THE DREAMS OF MIDDLE AGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 462, 18 September 1928, Page 5

THE DREAMS OF MIDDLE AGE

WHERE MARRIAGE IS THE PATH i TO HAPPINESS By MAVIS CLARE Someone told me tile other day j i that, to be happily wedded, a girl | must marry before she develops am- | bitlon. Before she sheds her illusions ! and outlives her dreams. What a queer sort of mentality it is that attributes romantic dreams and illusions to Youth alone! I hazard the suggestion that, in these days, there are many more fond idealists among the ranks of middle-age than of their youthful contemporaries. I have not an atom of belief in the theory that, once she has tasted the sweets of economic independence, the old-clinging-vine ideal is utterly impossible to the wage-earning woman who embarks on wifehood. All my own observation points the other way. Three of the happiest marriages within my own circle of friendships are those of woman who bade goodbye to the wear-and-tear of careerist activities without a sigh for their lost “freedom.” And who are smiling still, abundantly serene and content, in the role of home-malting wives who accept the man of the house as the senior partner. To each of these women, the typical “domestic” marriage has proved the path to lasting happiness. Their homes, their husbands, are ay much their most real and most intimate world as in the time of the Victorian regime of sweetly feminine surrender to immemorial tradition. They have been only too glad to drop their independent economic burdens, and pay their way as loyal house-mates and housekeepers to the man of their choice, on those_ Broad shoulders is carried the weight of responsibilities of which they are so joyfully relieved: These happy wives accomplish their pre-marriage jobs with credit. They experienced all the much-talked-of thrills that attend the opening of com-fortably-filled pay envelopes, and the apportioning of individual earnings along their own individual and unquestioned lines. They duly enjoyed the freedom that is so potent a part of the early lure of economic enfranchise- ; ment. They cultivated many interests, j formed many friendships, got in touch with life from as many angles as circumstances permitted. Savoured, in short, all the various pleasant aspects of modern spinsterhood that pays its own way and calls its own tune. But that is the whole crux of the business where all save the very small minority of women are concerned. They are not so passionately fond of calling their own tune. In the main, they would rather echo a melody old as the world. And the more hectic their piping when first they dance to the measure of “this freedom,” the more impassioned is the tenderness of. the old, old tune, when their wayward feet take the immemorial homeward way. Is it not obvious that it is the very young -wife, w r ho has never experienced that preliminary canter in the economic hunting-field, who is more likely, to suffer from a frustrationcomplex in later years than is the woman for whom marriage is the serene end, not the adventurous beginning? AWAY WITH BOUQUETS Bridesmaids this season in London are to carry—well, almost anything but bouquets. An important bride of recent days, Miss Doreen Wingfield, chose vellumcovered Prayer-books, .rather substantial ones, for her red velvet-clad bridesmaids. Their dresses were in the Tudor period, and the books made them just right. But little dorothy bags covered with tiny brightly-dyed shells are to go with another bridal retinue, and chains of daffodils have been carried by others.