WOMAN’S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1922, Page 10

WOMAN’S WORLD.

THE OLD MAN IN LOVE. Many men are as prone to fall in love in thq October years of their lives as they were in the April period. There are numerous instances of hoar December marrying rosy May. In the interest of racial vigour such unions are discouraged by public opinion, not only among civilised but also primitive people. The children of aged fathers often possess marked intellectual qualities, but thqy are rarely very robust physically. The old man in love is a subject for banter and often an object of derision among his acquaintances. The dotard was a favourite butt for the humour of the old English comedy writers.

It is a common view that middleaged persons ought to have “got oyer” amorous susceptibility. Highly practical, unsentimental people are wont to appraise love somewhat lightly, or to regard the passion as a species of malady or the folly of youth, which should be outgrown at fifty at least. Very few elderly men have revealed their emotional experiences, of love in the autumn of life. The thoughts and the sentiments which are considered natural and normal in early manhood are deemed unnatural and abnormal at the approach of the senescent age. This is the outcome of the tendency to determine age by dates. There are men of sixty who are phyfucally, mentally, and emotionally younger than others of forty. But the man of sixty, realising that he is beyond his prime, or imagining that he is, shrinks from confessing an aptitude for love-making. Tie may even regard his yearning for love as something ridiculous or .shameful.

It is well proved that only a proportion of men begin to feel “winter in the blood” at fifty-five, and that the decline of the tender emotional feeling towards the opposite sex is a very gradual process in a vast number. It is also shown that marriage tends to lengthen the span of life in both sexes, to favour health and well-being, and to postpone the physical and mental signs of old age. The lonely ageing man may not renew his youth by falling in love and marrying, but a peaceful conjugal life will undoubtedly add to his chances of enjoying the last stage of the journey. For the old are even more in need of love than the young. But the old man must steel his senses against the fascination of youthfulness. He should seek a companion in a woman not more than ten. years his junior at the most. THANKS FOR DAUGHTERS (By Emma M. Wise.) There are many parents to-day who do not regard the possession of a large family of daughters as the calamity it was once thought to bo. The modern girl, by her capability, has compelled a revaluation of her worth. She has established a new ideal of daughterhood. The fathers and mothers of girls only have no prejudice against sons, but they feel that the advantages of boys are largely traditional. Their appreciation of girls seems to be based on sound principles. Take the two chief reasons assigned by a father for preferring a son; companionship, and the hope that he will carry on the father’s name, his work, and traditions.

The truth it that, rarely are a father and son so companionable as a mother and daughter, or even as father and daughter. The shyness of the two males in each other’s presence makes them tongue-tied, but the daughter, through her home-making qualities, is a companion for all. The joys of succession are also frequently overrated. The name may be perpetuated, but traditions are mutable, and the son who assumes his father’s business or professional mantle seldom does so with distinction.

Girls cause less anxiety than boys, and are more likely to turn out well. In mixed families this has been observed again and again.

The best and most uevoted of sons arc seldom such a dependable mainstay as daughters to a widowed mother or father. If the father is left, the daughters keep the home going; if the mother the}' support her if it is necesasiy, tor in these days girls have developed both home-making and bread-winning qualities.

Having been more closely associated with the home, they have a dearer understanding of parental problems and a keener sense of responsibility towards parents. Daughters are mutually more helpful than sons. In any family of girls there is sure to bo at least one who is clever at nursing and one with a talent for dressmaking and millinery, and their gifts are requisitioned for the communal good.