BACHELOR GIRLS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1931, Page 3

BACHELOR GIRLS

MISS MACDONALD’S VIEWS

“ 'Bachelor girl’ is a better title than ‘spinster.’ ” declared Miss lshl> 1 MacDonald, the British Prime Minister’s daughter, recently, when she presided at the opening of the Bachelor Girls’ Exhibition in London. “Women arc entitled to be called bachelor girls,” -Miss MacDonald said, “rather than to he recorded as failures in the • marriage market. r l here are many different reasons why the bachelor girl has come to the forefront since the war. One is that pecple ol my generation feel very much that among those whom we honoured on Armistice Day wore a very large proportion of some of the finest men in the country.

“It annoys me very much when people say to me: ‘So and so is very attractive and would make a good wit . J wonder why she does not marry.' People don’t seem to realise that so and so, because she is a nice girl and has common sense, is not going to become a good wife of just anyone. The choice that is given her has been very much reduced by the war.

“For with all due respect to the survivors of the Great War, some of our finest men were lost. That is one ol the reasons why there are so many bachelor girls to-day. and it is extraordinary how many people overlook this fact.”

Another reason, Miss MacDonald added, was that many girls would rather enter one of the professions now open to them than settle down to humdrum married life. *‘l do not mean that all married life is humdrum,” she explained, “hut it may appear so to some girls compared with a career and a bachelor life of their

own.” Dame Louise M'llroy. who de lar d the exhibition open, said she differed

from Miss MacDonald. “T 1 iko the word ‘spinster,’ ” she said, “for it is a good old English word and much better than ‘old maid." ’’ There were far more love marriages to-day than in the Victorian era, she thought. because modern girls were independent and did not have to accept the first man who proposed to them. Defending the use of beauty preparations. Dame Louise said she thought it right for a young woman to try to make herself as attractive as possible. Tn the old days it was a case of bm-ntv versus brains, but now the girls had both beauty and brains. The speaker said that remi’uh'd her of the story of a beautiful French actress who wanted to marry and have beautiful and clever children. After looking over all the clever nvm sin* knew, she asked Mr Bernard Shaw to marry her, explaining that slm was thinking of file brains and IwnnT'- >< w children would have with her looks and his brains. Mr Shaw replied that lie was very sorry that he eonld not marrv her. because it would lie too dreadful if. in, i stead, the children were born with his looks and her brains.