A MINISTER OF MATRIMONY

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 276, 18 May 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MINISTER OF MATRIMONY

ENCOURAGEMENT OF LARGE AND HAPPY FAMILIES.

By LAURENCE CLARKE in the "Sunday Pictorial."

The popular novelist advocates the appointment of a Woman Minister to deal with the problem of marriage and population. The inconceivably great drama of the re-establishment of the home will bo enacted anew when five million men come back from the war to take up citizenship. We shall want marriages and families—the largest and happiest kind ol' families possible of attainment. The encouragement of successful, numerous and happy parenthood is a problem beyond the power of any mere politician. Yet the whole thing can be settled nobly if wo will but permit woman to take over this problem that is particularly and essentially her own.

We must find a Woman ! there must bo a Dictator, drawn from the sex wh-jse interests are more nearly affected by this problem. There are women in this country who would take the problem of marriage and population and resolve it into an iridescent and wonderful thing, a resounding success. A woman chos<en for gifts of administrative power, allied to that old overworn, but still satisfactory word "womanliness," would be no difficult person to find. Failing aught else, we might well take a woman who has shown gifts in the management of r.n orphanage, a. great school, or a great hospital, and import her into this new Ministerial post. If we gave her the freedom and wide power enjoyed by other Ministers she would without doubt solve for us this problem. As a believer in women, without being in any sense a feminist, I qm convinced of this.

Let us imagine a situation with the right woman in power, a woman who would he a communal mother and a fairy godmother in one. She would rceate a situation which would make politicians gasp, and would for purposes of life and happiness spend in a year probably less than we npw spend in one day of* slaughter. I can imagine her bright and shining, drawing to herself women of like wide humanity. I can imagine her dowering every potential mother with the full knowledge of practical maternal hygiene. A dull word hygiene! She would teach mothers how to save those babies, one in eight, who die in England now, before reaching their first birthday—--875,000 births in lyio, and 100,000 dead in the first year are official figures. Our new Minister would develop that latent, cave-old mother-knowledge, and would save the babies. She would see that the burden of motherhood .was m no case too great to bear. She would ease tho situat'on with the aid of the cotmtrv's nurse.

[ can conceive of her promoting an astonishing innovation which would render itself as a terse newspaper headline : " Pensions for Babies." And why not? Wo pension the old folk going otu ol the world. Why not pension tho new, potential citizen? We want births; let us pay for them ! But tne situation is a big one, extending beyond the male ken mto the realms of sentiment. Oh, exquisitely of sentiment! This is where man must stand as'de and hand the business to his highlv-endowed mate. How deftly our Woman Minister of Matrimony would fling a noose over the heads of a million young wanrors returning from the front, and lead them to the altar. How grac ously she would fairv-godmother these same young million's. How industriously she would train (a strong hand in the velvet glove) all tlnse potential young mothers. Then when the new citizen arrived she would pension him with £>3 a year £5 a year for every needy child until its tenth birthday. And'the country would grin and hear it. Homes, homes, homes, would l>e the universal cry. Every unwed man in the iand would fly to the Minister of Matrimony for surcease of his forlorn and unpatriotic condition. And finally even the Front Bench politician would smile and g've his benediction to this miracle, which lie, with a male's dull fingers, could not have wrought in a million years. So, let us seriously demand a woman Minister of Matrimony to rebuild domesticity in the coming days ot peace. We must create a new Ministerial department with Happy Marriage written over the door. Lot us wing this same door with flv>ng cupids and set up birth-rate barometer on every town hall portal. To this department our young couples who desire marriage and lack funds or opportunity can apply. J>o formality or red tape. A mere statement of their case to the new Mmistei of Matrimonv—and real help will be forthcoming, both for parents and potential families.

ix>rs.' I s:i.Lcl, 'Rawstone, what did the ir°n say about him? 'Oh, the men said, " i'oor old gentleman, lie ought to be at home with hi* missus. On tho way to a country house Sir Evelvn met a quiet American gentleman going to the same house. They talked of American poetry, and Sir Evelyn mentioned ".Jim Bltidso. "ilv enthusiastic praise of the poem excited, I thought, an appreciative purr in my companion, hut he observed «luietiy, 'Jim was a fine follow. I said, 'Or the author made him mi?' 'Oh, hut he was.' 'Why. was he real?" 'Yes, 1 knowliim well. 'But don t ;>ou think the |)oet embellished .I'm s act No, lam sure he did not. 'Well, hut how ciiii you sun?. - '' Aiul he replied (iiiickly, 'I wrote it. It was Colonel John Hay, then American Ambassador in London.