RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31001, 5 March 1966, Page 46

RANDOM REMINDER

DIPLOMAT

Marry in haste, and repent at leisure, they used to say, wagging their doleful heads. And there was the other school of thought —there’s nothing like an early marriage, you just grow up with your children. We were married very young. About 12. It was one of those tribal arrangements, and there was a lot of talk about how many head of cattle had to change hands. And if we can honestly and earnestly subscribe to the belief that being married young is a Good Thing, it must also be confessed that often there are difficulties. Take the case of a young man we know, who shall, for purposes of this searing true-life story, be known as Mr X. He is a very young man, and he celebrated his marriage about the same time

as his twenty-first birthday party. His wife, according to report, is a gorgeous red-head, and not of vintage class either: she is about a year his junior. Very naturally, the young man’s office associates and friends are young too, and they have recently been having their own twentyfirst birthday parties in a succession sufficiently rapid to have become something of a problem to the young married couple. So it was that the other day an invitation to yet another twenty-first party arrived for the young man. It was a party for the young men—not their girl friends, fiances or wives. Mr X announced, bravely, that he proposed to attend this particular function. Mrs X suggested, in her own demure way, that perhaps he could give this one a miss. He suggested it was little diffi-

cult, what With the chap being a particular friend and so forth. She seemed a little disappionted. He felt a little consciencestricken. Yes, O Henry would have done something with this. The day before the twenty-first celebration, Mr X went to work as usual. And there, in the mail, was yet another invitation for him. It began: Mrs X requests the pleasure of the company of Mr X At Home on ... . with the date, and their address, and even, in a delightfully formal style, one of those RSVP things. It also mentioned something about recorded music, and coffee and a light supper. He got the message. But •uch is the way of the male: he had the best of both worlds. He went to the twenty-first celebration—but he was the first to leave. Before supper.