and the library patronised, but I maintain most strongly that it is the experience of nearly every young wife that time hangs very heavily on her hands. There is not the swirl of her old home to carry her on. And I warn Molly that people do not read because they have an hour to spare, but -because they want to read. T ET every girl contemplating ■*— l( matrimony realise that after the honeymoon she will have to find new interests and new objectives. No

sensible or beautiful girl reader of this article will deny that her previous objective was to secure a suitable husband. When that is done, and the . ceremony over, it astonishes Molly to find what a listless n’oT'trlTr 5 women ™ begged her to go to this party and that excursion in the past. They were young men. And now there is only one young man, and he, in all probability has his work which keeps him occupied by day and makes him frequently tired by night. In the average case, Molly would be very ill-advised to choose a postmarriage avocation which would involve evening work, or, at any rate. evening work outside the home. Of course, the girl who can write or paint has no prospect of idleness, but it is astonishing how many think that marriage is a signal for stopping the study of music. It is then that it might begin in all seriousness, because the mind is not distracted by another objective. The girl with a voice can take singing lessons daily after marriage, and the moderate pianist can easily become accomplished to the great delight of her husband. But how many girls think the trouble worth while? I remember my mother telling me that on her return from her honeymoon she at once began a course of lessons in cooking at a famous school . in South Kensington. She was not about to become a cook, but she wished to acquire a most valuable accomplishment and fill her spare time usefully. Women fond of the needle, whether short and sharp or of the knitting length, can also take

lessons with profit, though a man must admit that to advise such demesticated creatures on the subject of time-killing savours of impertinence. Occupations and Studies A UITE the most enchanting occupation of all for the woman who owns a garden is the control of it. She can easily get a man to do the heavy digging and • the rest cannot be drudgery, even for the most fragile. The danger, is—l speak as a man— Molly may get so keen that she can talk of nothing else. Dr. Johnson praised the ladies of his age, insisting that they were more faithful to their husbands and more virtuous in every respect than in former times, because their understandings were better cultivated, If that were true in 1776, how very much more true is it to-day. If Molly has no flair for art, no taste for music, no fancy for cooking or sewing or gardening, I decline to accept her as a normal girl if she does not take pleasure in developing her education. Girls frequently marry so young that education must go on after the wedding. Never forget that most people do not begin to learn and cannot learn until they are adult, Your studies may be most happily interrupted, but you will take them up again, rejoicing in the knowledge that some day a little creature will sit by your knee, a little creature with inquiring lips and inquiringeye. Make sure of being able to answer.