Modern Woman.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 2, 12 January 1910, Page 60

Modern Woman.

HOW A JIAN WOULD MANAOW HER. ( By Our Lady Correspondent.) LONDON, November 5. A brave man has rushed into print to tell his fellows how to manage modern woman. He has devoted a hundred ailid twenty pages to the subject. No fears of the dire consequences that will ensue if the waiting masculine world rushes into experimenting on the lines Mr. Walter Calliehan advises are likely to assail the breast of the woman reader, and she must be forgiven if she thinks that the problem is not yet solved. The pro lai i»ili vies are that it never will be—if it were the eharms of wooing the uncertain feminine would be materially diminished, and no sane being wants to hurry that dark day forward. There are few enough dreams and illusions in life, so in all conscience don’t let us make experiments on love. It is a question that can concern, though the world at large is always anxious to haggle over this point, only two people, and every two have different rules for themselves, and probably will be wise enough not to own up to even those! PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE. At random I have marked in the book some titbits of Mr. Caffichan’s phiosophy on woman and love:— "The reason why some of us are so unhappy in marriage is because we do not regard love as a fine art.” ‘ Everything in our time is more costly in the long run, including wives, than in the early Victorian period.” "It is always well for a man to rentember of what plastic stuff he is made. The tine delicate fingers of the woman for whom he possesses an infatuation can mould him into a shape that he may not be aide to recognise as his own image.” 'W. S. Gilbert is quite right: ‘Every Jack must study the knack, If he wants to make sure of his Jill.’ ” “Nietrselie writes: ‘Woman must be preserved, cared for. protected and indulged like some delicate, strangely wild and often pleasant domestic animal.”* "Woman’s strength is largely her weakness.” "Women are quite as irascible as men when suffering from hunger. Therefore, ‘Feed the darling!”’ ‘ Women are normally softer, more commiserative and sympathetic than men: but under stress they are more cruel.” "What living one's own life means prwusely, I have never discovered. No man can live his own life if he is poor or married. No woman can live her own life if she wishes to set men an example of unselfishness.” “To ‘give in’ gracefully and with dignity is not an easy art in any form of partnership. It is however, a most nooessary accomplishment-” '•| can point to mMiy nun and women who are pure in body, but I have met very few who are pure in thought.” “Everyone should fall in love at least once in hr« or her lifetime, for those who have not known love are. in the moral, emotional and intellectual experiences. lamentably incomplete.” One of the most aggravating attitudes in a man. and, by the same token, one of his most lovable weaknesses, is his constant hugging to his heart the fact that, though all other men in the universe are blind, he sees all the ins and outs of a woman’s character and “thoroughly understands her.” When ho really doe«. the interest of one sex for the other will experience a I»ig drop in the social market. But at present so foolish a consummation is not likely to come to pass. A woman does not understand herself — probably she wouldn’t if «he could: therefore, the ta«k may l»e undertaken by a man for a long age before it comes to much so-call oj profit SC7ENTR OF TjOVE. To tnm tn the wisdom set forth in this In t>e*t catalogue r»f “How (o Manage Tier.” we find ahat would serve for a go<*.l motto: “There is a good deal of

luck in love; but there is much need of eeieace.” Wliat science? The author contradicts himself immcditrtely with, “If she desires to lift you into the seventh heaven, she will raise you by a sweet exercise of her intuition and gentleness. A woman can be more like an angel than a man. She can also prove more like a fiend.” The faet that she is not necessarily an angel or a fiend, but sometimes one and sometimes the other, and, oftenest, both, requires more than science to cope with it’, and defies all the science ever weaved round it. Luck in love must be a point granted, though it sounds a somewhat foolish proposition; but then any definition of love is likely to be opposed by somebody. On one point the writer appears to make somewhat of a complaint. "1 have often heard,” he says, “a comparison of men with children uttered by the modern woman”; then he pats himself on the back with the comforting reflection that "men retain the freshness, keenness, and simplicity of childhood longer than women. They have more hobbies than women; they play oftener and more naturally, and they are less concerned to appear on their dignity.” If the "simplicity of childhood” is a rather condemning phrase the rest will be granted, and his remark that "you do not insult a man by calling him a ‘great boy* should rather be changed into "you often mean to sincerely flatter a man when you call him ‘a great boy.’ " "A BIG CHILD.” The subject should have been left there, however, because the sentence ‘‘yet if a man goes fishing of plays games, women will smile pityingly and call him ‘a big child,’ ” spolis the effect of the first argument completely. If Mrs. Gallichan doesn’t like losing Mr. Gillkhan’s company when he “goes fishing or playing games,” he should be a sensible man and thank his lueky stars that she wants his company badly enough to be spiteful about having to do without it. History tells that there are wives who don’t care if their husbands golf from morning to night and bridge from night to morning. A priceless tit-bit of adviee is this:’ "The best way to manage a nagging woman is to agree with her that you are a perfect brute and wretch; and then, to laugh at her. If that fails, fly from her presence.’’ The last should have been all in capital letters. It is argument that kills love, and the undignified scenes that must ensue. "He who runs away” in matrimony at the critical moment is the brave man. The chances are that, later on, his wife will apologise to him, and an apology is a thing that a woman dreads more than the Evil One —therefore value it when it’s given. WOMAN THE TYRANT. What every woman knows, according to the author, may be news to some, and that is, “that even in love man is not the chief partner in the game; he is swept along by a mighty physical and psychic force, and becomes the prey of the woman.” And, further on, “the power thus entrusted to her by nature is very often used tyrannically.” "Who have the woman in them without being womanised are the pick of men," was said years ago by a classic, and wisely and well, though not with the same powerful triteness Mr. Gallichan emphasises the really human and charming man and woman and their capacity for true comradeship. THE FEMININE SOUL. “The man who understands woman iiest and fears her the least,” he says, "possesses a strong trace of the feminine soul. This is not saying that he is emasculated, or feminine in an abnormal sense; he may be quite normally a man ia body and mind. But he has in his brain that quality of understanding and sympathy which is more feminine than masculine. In like manner, the women who are happiest in their comprehension of men, either in wedlock or in friendship. have an element of masculinity in their minds and bosoms.” Putting on one side the likelihood that any book with so frank a title and object is likely to call forth some amusement from the sex to be so excellently "managed” as per Mr. Gallichan, this little l>ook is full of gems, and if so bright and wise a writer—for it is wise foolishness that makes of love a science—can help men along the difficult path that leads to understanding the not’ understandable feniimae, then both man and woman must cry “Bravo 1 .”