This Month

A MISTAKEN attitude common to many husbands is that the group activities of their wives are aimless, fitful flutterings in pursuit of the stated objective.

Men regard the League of Women Voters indulgently as a feminine attempt to imitate the civic and trade associations of the male. If his wife lunches every week with the Happy Hollow Book Club (twenty-six members, twenty-six luncheons, twentysix reports on a New Book during the winter season), the husband counts it all as a literary project. It may be an Alliance Française or a Browning Society or a Women’s Auxiliary of Griggsville Post, American Legion, that attracts the wife’s support, and the husband sees no reason to take these for other than what their letterheads imply.

If they fail to show a profound effect on his wife’s mastery of French, knowledge of Browning, or role in the national defense, the man tends to write off the unsuccess as a typically feminine fiasco. He has no understanding of the true purpose of such organizations.

This page dealt last month with what develops among a small, intimate group of women who regard each other as “friends.” The small group is outlet enough for some women, especially for those who are still feeling their way with a husband and are not yet assured of a complete twenty-four-hour control over him. It will always have its uses, but a woman of spirit is bound to Seek a bigger audience as time goes on.

Thus it is that women have devised organizations of all kinds, some of them on a national scale, as major league competition among themselves. These enterprises may masquerade as devoted to slum clearance, canasta, hot school lunches, flower arrangements, unmarried mothers, stray animals, or the fine arts; yet their underlying purpose is the same: to give the membership a chance to put their husbands through their paces.

Big-league demonstrations fall, roughly, into three categories: —

1. Making the husband do something that he does not leant to do.

2. Making the husband do something that other husbands will not do.

3. A genuine novelty, a real “First.”

Beginning with the more elemenlary exercises in Group 1, the stunts become more difficult in Group 2, while Group 3 consists of out-and-out hair-raisers.

EXERCISES — GROUP I

Deliver and Call For

First Degree. — In this exercise the husband is obliged to drive the wife to the group meeting, to be seen by at least one fourth of the membership on her arrival, and to call for her after the meeting. Husband is allowed to sit in the car while waiting for wife.

Second Degree. — Husband calls for wife as above but is obliged to wait for her at main exit (sitting in car prohibited). Wife is last to emerge, and husband-in-waiting is observed by entire membership.

Bringing Things

General. — Husband is procured to transport chairs, cups and saucers, trays, foodstuffs, which wife is bringing to meeting. An extra fillip is given this one after the meeting when the husband reappears to load his car with the dirty dishes and remains of sandwiches, cream bottles, and silver.

Stunts with Container and Packing Problems. — There are two schools of thought on which makes the showier performance: (1) to provide the husband with no container and thus to make him hustle back and forth many times delivering cups and saucers, spoons, parcels in small lots; (2) to provide him with a precarious container likely to fall apart and make an interesting scene. (A frail laundry basket or too light dress box will produce the desired effect.)

Confusion of Ownership. First Degree. - Additional errands and membership contacts for the husband can be readily devised by the use of properties closely resembling those furnished by other members. Thus, the wife reports some days later that she is short two chairs, four spoons, three cups and saucers, and will husband please retrieve them from whatever other members have them?

Second Degree. — Attractive variation of previous stunt, in which husband is caused to lug home vast quantities of properties not belonging to his wife and to canvass membership list for possible claimants.

EXERCISES — GROUP II

Bringing Other Members

First Stage. — Highly regarded stunt in which husband picks up a carful of other wives, preferably from widely scattered parts of town, and delivers them at meeting.

Second Stage. — Full-scale operation which includes transportation of other members plus their extra chairs, food parcels, china, silver. Confusionof-ownership problem may be mixed in as desired.

The wife tackling this stunt must be prepared to answer all why-pickon-me? objections that other husbands instead of himself ought to be bearing a hand. A set of stock answers will serve but they must be delivered crisply and promptly: illness, divorce, out of town, did-it-for-me-last-monthwhen-you-were-runningaround-in-Philadelphia.

NOTE: The husband is graded for affability and conversational output; no sulking or aloofness permitted. Some wives insist that the husband get out of the car and accompany each member to her front door on the return. In bad weather, husband must be quick with umbrella.

EXERCISES — GROUP III

Host at Home

Role. — Since the man tries to synchronize a business trip with any women’s group meeting scheduled for his own home, the wife may score heavily by having husband in full attendance on such occasions. Basic argument is in the name of hospitality that his absence would be an unpardonable affront to “guests. If this fails, the clincher is: “I am sure they are just as much your friends as mine and we’re not going to have any friends if you refuse to do your part.'

Extra Feature. — Husband may be hooked for entire pick up and return service on grounds that other members had generously lent their belongings, that he should have provided his own family with enough china, silver, and chairs anyhow. “The least you can do if you won’t buy me what I need is these few errands, and I just talked to Helen and Maureen and they said they’d have everything ready for you . . .”

Only Male Present

Techniques. — A coup for any wife, bound to draw favorable comment. This is achieved by assuring the husband that this particular meeting has been set up for members and husbands. It is the only one the group has planned on that basis, she says, and she will be the only woman there not decently accompanied if he refuses. He proves to be the only man there.

It will be seen that the hard part of this stunt lies not in persuading the man to go but in making him stay, once he realizes the facts. Wife’s alibi is that she got the dates wrong. Any wife who can repeat this stunt with the same organization (and with the same husband) is a champion.

Participation and Arrangements

Nuisance Work. Husband may be drafted for various tasks on grounds of his supposed connections or proficiency in: preparation and printing of programs; renting a hall or persuading the owner to donate it; publicity; finding out where the group can buy “at wholesale” (price must withstand criticism from anyone in the group who believes she could have got a better price somewhere else).

Out-and-Out Participation. — Husband is made to serve on discussion panel or even as principal speaker. Technique of argument in this case is that husband is a man of great talent, that none of the wife’s group believes it, and that he must now take his rightful place in community affairs.

CHARLES W. MORTON