FAIR FAT AND FORTY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2900, 23 June 1925, Page 1

FAIR FAT AND FORTY.

The old description, “fair, fat, and forty, 1 ’ is quite out of date, remarks ;ni optimistic writer. The woman of forty is now generally as pleasant to look upon and as young and active in the body as the woman of oight-nnd-twenty or thirty. Thanks to tennis and other sports, women keep their trimness tar longer than they used to do, and at forty, instead of being unattractive, they are often at their best. They have learnt to use all their charms and gifts in the most effective manner, and they have no longer the conceit and inexperience which so often seem a. part of youth. By the time she has reached her fourth decade a woman has rubbed off her rough edges. Rhe is now dignified and self-possessed, whereas she was formerly awkward and shy. Now she knows how to listen as well as to talk, and when she speaks she has something to say which is worth'’hearing, for her experience has given her the art of pleasing others, also a knowledge of men and matters. T ll matters of dress, too, she is more successful than formerly. Rhe knows more about what colours she may —and may not —wear, and she lakes care, as no girl would do, that the

cut of her clothes is just right for her ligure. The woman of forty, if a spinster, is often far more attractive to men than her far younger sister. The fact is she is better educated, her truer, saner ideas of life and its problems, and has outlived the time when, if ever, marriage seemed to her the goal of existence. Now she probably regards happy marriage as the ideal state, but, knowing how verv many marriages are the reverse of happy, she

is thankful for such joys as she has, and makes the most of them. She is, therefore, good friends with men, talking to them as simply and naturally as slu- does to women, and. while accepting any little attentions a man may offer six' does not look for any special motive in these attentions. Tf she marries, the marriage will probably be a happier one. but it is an unlikely event, and she no longer troubles to consider her men friends as possible suitors. The “fair. fat. and forty” women are long dead, and their successors of to-day are among the most fascinating members of society, and certainly a power in the land.