A WOMAN-

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 66, 23 December 1946, Page 7

A WOMAN-

NEEDS THREE HUSBANDS

Condensed from “American

Husbands”

I can remember being shocked and charmed by an American wife’s analysis of the reasons why she should have three husbands, three concurrent husbands.

Under such an arrangement the Business Husband who went forth would have a splendid freedom of action. He could concentrate on office efficiency, production, distribution sales, the entertainment of buyers, late-in-the-evening conferences, out-of-town conventions, and the showy wives of purchasing agents. With his activities fully accounted for under an intensive specialisation, there would be no need to decode his answers to any connubial questionnaire. Where he had been, what he had done or had neglected, would involve no questions, would be of no more than academic importance so long as the returns were satisfactory. With his mind free to forget the furnace, he could start off in the morning in high gear, radiant with productive expectations. That the house roof had begun to leak would be to him a triviality concerning only the Handy Husband.

The Handy Husband would be selected solely with regard to his versatility in tinkering. He would know all about hollyhocks and manure, laundry taps, hot water bags, can openers, garbage pails, screw drivers, picture frame wire and Yale locks. He would know how to stop windows from rattling, subdue the obstinacy of doors, wire a lamp, air a rug, mend a doll, or rationalise a vacuum cleaner. For him the 8:15 would not exist, fie would always have time. His handy mind could expand and his imagination, kindled by a joyous freedom to putter, could rove through the uttermost recesses of house and yard, find pure poetry in potato knives, and attain a kind of religious fervor in polishing the piano. It would be happiness to a wife to see him, dressed in becoming overalls, ecstatically concentrated. like an artist in training up the peas, and to know that for every triumph of his genius she was the inspiration.

Then there would be, of course, the Lover Husband, a glorified Nice Man, tall, but not too tall, romantic, pleasantly emotional and at times even tempestuous, but a moderate smoker, meticulous in the matter of clothes, though capable of a certain spirited casualness in wearing them. He would swear just enough to give him a manly effect, but his profanity would be refined as became a ■man who looked well in church. He would be a good dancer, bright at bridge, with the correct voice for reading aloud, a cheerful taste in ties, and a discerning interest in dinners. He would be moderately witty and a noiseless sleeper. Being freed of the sordid distractions of the Business Husband, and having no diversity of duties such as must fall to the Handy Husband, he would always be right there. He would not be ruined as a listener by any habit of wondering whether that noise meant trouble with the kitchen boiler again. He would, in fact, be no more subject to bedeviling distractions than either of the other husbands.

Each, like an endowed specialist, would be, and could afford to be, winged by high purpose. In ensemble they would assure the perfect home. Automatically, the wife also would become perfect.