THE CHINA MÁIL, MARCH 311937.
MY SON ASKS 'WHY?"
Y sprawling
millions who fought He said about Armis- my casual kind husband.
My son, aged ten, is spray the and despaired and triumphed qur tice, being the day on which they And leaves the question
fire carefully going through a packet ingthe four most ghastly years in stopped it, of stamps he swapped" this morn- allfistory could tell their sons what
ing for the propellingpencil he wheedled out of me the other day.
to
I sit quietly sewing, trying give an impression of casualness,
as though he did
not seriously
unans-
wered for me. Adding a hearty masculine: "And What shall I tell this ten-year- old? I shall tell him both sides. The The horror and the heroism. Causes and the Aftermath.
·
By A Mother
mean the question he has just put ar meant and Peace should stand a good job, too.
me.
He is per-
dr.
My son turns again to me.
A Good Job, Too"
But my son is ten. sistent. He is intelligent. He is tired in his eager child's way of be- ing put off by grownups who talk of war and never seem to have they nothing. intelligence to answer a proper ques tion properly.
Because his father told him exact- He said something about war be- ing "a messy business, old man.”
Marrying For Pity
I shall tell him of War as men see it. Of War as we women see it. And I shall tell him that it must
Because men do not talk of war, not happen, again.
I shall tell him that the old have you noticed? Particularly the
been through men who have
it. chivalric wars of hand-to-hand fight- Perhaps two of them meeting again ing and shining armour and rich after a long interval will recall a rewards and fair ladies in his pic- memory of that wood near Vimy ture books and bright imagination or the trick old Diggles played on have become wars of extermination Jerry that scared the blighters into in which countries are wiped out, coming across without firing a shot towns become ashes, and the Inno- that morning. :
cent and the guilty perish under the Always with a laugh and a shrug. same rain of bombs. Always as though they were re- I shall tell him that never again membering a particularly rotten must play at war, because after hour at the dentist's when the world the last dose of it, with civilign- was young and they were all boys tion still staggering under its blows, all that civilised man stands for will together.
I cannot speak with a laugh and be wiped from the earth.
I shall tell him that what his fa- a shrug, being a woman, and there- JOMEN get married for many pose of making big sacrifices.
reasons. There are wahen These are exaggerated emotions fore, men insist, weak and emotional. ther dismissed as “a messy business” I cannot laugh away four years is something we women do not wish who marry solely in order to save which trick a woman into placing
of agony and suspense and the loss to see repeated for our sons. children, actuated by acute moher- false values upon life and love.
that I shall tell him why, wondering Then there is the type of "mo-jof my two beloved brothers instinct.
ther and nurse woman" who comes broke my mother's heart, and the how much he will understand; not in contact with a nice man who is fathers and lovers and husbands of daring to believe that it will make an incurable, invalid, or a hopeless my nearest and dearest leaving with any impression on him. cripple, or blind.
a jest and not returning.
It Is Not Fun
W
By DENSE ROBINS
7
There are the mercenary who marry for money.
There lonely
who take
husband for oneonship.
The ambitious who choo
kind
a
the
man who can further social position
or career.
The sensitive who have a fread of being "left on the shelf,” and will face marry anybody rather than spinsterhood.
And finally, those who marry for pity. Not perhaps a common mo- kind tive, but marriages of this take place more often than people think.
Perhaps, of all reasons it is the most dangerous.
All For Him
If he is egotistical enough to play. upon the chord of sympathy which Unimaginative Man
he has evoked he can do it without great difficulty.
And gradually, deeply ashamed of herself, she is reduced to the know- ledge that she has made a frightful mistake and ruined her own life. She has consigned herself to lifetime of martyrdom.
Leading To Cruelty
a
I shall seek to make him under stand that while men, young and
I cannot be light-hearted over old, will be up and away at the first as happily as though it men lying in mud looking sightless- bugle call a ly at the sky.
were a game of soccer, to women
I cannot talk in polite nothings it is nothing as simple and inno- over days when, as a child, I lived cent.
women sadfaced, anxious
I shall tell him that because of among who were afraid at each knock on their greater powers of Imagina- the door and to whom a telegram tion and their greater capacity for meant the end of hope and love. suffering women do not see war as ers cannot For that you need a man's im- boisterous fun.
If she is of less fine metal, she personal, unimaginative outlook. look into a future in which their may break and run away from her Men can take death and folly and dear ones are to repeat the heroic and re- mistakes the older generation made. post, in which case the last posi-heroism in their stride
He will not believe me long. tion of the man she has married is member it jokingly over a drink at
But that is what I shall, tel of worse than the first. Pity has led the club. Pity is one of the strongest
gable cruelty.
"A messy business, old man," says just the same. human emotions. More highly de- her to
thinking man with de- veloped in the female han in the male because of the maternal in- cent impulses would dream of marry- ing a woman, under such conditions, stinct.
A girl in love, if she is normal and who he knew did not love him, mentally and physically, is a poten- but was merely sorry for him, He and have tial mother right from her child- would be a fool to do so hood when she concentrates, upon only himself to blame if overtaken and croons over her toys and anti- by disaster. mals.
Later when her passionate na ture is roused, the mother urge is still there
And
Her main concern is for his wel- fare, his health, his happiness. if she really loves, it is with that unselfish, tenderness which inspired those epic lines;
Oh, woman in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please When grief and anguish wring the
brow,
A ministering angel thou False Values Of Love
But there is little hope for one who confuses the issue and allows
It may be that a man falls violent- ly in love. She does not, but he storms her consistently; pleads his cause with great drama, weeps and wails at her door, writes extrava» gantly, and even threatens suicide. The Warning
Casting himself on her mercy in this fashion, he may ultimately get what he wants. She will marry him out of pity. But it is madness for
her to do so.
in the If she did not love him beginning, there is no reason why she should live him in the end. She will always be a little superior and scornful.
No, pity is not a sane or justifi- her imagination to be so distorted able cause for marriage. It doesn't that, she mistakes pity for love. She even begin to be a solid foundation then goes blindly into a union which on which to build a house of Happy
Union: is almost certain to be disastrous.
In fact, the moment the
She finds herself married to
longer. She is appalled by
word
man for whom she is sorry no "pity" comes into line at
what should be like the red traffic signal she has done, and in the long run that says.." she pities nobody but herself.
It is, in effect, a warning
There are certain heroic qualities woman not to carry on with
women, certain poble stirrin
frai and to go in search
and romantle idealisms which_some- lover times lead them to believe that they w are put into the world for the pur- who
hom she is no
she feels real pride, an she is unreservedly devoted.
to
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