THE DISCONTENT OF WOMEN.

Shannon News, 14 October 1924, Page 2

THE DISCONTENT OF WOMEN.

"The (women are certainly much more discontented than the men." This was the verdict of the elderly proprietress of a seaside boarding-house, who was asked whether of the many married--couples the men or the women were happier, writes Ward Muir in the "Daily Mail." "Why is dt that the moment we have heard this disconcerting judgment we assent to its almost invariable truth? The answer in an earlier and more sentimental era, , would have v been based o'a th© assumption that thexhusbands were neglecting their wives. Our Godfathers would have wagged "\hair heads ancTsaid: 'ivian's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence." . But Byron, who made this sage masculine pronouncement, died 100 years ago. And lam afraid that frank laughter 1 would greet any speaker who dared to quote those humourless lines to an audience of women in the year 1924. It is just because love is . not "woman's whole existence" that so. many married- women are discontented. The young, wives for whom our boarding-house proprietress was sorry were riot discontented because they had lost their husband's love. They were discontented because their > bands' love was not in itself i Jfficient to content them. The trouble is thaf the average wife is older than tho average husband. Millenniums older! According, to the calendar she may be his junior. Even intellectually she may be a rung or two lower down the ladder. But she is a woman —and is ho longer in essence girlish, while he remains boyish incurably. Delve deep into the subtler... psychology of the situation, and you find that the discontented wives—even those who have retained their youth and their looks and their charm—are discontented because Nature has made them enormously more - mature in spirit than -their Those husbands are gifted with the capacity of playing at life. Many a husband of 40 is still excited over hobbies. The "number of elderly men who have taken to elementary potterwitfc wireless is incalculable. Men go .on playing 1 cricket and other games. How many women'go on caring "for dolls? In short, me"a preserve this capacity for a life of play when their wives,arc longing, longing • nassidnately and sometimes inarticulately, to pass on to the living life— living it as womea dimly discern that it should be lived. Hence, "the women are■ much more discontented than £he men,*! /