Norma’s Ideas of Real Romance

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 17

Norma’s Ideas of Real Romance

Elegance made its last stand in the relations between lovers and maidens and husbands and wives. (writes Norma Talmadge in the “Daily Chronicle”). That sort of conjugal con-

duct is only very rarely to be encountered i o-day, which is in one way, of course, a very great pity, because there can be no gallantry without elegance, and although neither is absolutely necessary to romance, it

thrives better with than without them. The fact is that the refinement of conduct which once made nearly every marriage a romance—sometimes hollow, sometimes sordid —has been overshadowed by liberty. Once, though she might be wooed and married like a queen, a wife Ik. longed to her husband body and soul, because he paid for her four meals a day. Now a man can’t tempt a woman with bread and butter. It may seem paradoxical, but I believe the decline of romance through men and women's new-found camaraderie will eventually make for even more romantic marriages than a-c. attributed to the ancient ultraelegant days.

The period we are passing through Is only transitional. When the economic independence of women is complete, as it will be within this century, every marriage will be more beautiful and more romantic- than I* has ever been before in the history of the world, because neither husband nor wife will gain anything from it except a share of each other’s lovable qualities. And Ido not think there is any romance more worth having than that.