Social Hoods.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 441, 29 September 1904, Page 7

Social Hoods.

HUSBANDS I HAVE KNOWN. w did she marry him?' is (® HM9ifu ' ne < i ußa^on often asked by TS? ®Mpwlo fche friends of the bride who are bi3dea to the wedding feaßt. These are the people who judge by appearances. They note that the bridegroom is distinctly bald, his features most unprepossessing, and his figure too portly for the lines of an Apollo, They forget thai if women want to marry handsome husbands about ninetyfive per cent, will go unwed. For it is a fact that barely five men in a hundred are ' much to look at,' And from a long experience of other women's husbands I notice that the handsome man does not as a rale make a woman half so happy as his plainer brother. Mr B. is now as old friend of mine. Bat I was horrified at the wedding when I saw the choice that beautiful Kitty Brett had made. I knew better now. It is true hia are uadisguisedly of the so-called * boiled- gooseberry' order, But never once during their tea years of marriage have those same eyes ever looked with anything but love and kindness on hia home. He is remarkably clever and entertaißiug—but he does not look it. None of his attractive qualities are pet en the outside. All hia graces are 'within And Kitty was sight m choosing this man, for he mates her in everything that is soble and honourable and calculated to make a wife happy. I quite understood from the ve?y first why my friend Patty accepted Major Mackenzie. Ha had the most delightful way with him, lovable manaers and eyes that just blarneyed the heart out of a woman whether she would or no. But the ma jar is a man who makes an excellent lover, but an execrable husband. •Of course I love you anyway, dear,' ha is apt to say to his wife. 'Buta man can't feel enthusiastic over a woman who has a headache. She doesn't look so nice, , and she isn't very cheery.' So he always goes to the club when pretty little Patty, who never was vary strong, doesn't feel well. It wasn't for better or worsa he took he», He thought her charming, lovely, and witty—as she is. So he expected never to be bored, quite forgetting that a woman can't keep up to the concert pitch of charm all the days of her married life. A husband 1 admire is one who says : • I shouldn't care half so much for my wife if she were always quite Btrong, fit, ard athletic. The vary fact tkat I havo to watch over her a bit, aad sometimas get up in the night and heat eome boeftea for her, makes heE all the more precious to me.' That man was built for a husband. And his wiSe is one of the happiest women I know. People sometimes think when a man performs what they call' fussing and coddling' over a woman that he is an effeminate parson. But that is not a fact. The effeminate man fusses and coddles himself. It is the strongest and most manly husband who is tender and considerate to hia wife. Ths man who never himself foe's an ache or a pais, or has a days illness, is jasfc tbehusbaad to maka every allowance tor a rather fretful, ailing wife. Another poi&fc about husbands is this. However good, bad, and indifferent he may be, selfish, or ill-tempered, the good wife in the long run gets the best and sees the best there is in a man. Though he neglect her and she may envy the court he appears Bometimeßto pay to other women, and the admiration he acooxda them, it is the wife who comes out a victor in the end. Taking the good daya with the bad, the average man gives his beat to his home, Joms husbands arc sour and tyrannical %nd exacting. The beat soMstieaes seems m be a wsry email ingroadien-fc is a wry xUsflgreeftJifl compound?

But aueh as it is, year in and year eat, 1 his wife sees the most of it. And this is the only consolation the wife of the a*ur, exacting husband can get out of ker marriage contract! She put her all into a ventare which has not turned out well. But he if her husband, and she must make the best of him and the • situation in which she ftada herself. I have long since discovered it is the little things of life whioh spoil marriages. When a hnsband comes home from the City his wife has some little chit-chat or gossip, whioh in the days of oourtehip he thought delightful, ready for him. He is preoeoupied, shows no interest in her conversation. She feels snubbed, and perhaps next day she keeps silence. Then he oalls her dull, ox complains that she has a fit of the dumps. The rough side of most husbands shows when hia wife wants money to pay the household bills. The married man's rooted objection to ' pay op '—and evary wife says this is the great stumbling block of marriage—is supposed to arise as a protest against his wife's extravagance. But this' is not true. Nearly all husbands make themselves disagreeable over money matters. Only for this the majority of wives would look young and remain happy all the years of their wedded lives. Many husbands who give their wives txpsnaiva presents and like to see them well-dresaed, make a fearful fuss over the watar-rate or the isavitable monthly baker's bilk It is perfectly illogical, as the wife doesn't use all the water or consume all those loaves. Bat there it is. Husbands in every part of the world—the loving and the unloving —are nearly all the same in their dislike to pay the household bills. So that whether he be dark or fair, comely or ugly, as a hubind he will hate te be asked for money,