THE SPORTING SEX

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1926, Page 4

THE SPORTING SEX

Men have invented sayings about themselves, atul also about women, which have passed for gospel truth for generations, writes Elsie Grange in the “Daily Mail.”

One of them is the almost universally accepted dictum that men “play the game’’ in life, whereas women do not. Men, and men only, wo are told, have the sporting instinct and a sense of honour. And most men honestly believe in the superstition. Only the other day I heard one man say to another whose fountain-pen had been picked up and kept hv a woman client: “A man would never do a tiling like that. Women don’t play cricket.” Both men solemnly agreed that women did not play cricket and that men did. And yet one man was asking the other for advice regarding a fellow who had absconded with £3O belonging to a charity fund 1

Consider the problem further as it crops up in the home. How often do we see a young wife, who, for the sake of her husband’s profession, lias made her home where his bread-and-butter lies. 81 ic is far away from old friends, hut does not mind, provided she has the companionship of her husband to look forward to at the close of his working day. Alas! One of the self-styled sporting sox telephones to suggest a round of golf; and the most modern of young wives is still feminine enough to feel a big lump in her throat when she sees the two men disappear without any thought for the lonely day ahead of her. Afen who lure other men away from home are among the most unsportsmanlike things on earth.

As a woman I say that men who Hock to watch games are not sportsmen. For in nearly every home wliene these men live a woman is still hard at work still caring for her husband’s children or watching in mental torture the sufferings of some sick volativo. That is the “game” she plays!

If men really were the loyal sex, if they really did play cricket, women never would have had to clamour for their freedom. There, is no honour, no sportsmanship, in a spirit which re-

fuses to admit women into the ministry of the Church, hut which allows women to enter a calling that ruins body and soul. Men may he loyal to men hut their loyalty to women does not hear oxaminatio tl.

Women may not he loyal to womet to tin' extent of covering up anot.be woman’s sins as men will do for an

other man. But woman’s loyalty t humanity is infinitely greater.

It is quite time that the gamo-pla mg aphorism was turned round. AY men “play the game” much often than men and at far greater cost themselves.