SEPARATE FRIENDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 6, 29 March 1927, Page 5

SEPARATE FRIENDS

A MATRIMONIAL PROBLEM One of the most happily-married women I know—and by that I mean a woman happy in her trust of her husband and his trust of her—attributes her matrimonial success to one potent factor. From the outset she insisted on separate friends when either she or her life-partner so desired. On the principle that there can be no love without trust, she said in effect: “My dear, we are first in each other’s hearts; sure of each other’s serene and abiding affection. But we are too sensible to suppose that neither of us must ever cultivate the society of any other man or woman. Our friends may not necessarily “mix” with each other or with us. Why subject either them or ourselves to so futile an ordeal as gathering together under our roof.?” Being blessed with a husband as broadminded as herself, the decision held good from the start. Each has his and her respective coterie of com rades. And the stimulus they thus gain is reflected in their joyous life together as man and wife. The husband happens to like long country tramps and a good game of tennis, and while he has a high order of intelligence, is not at home in “highbrow” society. The wife, on the other hand, likes bookish folks; and though she loves Nature, is too delicate to attempt a 20-mile walk such as some of husband’s Amazonian young women friends deem mere child’s play. The casual observer of this modern menage might come to the conclusion that real happiness was impossible with such divided interests. But the casual Observer _ would be entirely wrong. For, despite the fact that the man of the house frankly cannot abide what he calls incessant booktalk, he is by no means averse from hearing his wife’s occasional comments on current literature and literary personalities of the day. And she, for her part, can listen with utterly unfeigned, genuine interest to his account of a particularly thrilling contest op the courts, even though she is bofied by people who talk sport incessantly. With their separate interests they build up a common bond of mutual entertainment; of a much more refreshing kind than if they both moved, day in, day out, in precisely the same sphere. Nothing makes two people so “stale” to each other as harping on the same strings; as they must inevitably do if they are always meeting the same people, doing the same work and dreaming the same dreams! It would be foolish to deny, of course, that it takes two very special natures to be capable of this mutual trust. But when they do come to-

gether in harness, as it were, with that i unassailable trust taking the reins, tjie team jogs along in perfect harmony, ; and neither whip nor bridle is needed - to set the pace that attains to the goal of understanding and content. E.V. i i