WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 178, 7 November 1910, Page 4

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted bv "Eileen.") I s WEDDING AT OPUNAKE. j A pretty wedding took place at St. Barnabas' Churcli, Opunake, on AA'ednes- '■ <la\- last, when Alks Nellie Hickman, eld- ' est daughter of Mr T. Hickman, was married to Mr. L. R. Jackson, manager of the Loan and Mercantile .Agency L'o. at' Opunnke. The officiating clergyman was the Rev. Air. Klingender. The church was prettily decorated by the lady members of the choir. Miss Hickman having been organist for the past ten years. A feature of the decorations was the handsome floral arch, from which was suspended a floral bell of dazzling beauty, the predominant flowers hem? white azaleas, blush pink roses, marguerite daisies, and asparagus fern. The service was fully choral, Aliss Aluldleton presiding at the organ. The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a handsome amethyst taffeta dress, the bodice being trimmed and draped with cream silk lace. The bride also wore a beautifully embroidered veil, with the usual sprays of orange blossoms, and carried a beautiful bouquet of white blossoms and asparagus ferns. The bridesmaids were Miss Campbell (who looked dainty in a white embroidered muslin, black picture hat, and carried a bouquet of pink azaleas) and Aliss Lily Hickman, youngest sister of the bride, who wore white embroidered muslin, a pretty hat, with a wreath of pink rosebuds, and carried a small basket of pink azaleas and asparagus fern. The bridegroom's gift to the bride was a pearl and amethyst pendant, to the chief bridesmaid (Aliss Campbell) a pearl pendant, and to the younger bridesmaid a gold bangle. The bride's I mother wore n. black silk voile and black toque, relieved with white ospreys. The bridegroom was supported by Air. Arthur Hickman, brother of the bride.

The bride's parents held a reception at the Foresters' Hall, some seventy friends of the bride being present. Tlie'hall had been richly decorated by the friends of the parties.

The, wedding presents were very numerous and included several cheques. The Loari'aild Mercantile staff presented a handsome silver teapot, and the choir's present was a handsome silver-mounted oak salad bowl.

It was a "motor" wedding throughout, and 'a'ffer the reception Mr. and Mrs. Jackson motored to Hawera, en route to Auckland., and Rotorua, on their bridal s tour.. (i The bride's going-away dress was a ufowh tailor-made costume, with hat to match.

HOW TO MANAGE A WOMAN. Long experience of my fellow-men •has taught me that whenever they talk or write about women they write and viaty;-nonsense. Their viva voce and 'their literary deliverances on the eternal and entrancing topic are usually made up-of dull platitude, forced epigram, and irrecontdJaWe contradictions. There•ior,einit> "/was with some hesitancy, and , hut of enlightenment ;;(?W S . a,..wpiter in a Home paper), I IpicTced up,"a day or two ago, a small a-nd gaily'covered volume entitled "Modern' Woman and How to Manage Her," by MF.i Walter M. Gallichan.

~Jt f jdoes not do, I felt, to neglect to avail oneself .pf, any hints that may be going round on so urgent and altogether important a subject as the ma* agement of women; because on his management of women, or their management of him, the comfort of every man who does not live in & cave or keep perpetually at sea very largely depends, arid'itife my profound conviction that this world is first and before all things a place in which to be comfortable. AN ALMOST AWFUL SPECTACLE!

Welly I: have read through my little volume,.from "cover to cover," as the revie,wers say, and although I have derived from it some amusement, I, as anticipated," have gained no illumination. I know : no more about the management of women than I knew before; indeed, I think.l, know rather less, ipr my mind is somewhat jumbled. I think it will recover in a day or two, when I shall have forgotten Mr. Gallichan's confused instructions and I shall once more obey the promptings of my instinct in this matter, an instinct which hitherto has served me passing well. Mr. Gallichan begins, as I thought he would, 'by 'being self-contradictious. On one page he tells us that "everyone should fall in' love at least once," and on the very next he declares that "a young man in love is an almost awful spectacle." Now, 'why, one would like to. know, should one even once in one's life make an almost awful spectacle of oneself? "A young woman," Mr. Gallichan goes on, "is apt to look upon a deeply enamored youn£ man as a lunatic." But is such a statement as that, indubitably true though it be, calculated to induce a young man to become deeply enamored of a young woman? Is it not much more calculated to scare. him off, as it were? j Who, I should like to know, -wants to, be regarded as a lunatic by young i women? Mr. Gallichan, it is true, as-j sures the possible lover that he him-| self sees nothing provoking in love's antics. Even the young man who confessed to the girl of his heart that he "always put on his best trousers" when he came to see her was for Mr. Gallichan more pathetic than absurd—it was not so to the girl, by the way, for she "burst into hearty laughter"; but, then, I ask again, who wants to be pathetic in the eyes of Mr. Gallichan? The very thought'of it adds a new terror to love. KICKED BY WOMEX. And then, after the brief lunacy of courtship is over and the saner and more sober business of matrimony is fairly under way, what a prospect is held'out to us! "I know a man' says Mr Gallichan, "in a good position of society who relates that he" has been bitten, scratched, struck in the face and kicked by the women he has loved.

Thousands of men," he adds, "could tell the same tale."

,- A slum- of force," he says, "even a touch of cruelty is necessary, and a reasonable amount of harshness"; and then "(he man who has been abused or beaten should take her in his arms and confess that he ought to lun::- been more patient and tactful.'' But why, in the name of mil that is consistent and common sensible? If "a touch of cruelty" bo necessary, why not slap her and have done with it?

Seriously, though, this little volume i.v ill reading for nervous and apprehensive men. for throughout it is pervaded by the fearsome spectre of the Matriarchate—the Governance of Women—which, It seems, no amount of male management, tactful or brutish, can prevent, or even for long postpone. You know what the Matriachate is, or was, of course. According to Professors Karl Pearson, Lester Ward and other distinguished sociological .speculators, there was once a time when woman ruled the roost and the simple duty of man was to love, honor and obey. MEN UNDER THEIR FEET. In those days, it seems, men—and we can quite believe it—"complained, as women complain to-day, of the subordinate position they occupied. Men spoke with formal deference to women, adopting 1 the kind of courtesy which survives among men to.day towards women, 1 "t from a different motive, for it wast'M deference of the owned towards the owner." Uow woman lost that pride of place :-■■' became the "chattel" she now assert herself to be, neither Profeasor Pearsoa and AA r ard nor Mr. Gallichan, with any definiteness, inform us.

But he that as it may, history, as the wav of it is, is about to repeat itself, and the Matriarchate, like Halloa's comet, is once more approaching, and, indeed, is almost in sight. Very soon the rest of us will be even as are to-day, "the Ehassias, the Pani Kotches, and ibe highly-intelligent Nairs of Malabar." Surely the- British husband and father may gather some fairly-sized and succulent crumbs of comfort from the reflection that, even when the wor> fjomes to the worst, he will be in no mo; » doleful case than is a Nair or a Pani Kotch, and who is he, after all, that he should ■resent what a Khassia endure with equanimity? SPOILED WITH PETTING.

And Mr. Gallichan has further consolation still to offer, for, says he, -with prophetic vision: "The women who will compose the Matriarchate of the future will not he man-haters. They will probably spoil men with yearning, protective kindness, as men have tended to spoil women in the past." So, you see, Matriache notwithstanding, some of ■us may still look for well-warmed slippers :by the fire and hot-water bottles in our bed o' nights. There is just one piece of counsel Mr. Gallichan gives, whieh long experience tells roe is sound enough. "Let us never forget," he says, "that women are quite as ira&eible as men when suffering from hunger. Therefore, "feed the darling.". As a matter of fact, I have always fe3 the darling. I began it long ago in my school days, when, from the slender resources of my pocket-money, I treated her to chocolate eclairs, cream tarts, and vanilla ices at the local confectioner's. I have continued it through manhood, as many a Piccadilly restaurant and Bond Street tea-shop could witness. And, in common justice to Mr. Galliehan, I must avow that never have I known the treatment to fail.