There’s Nothing Wrong With Marriage

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21365, 8 March 1941, Page 5

There’s Nothing Wrong With Marriage

(By L. C. Moore)

HUSBANDS SHOULD PROCLAIM THEIR HAPPINESS

QNE of these days I intend to found a League of Happy Husbands. Its one object will be to encourage men to speak the truth about marriage. There has grown up such a tradition that husbands ought to look uncomfortable when marriage is mentioned that the man who tells the truth feels he is behaving like a schoolboy who admits he likes one of the masters. To understand the problem fully, it is necessary to get down to first causes. Why should this extraordinary tradition have grown up and secured such a hold on men 7 It is easily explained—marriage is just one of the things about which a man may not boast. The unwritten code which permits men to boast of their gardens, their cars, their radio sets and certain other things definitely rules out of order anything but self-disparagement where other things are concerned. A man must speak jokingly of his golf handicap or of his prowess on the tennis court. Unless he makes out he is much worse than he knows he is, he brands himself as an utter outsider. Most Husbands are Perfectly Happy Marriage falls into this strange list of taboos. It may have got there by chance: on the other hand, Man may have put it on the list deliberately, feeling that as marriage is a lottery, he had better not say too much about having won a prize, lest he made those who drew blanks feel uncomfortable. However it happened, the fact remains that the husband who boasts that he is happy at home puts himself completely beyond the pale. His fellows mistrust him, and their womenfolk know he can't be speaking the truth—married to a creature like her. If this meant that husbands merely refrained from talking about marriage, things would not be so bad—we should not get so many false ideas about the matter. Unfortunately, they do not keep silent, but adopt just the same attitude as they do in connection with the other taboos.

Now, this sort of thing doesn’t matter much among married men. They understand one another, and realise that it is all superficial—a pose; that although a few unlucky ones drew blanks, most husbands are perfectly happy. However, the effect is much more serious upon single and eligible young men. They see the shrugs, they hear the jokes, the pitying remarks about the latest victim, and they wonder. Of course, if they ultimately decide to risk it, and take the plunge, they join the circle of married men who know but dare not say. The Taboo Must Be Lifted So it goes on, and so it will continue to go on in the same old vicious circle, until something is done about it. The taboo must be lifted. The subject of children, ironically enough, is on the other list, and a father may hold up his head proudly and announce that his is the most wonderful child in the world. It behoves the happy husbands of the nation to band together and fight for the right of each to proclaim just as proudly that he has the most wonderful wife in the world. Not till then shall we get a new and healthy angle on this matter, which so vitally affects our welfare. Thanks to this ridiculous taboo, we are actually deceiving ourselves by our own pretence, with the result that there is a growing volume of opinion that there must be “ something wrong with marriage.” There is nothing wrong. It is the most successful of all human institutions, and the doubts and misgivings about it are caused entirely by the fact that the failures get all the publicity, while the ordinary, happy husband might just as well be off the map—he can’t even act as his own publicity agent.