THE CURSE OF THE TROUSSEAU.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE CURSE OF THE TROUSSEAU.

■■1 I * "■ BRIDEGROOM'S PRIVILEGE. TO BUY ONE OF EVERYTHING. (By NELLIE M. SCANLAN.) The trousseau has changed. It is not the formidable symbol that it was in our mother's- day. The "dozen of everything" with, tucks and embroidery, which filled every drawer, providing an inexhaustible supply for years ahead, bespoke 4he greater permanence of marriage. Mother and grandmother furnished their wardrobes for a certain future. To-day's trousseau lacks faith. The ephemeral garments are symptomatic of the times. Fashions change rapidly, and so do minds—men's minds and women's minds. The sturdy linen and lpngcloth were ready to stay the course in an old-time romance. In the days of tarantulle a woman was married for life. Now silk pyjamas are passe before the season ends, and iingerie like a butterfly's wing may not outlast the honeymoon. But the trousseau, no matter how fleeting its lifetime, is still a ourse to marriage. A man marries a woman who is always well groomed. From soup to nuts she is well: turned. out. The silly man knows nothing (we presume) of the subtle influence of the silk foundation and the satin lining, and when you speak of models he thinks in terms of cars. He is innocent of the expensive preliminaries of my lady's toilet. She is always fresh and fragrant, and he i-ejoices in his greater discrimination. He, above all others, has chosen a pearl. But a day comes in the life of all clothes, whether' garments intimate or more remote, when their glory has departed, and their faults have found them out. Sooner or later they become shabby and must be replaced. The bridegroom is now a settled husband. He has grown accustomed to the' felicities of marriage, to the constant presence of a well dressed wife. The miracle and the marvel have vanished. He is back on earth again, a normal man, a good-natured grumbling creature, but totally unprepared by education or (we hope), experience for the staggering revelation of a woman's bills. "I must have some new clothes, dear!" "Why, of course, go ahead and buy them." And then the bills come in. "Holy mackerel!" he as he adds up the total, perhaps a comparatively modest total if he only knew. The real trouble is that the revelation; has .come at. a most inopportunei moment. There nuiy be a small voice in the 1 nursei'y, upstairs, and a starched young. pei'Soli. added to the domestic staff. There is onetime, and one time only in the life of a man when lie would be thrilled to pay fantastic pi-ices for his wife's clothes, and that is the first days of the honeymoon. Knowledge acquired under these glamorous conditions would prepare him for their' frequent repetition later on. He wouldn't mutter: "Great Scott! Fancy paying ten. guineas for that bit-of-a-thing." He would have learnt the ABC of keeping a wife with supreme delight, helping her to choose the frail beauties he so admired, to share so intimately her secrets. Oh! la! la! The first real quarrel is too often over bills. I would pave the Way to domestice peace by making it the compulsory privilege of every bridegroom on his lioneymoon to buy his wife one of everything. There would be fewer divorces.