Evening star., 1937-09-15

CYNIC has said that the way
~ to keep yourself satisfied with
~ your own husband or wife is
4 to contemplate other peoples
husbands and wives. This is on the
principle that you can always find
some one worse off than you are, and
that if your cake is heavy your neigh
Dor lacks even bread.
But the trouble with finding con-
tent in contrast is that we always
compare our lots with the higher
ups, never with the lower-downs.
We are peevish and feel ourselves III
used because We haven't Rolls Royce
instead of thinking that we are play
ing in luck because our old fiivver
is still hitting on one cylinder In
stead of having quit entirely as the
Joneses has. Same way about our
husbands and wives. We do not
contrast our middle-aged and COM
monplace spouses with our friends
mates who are even fatter and stodgier
than our own. We compare them
with the young and beautiful, the
glamorous and romantic husbands
and wives our acquaintances.
Since most discomfort is rooted in
envy, in thinking that some one else
is more fortunate than you are, it
would, no doubt. be salutary thing
for many disgruntled husbands and
wives to compare their matrimonial
bargains with those of their friends.
1t would lead many man and
woman, who secretly regard them
selves as saps. who let themselves
have second-rate goods palmed off
on them in marriage, to reverse their
opinions and plume themselves on
being matrimonial experts who were
such good pickers they got the best
of the lot.
MR.. A would reflect that, while it
must be source of eSthetic
pleasure and pride to have a wife
such as B has, who is a beauty and
is mentioned in the papers as one
OF our "best-dreSsed women" still II
costs money to buy suitable frames
for living pictures, and it is well
known that poor BIS nose is kept tc
the grindstone and that he is always
| In debt to the specially shops anc
department stores. Nor can Mrs
America be expected to fry out hel
| complexion over the kitchen stove
nor make calluses on her manicurec
hands sweeping and cleaning anc
| making her husband comfortable.
SO, Mr.. A looks at his plain ane
| dumpy wife, whose clothes Away
look as if her worst enemy had picket
them out for her, with an altered ey,
after he has compared her with Mrs
| B. She may not be so easy to lool
| at, but she is lot easier to support
She may not be an adornment to {
ball room, but she is an ornament t,
| the home. And while the scent O
some strange and exotic perfume ma,
not always hang around her, the odo
OF good cooking always does. Between
the smell Of perfume at $40 an ounce
and that of fried onions and beef
steak, give Mr.. A the onions ane
beefsteak every time.
Mrs. C, who is married To q good
plain, unsentimental business mar
who says it with diamond bracelet.
| and limousines, thinks how perfectly
| thrilling it would be to have a hus.
band like Mr.. D, who is so gallan
and kisses your hand so beautiful,
F, and looks just like movie hero, unit
| she observes that he also acts lik,
one and flirts with every good-lookinl
woman who comes along. Then sh,
| reflects that better is dumb love-
| than a universal one.
And so it goes. A man may bs
bored by his amiable and easy-goinf
wife's babble and her lack of a sens.
Of humor, but it looks pretty gooe
TO him after he has seen a husband