Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 353, 14 May 1928, Page 4

Mundane Musings

The Excellent Wife 1 I do not quite remember how our conversation came round to the subject of excellence in wives. Someone, I think, had remarked that the sales would soon be in full swing, and 1 suppose the transition from sales to j wives was natural. The question arose as to what constituted excellence in wives. Someone suggested patience, affection and tolerance; someone else, virtue combined with plain cooking. Another suggested obedience; but this was greeted with rather cynical silence, it being known that the speaker had her husband completely under her thumb. One of them turned to me and asked my opinion. “In my view,” I replied, “an excel- j lent wife is one who is supremely effi-' cient in the art of wifehood. 1 have purposely called wifehood au art, not a sphere, which suggests a rather uncomfortable solemnity, nor a career, which suggests a profession or a limited company. The excellent wife, being an artist in her own medium, will recognise the importance of the apparently superficial to her husband's mental state and the development of the finer moral qualities in her children.” “And is there anyone,” asked my questioner, “you consider an excellent wife from your point of view?” “Certainly. Sally Featherhead.” There was a chorus of protest, as 1 had expected, for Sally Featherhead . Is generally regarded as frivolous, lazy, a social butterfly and a negleeter of the home. “Sally Featherhead!” exclaimed the virtue and plain-cooking woman. j “Why, she’s always out, at golf or; bridge or something. She’s never at j home.” "That,” I replied, “is because Sally j Featherhead is an excellent manager. j She organises her domestic duties so j completely that she spends the minimum of time in achieving the maximum of result. Most women, it seems to me, spend the maximum of time in achieving the minimum of result; consequently, they don’t go out, because they simply haven’t time; and then everyone says what good housewives they are. I call them bad housewives. “In my view, a good housewife might be defined as one who is able to spend as much time outside the house as possible. Besides, what’s wrong with golf and bridge? They are excellent games; the first draws on all one’s sternest moral qualities, the second develops one’s powers _of conversation. I suggest that a wife is far more likely to be a charming companion to her husband, when he returns home tired after the day’s work, if she has freshened and enlivened her mind with extra-domestic contacts, than if she has been at home all day muddling about the house."

“I have heard,” said another woman stiffly, “that Sally Featherhead has her breakfast in bed every morning.” “And why on earth not?” I cried. “If she is tired in the morning, as some people are, isn’t it much better for her, more considerate to others, to have breakfast in bed and conserve her energy? “Personally, I consider the family breakfast one of the chief blots on civilisation. I consider that if any member of the family can withhold her presence from it, it is her positive duty to do so. Her husband is in a hurry to go to his business, her children are in a hurry to go to school. A woman who earnestly desires to be a good wife and mother will keep out of the way and let them get on with it. “Then she can get up and have her bath, dress with reasonable leisure, and prepare for the day’s work with a sweet temper; whereas the inefficient wife who insists on joining the family breakfast will probably skip her bath, dress hurriedly, and add to the general irritability of any household on a weekday morning. “Sally Featherhead, like a wise, understanding woman, saves her vitality for the evening, when her husband and children come home again. Consequently they return, not to a tired woman nobly but ineffectively trying not to show how tired she is, and who ‘hasn’t had time to change,’ but to a lively and fragrant one whose amiable temper is an instant stimulus to their better selves. “I consider Sally Featherhead absurdly extravagant," said someone indignantly. “She is always buying new clothes. Goodness knows what she must spend on silk stockings alone.”

“That shows her practical common sense,” I replied. “There Is nothing like a variety of clothing to keep one’s personality constantly fresh and pleasing. And it’s much more economical to have a lot of silk stockings than a few. By changing them constantly you can make them last much longer.” “She never does anything in the house.” “Consequently she never fusses the housemaid or annoys the cook. Perhaps that’s why she always keeps her servants longer than most people.” “Even you will admit that she hasn’t any brains.” “None at all. But that’s beside the point. An excellent wife may have brains, or may not; it has nothing to do with the case. I am not discussing Sally Featherhead as intellectual. I am discussing her as a wife. And I still maintain that she Is the most excellent wife I know.”