THE FAULTS OF MARRIED PEOPLE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XVIII, 6 May 1899, Page 619

THE FAULTS OF MARRIED PEOPLE.

OPINIONS OF A NOVELIST, A DOCTOR, AND TWO WOMEN. A lady ha* been interviewing several men and women of note on the subject of the faults of husbands wives, and on the marriage question generally; and she sets down seriatim the chief reasons given by those notabilities for the dissatisfaction of many men and women with their married state. Here they are: — 1. Men are too fickle. 2. Women are too exacting. 3. Love does not make happy marriages. 4. Love marriages are the only ones which bring happiness. 5. Poverty makes marriage a curse. 6. Riches make marriage a l>ore. 7. Husbands and wives see too much of each other. 8. Husbands and wives live apart too much. 9. Wives insist too much on knowing where their husbands have been. 10. Where one man kills himself because his wife nags him a hundred gain courage to live because their wives cheer and comfort them. 11. The most unhappy wife is happier than the most peaceful old maid. A POPULAR NOVELIST’S OPINIONS. Among- the persons this lady interviewed was a- well-known novelist. ‘What is the cause of unhappy marriages?’ said the novelist. ‘lsn’t it one thing? The man and the woman do not love each other. A marriage based upon anything but romantic love is sure to end In misery indescribable. The woman who marries a man for a home will wish some day that she had no roof over her head. The man who marries a woman out of caprice, or simply out of a desire to settle down in hie, is walking down the crooked and tortuous path, which leads to suicide. ‘Tolstoi, a man for whom I have the deepest respect, thinks that romantic love is at the bottom of half the miseries in the world. I think that it is at the bottom pf all the real happiness on earth. ‘What do I mean by romantic love? ‘I mean the combination of love and friendship which makes a man a lover and a friend—the lover is worse than useless without the friend. The friend is a poor stick without the lover. The two together make the hero of the love stories we all know, the love stories we’ve growing directly under ' our eyes sweetening the dull air of this earth and making life worth living. The nagging wife—the indifferent husband—they never exist when the man and woman marry for real love. ‘There is a time in every man’s life, to be sure, when he is in love with all women. That is when he is very young. It is the dangerous period of his life. He may make the mistake of taking a caprice for a lasting affection, and then his life and the life of the woman he marries will be wrecked. But these things do not happen too often. Whom we first love we seldom marry, and it is best that this is true. ‘More love and less calculation; more devotion and less exaction—that is what the marriages of to-day need.’ A IXICTOR’S IDEAS. On leaving the man of letters this inquiring lady went to a doctor. ‘After all. said the doctor, ‘it is n >t so much to be wondered at, this misery of marriage. Men and women expect too much from it. They de niand too much. Marriage is not a dream of bliss. To most people it is an every-day, year-in and year-out affair. The novels are to blame. They end all the romances with “And they were married”—and the poor “they" are only just oegmning. Marriage is not the end a.nd aim of existence. It is an incident. A very blessed and happy incident in many, many lives, but still an incident. ‘The discipline of disappointment is n man’s domestic tragedy. The discipline of disappointment is a woman’s domestic tragedy. A man wants to be a god to the woman he loves. When she begins to disparage his looks, and his manners, and his every little trick of disposition—he comes down from his pedestal with a thump that jars the whole nervous system.

‘A woman expects a man to make love'fo her all the time. She demands exclusive devotion. When he does no< do it she is disappointed. She will not tell him what it is that grieves her, but she takes it out in criticisms on his friends and his looks and all that he does, and much that he does not do. ‘Men, and women, too, ask too much —we give too little. A man wants to come home and stay home, forgetting that his wife has been there all day. and a woman wants to go to the theatre, forgetting that her husband is too tired to enjoy anything but an evening of quiet and rest. ‘lt is these little foxes that gnaw the vines. A man ean forgive a woman a great fault more aesily than a constant petty nagging. A woman can forgive a man a serious wrongdoing rather than neglect in little things. ‘But they all make too much of the whole thing. If a man’s marriage is a failure, why, then let him put it in

the list with his other failures, and shut the book, ami worry as little about it as he can.’ WHAT WOMEN THINK. When she left the doctor the lady called upon a woman —a literary woman. ’it is the women,’ she said. ‘They are more calculating than men. Men are the real idealists. Women are, as a rule, hardened realists. They expect all the vanities and ambitions of life to be realised by marriage. The man who finds that the confiding creature whom he believed all ideality and affection is a hard-hearted, practical little creature, wakes up a little too suddenly from a too roseate dream. The shock is bad for him. He has to tight hard material things all the time. His wife is the one inspiration to a higher life. When he finds that she simply receives her allowance from him, and gets her inspiration

from quite a different source, that grates upon him.

•Women do not flirt with their husbands; that is a great mistake. Man is a hunting animal. He hunts deer, not because he likes venison, but because he likes to hunt.’

Another noted woman—a prima donna—was the next person questioned on the subject. •Why, I don’t know, she replied. Early marriages for one thing. A girl meets a man just when he is at the dancing age. He is a fine dancer. She marries him. When she is 25 she wishes some one had told her that a pair of light heels do not constitute all there is of marital happiness. If they'd have told her she'd have been mad and not any more jealous—and there you are. ‘Most marriages are made at an age when a girl doesn’t know enough to keep her hat on straight, and she and her friends choose that time for her to settle her whole future. How would you like to live in the same house with the girl you were devoted to —at eighteen? Bore, wouldn’t it? ‘lt’s all a mystery. When the right mar; meets the right woman, it’s all right. But there does seem to be such a lot of wrong men and wrong women the right one gets lost in the mystery of it all.’