ON MARRIED WOMEN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 697, 27 August 1875, Page 4

ON MARRIED WOMEN.

A Married Woman is composed of two parts, herself and a nurse. The i urso lives up stairs, with the children, and herself down stairs in the drawingloom. and tends the geraniums an the landing. Feme Married Women are tall, others are short; but' they are Stout without exception. They keep their heads very high and walk slowly. They have one artiii dal tooth each, for every one of them has lost the tooth of wisdom. They put Macassar oil on their hair, and wear gloves that are too small for their hands. They have rings on their fingers and hard eyes. They are thirty-three years of age, bnt make their husbands put them down in the census paper as twenty-five. They walk out followed by tall women carrying babies. They frequently turn back upon the tall women and arrange the baby’s cloak, and ask the tall woman’s opinion as to whether the sun is too strong for the ‘ treasure’, or the ‘ lilly doaty’, or the ■* dilly dilly’, I have never been able to discover the meaning of these strange sounds. < if course 1 know the word ‘ treasure,’ but how could the sum be too strong for a treasure 2 Married Women have husbands, and expensive laces on their gowns. They are very sweet-tempered when they get new shawls or bonnets When they don’t get new shawls or bonnets they look into drapers’ and milliners’ windows and sigh. They walk home and rip up old dresses, and go down to dinner weeping. Their husbands then leave the house and send home a lot of things. They put on these things before the glass, and strain their necks to see the reflection of their hacks This exercise does them good, and they go down to tea smiling, and call their husbands ‘ dear’, and, sometimes, ‘ love.’ They pay visits to Mrs So-and-so, and tell how good their own husbands are. When they come home they tell their husbands how Mrs So-and-so is the happiest woman alive; then they sigh, and add, “No wonder, Mr So-and-so is such a kind, good husband.” They are always after seeing in a jeweller’s window a brooch which is very beautiful, and, are sure not dear. They are very amiable, and everyone loves them—especially their husbands. They play the piano and sing, but don’t take the hish notes because they consider ’t would be indelicate. They have tender, loving hearts, and like to know women with red hair or turned up noses. They pity such women and tell everybody so—not to show their goodness of heait. Their eyes are so well instructed in the harmony of colors that they tremble when they see an ill dressed woman. Some--times they laugh hysterically. Shallow people often mistake this for derision. When they go to the theatre, they look: at the audience, for they are well read and know the play by heart. They talk all the time, and tell you that Mrs So-and-so in the horrid yellow silk dress opposite was a visiting governess when Captain So-and-so married her; that the husband of Mrs So-and-so (the red-faced woman sitting in the box under the second gasalier to the left) is on the point of bankruptcy, and that still she’s as extravagant as ever—is it not a shame 1 and that they cannot cease to wonder what that tall handsome young So-and-so can see to admire in that pale-faced girl over whom he is leaning, and to whom he is going to be married Then they arrange the flowers in their hair, and ask if you are fond of poetry. When this question is put you should always say, no : and you may add, if you like, that is the reason why you •admire Tapper. They give parties, and then smile for hours together. Their husbands read newspapers in the kitchen while their guests are upstairs. Husbands like to read newspapers, and the married women when they give parties wish to make every one happy, even their husbands. The next morning they tell their husbands the names of fifteen gentlemen who told them the night before that they looked charming. This makes the husband cut 'himself when he shaves, and call for water in a dreadful voice. Married Women keep secrets very well. A man once told me that you may safely tell them what you think .about the weather. They will not speak of it to any one. You may without danger say to one of them, “ I am inclined to believe that we are going to have some nice weather now.” They will never tell this to any one if you don’t ask them not to tell it. If you are about thirty-two years of -age you may safely say to any Manned Woman whom you knew before her marriage—'• Well do you remember the time—not long ago either—when I was a creat, tall, ugly brute, with a beard, and you were a tiny, tiny little blue-eyed fairy, how I used to frighten you into tears by telling you that T would take you to my enchanted ■castle, and there gobble you up ?” She will laugh at this and ask you if you won’t call often. She will get her husband to ask you to dinner ; she will call you a wit and tell the story to every one. The muse is not often seen by gentlemen visitors, but is always sent for when ladies call. She then comes with the baby. The baby is examined by the visitor, and the nurse points out how well the pock is taking. The visitor does not say that she thinks the baby ugly until she meets a friend in the street. She praises its size, and says its like its father, and has_a

wonderful deal of hair for its nge, and judges it to be two months older than it really is. At all this the Married Woman smiles. When nurses are not in the upper part of the house, or exhibiting the baby’s arm to visitors in the drawing-room, they are in the Parks, Here they are seen in large numbers eating the children’s sugarsticks, and feeding youthful members of the Police out of strangely-shaped bottles with gutta-percha tubes. This rrtakes these men grow fat; a man once told me that one of these ,young men gre «r so tat that four Corporations offered to make an alderman of him. Married men are married to women of ideas, but man ied women are always married to men with so much a year. v