The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-02-14

me answer TO the question involved
in the above title depends entirely
upon the man himself and what he
wants a wife for. Wives nowadays
perform so many and such varied of
fees in life that, like everything else
in our modern civilization, she is in
danger of becoming specialized, and in
a short while, unless the tendencies of
the hour greatly change, we shall soon
find ourselves deprived of the old
fashioned all-around good wife, just as
We have already lost the family ply
stefan of the good old days who could
tackle any kind of a disease from
mumps to appendicitis without having
to summon a specialist at $1,000 a min
ute to tell us to call around next
Thursday and have it cut out.
1t IS fair to assume that owing to
the enormous circulation of this peri
odleai these remarks of mine will be
read next Sunday by many thousands
of people of all kinds. At any rate.
IN so vast an audience there is room
Tor considerable variation in taste,
and the rules that would be unerring.
~ good for seven thousand five hun
sdred of these might not prove equally
valuable to the remainder. For in
stance, there is a chap over there who
is trying to get out of going to church
this morning-he says he's got a
@tomachache, and thinks he'd better
stay in and pass a quiet morning. He
hasn't got anything of the kind, and
if he really wanted quiet morning
he certainly would not get noisy one
by going to church. He is Just plain
lazy prevaricator. Now entirely apart
from the moral regeneration Of that
man, if marital felicity is to be meas
ured merely along lines of personal
comfort, the kind of wife he should
have chosen is not at all the same
sort of person that reasonable man
would recommend to a leader in Chris
tan Endeavor work, or to chap who
really had stomachache. The former
instead of acquiescing in his desire to
absent himself from the sanctuary
would argue the question with him,
point out how the path that leads to
the Golf Links, which in her heart of
hearts she feels is his real objective,
once he has her safely out of the way,
runs parallel and contiguous to the road
to Perdition and in other ways would
make things so intensely disagreeable
for him that he would have to COM
promise to avoid row, and of course
that compromise would result in his at
tending church, for the only way to
compromise with a lady is to let her
have her own way. The other kind
the kind of a wife for the man who
really has omachaehe-would be
equally unsatisfactory to the individual
we are discussing, who is indulging in
IAN imaginary pain to escape the per
sformance of his plain duty, because she
would Immediately assume that her
lord and master was telling the truth
and would stay at home with him, put
ting mustard -plasters, and hotwater
bags on him, and filing him up with
choice connections of Aunt Hannah s
Ready Relief, Jamaica Ginger, and Cas-
tor Oil, all of which would sooner or
later destroy that peace which is an
essential ingredient of happy home.
The kind of wife that man really needs,
Is one who doesn't care rap whether
he goes to church or not, and who when
he complains of stomachache will
smile pleasantly and tell him that she
hopes it will not interfere with his
game 1t is clear then from this demon
stration that a marriage that would
lead one man to absolute happiness
would lead another to the divorce
courts, blighting his latter years with
the pallid cast of alimony; and, corol-
larry to this it is impossible to lay down
any hard and fast rules to guide young
men or old in the selection of wife.
If the conventions had so arranged