MARRIAGE AND MOREY.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 165, 30 December 1926, Page 2

MARRIAGE AND MOREY.

THE MARKET FOR HUSBANDS.

Observe the expression upon the face of any noble male handing out the week’s house-keeping allowance! He is parting with his heart’s blood., and knows it, and is quite sure at the moment whether he does not repent his bargain. The bundle of pound notes he gives his wife has been bought in its turn by his leisure, his health very likely, and many of his personal inclinations. They represent long hours at the office desk; uncomfortable quarters of an hour standing on or under other people’s toes in the tube; dreadful moments when his employer has a look of dismissal in his eye, or when the bank looks coldly on his cheque and refers him to drawer. In exchange he gets what he calculated to get—a home, a wife, children, a wireless set, and a canary in the window, or value in kind. These are the real elements of life’s system of barter; money is, after all, mereiy the voucher of the deal, as much value in itself as the paper upon which we write our cheques.

Women mostly pay for their blessings in currency of a rather different character. They draw large bills on

their health, their nerves, their peace of mind. The typical housewife buys her Sunday joint with a sigh, her new j hat with much misgiving; her doctor’s > bills are paid with sleepless nights [ and a wrinkle or two. Unused to recI koning such intangible accounts, howj ever, we are still apt to hang to our [ innocent souls that age-old delicious 1 fantasy—the fantasy of something for nothing. It is well known that the feminine temperament cannot resist this allurement. The most disillusioned among us will still pause at the remnant counter; and there are

few womanly spirits whom it consistently strikes as ridiculous to spend time and bus fares upon reaching a cheaper shopping centre. But in no part of Fate’s market do women so persistently and light-heart-edly expect to get the best of the bargain as in the market for husbands.Olive Mary Salter, in Good Housekeeping.