UNKNOWN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 133, 3 July 1909, Page 3

UNKNOWN.

— ~m~ WOMEN SHOULD SELEIMAND WOO HUSBANDS/^ Thackeray has said .that nny woman can marry any man she chooses. That is. of course, with the unJerstanding that she goes about the accomplishment of her design with a little organised intelligence and insight. There arc certain facts, however, which it would particularly profit every 'woman to know, and knowing,' to remember.

The general belief is that:men marry women; that men woo, propose to, irad lead women to the altar.

In outiward appearance this is what generally seems to happen, but the facts in the case arc that women usually marry men; that women, consciously or unconsciously, woo men, and ordain that they shall be proposed to by them; and then with all the sweet and gentle effrontery in the world, they walk up the church aisle in such a shrinking, almost reluctant, manner, as to mislead the shrewdest masculine judgment into the honest*conviction that they havc been the passive objects of some particular man's. wooing.

MARRIAGE IS A WOMAN'S BUSINESS.

Now had it not been for George Bernard Shaw, such' fallacious belief might have obtained so long as there shall be marrying and giving in marriage. It is to the point to observe here tuat men have always realised, more or less keenly, what helpless factors they are in the great marriage scheme of Nature; but the knowledge and the realisation have, thanks to science, now become .familiar.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding man's aversion to swallowing the unpleasant dose, the caustic wit of G. B. S. has amply illuminated the proof that so far from woman being always the helpless object, the will-less victim, it is generally man wjio is the object and victim. Man, not' woman, is the pursued. Woman, 'not man, is the pursuer. And why not? It is inevitable that a womap shall marry just as soon as 3he can. In other words, marriage is a woman's business. It is merely an incident in a man's life.

Laying, asido all sentimental considerations, we are brought face to face with the somewhat disconcerting, not to say embarrassing, fact that Nature is, after all, the great matchmaker.

It would seem that only by frank and impolite methods,, can Nature accomplish' her chief design, that men and women shall mate.

To this end, then, Nature has decroed that her purposes arc best served by implanting the instinct of selection in the woman rather than in the man. Na-tui-c,being wise, has put a great premium upon woman's robust common sense. Nature knows that common sense is the greatest and hio.st dear of all human attributes, and that it is the special function of woman to exercise common sense. ;■

It will be readily seen. then, that in so far as Natureiis concerned a woman has every mor? as well as physical right openly <o woo a man, propose, and leaq him to the altar.

MAKE A CAIIEFUX SELECTION. Viewed in thisjlight, there is nothing undigmhed abouli husband-hunting, assuming that thejhunt be conducted according to the hard and fast rules prescribed for the proper management

-In other words, once Waving selected the man whom she wishc|j to marry, it is nothing but fair and right, to herself as well as to him,, that « woman shall ,woo him in a manner tolcause him all the pleasure /possible. And speaking of selectlion, the ri»ht sort of a woman will, and-indeed always does, exercise care and discrimination. No man likes to feel that a woman is angling f or him, and it makes most men furious to discover that, they have in the slightest degree been made a puppet of by a woman. ,In order to finish the ? a Ime 1 me .Iwith 1 with th - e g ran ' l . triumphant flour. ish, tire average .man must be handled with kid gloves, Properly led up, stage; by stage, the average man is as to propose to the average woman as tint sparks ar c to fly upward. And he.will) and does propose on the (lay and at!the hour that she determines ho shall propose. When he does not it 'is because she has played a wrong card.' This catastrophe is usually the result Ot a display,of too muqh anxiety; for no man of spirit is going to allow himself to be married, willv.-nilly, just because s-omciwomtn has the bad taste, to throw herself at his h«id.<-Pearson's Weekly. . , .