Men’s Preference for Silly Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 21, 22 May 1912, Page 62

Men’s Preference for Silly Women.

That men dislike and will not marry clever women is the complaint of an interesting article by Mrs. Macrosty in the current number of the “Englishwoman.” I'wo women have honoured her with their confidence within the past month: “One is pretty: the other is beautiful. One possesses private means . . . . the other earns several hundred pounds a year. . . . Both would make ideal mothers. Yet both these women have confided to me that during all the fifteen years of their marriageable age no offer has been made to them. ‘No man has ever looked at me with love in his eyes.’ said one. and she added sadly a second afterwards, T wish »t were otherwise.’ ” Mrs. Macrosty takes the mere man to task for his folly. “Domestic problems are not solved by stupidity,” she says, “nor is college training any bar to the supervision of servants. Th? husband who marries, knowing that his wife must spend a good part of her days in cooking, sew ing, ami superintending, th? cleaning, is far more likely to find what be wants in a man who has never ceased to add to her knowledge. . . The silly woman has learned only the art of lining nothing. As an outlet, for her activities the clever woman bakes rakes, bottles fruit, and learns to make her ow n pressed and potted meats instead of purchasing at th? shops the gla** jars wliirli contain ho little nutriment. The silly woman finds aiiflicient stimulation

in gazing at the shop windows, scolding the servants, and adorning her person.” THE CHILD’S START IN LIFE. There is another point in favour of the clever wife. The child born of a wise mother, taking maternity seriously, is likely to have a good start in life—not only beiatiM- of his inheritance, but also by reason of a prudent upbringing, free from uncertain alternations of petting and scolding. Still, Mrs. Macrosty concludes what •she calls her “grumble” in a hopeful vein. There have been signs in the last two or three yeiirs, she thinks, that

clever men are marrying clever women, and that female ability is no longer the bar to marriage it once was. It is not that the supply of silly women is running short, but that men are beginning to recognise the wealth of inheritance which they- may bequeath to their children it they give them wise mothers.