BY K. ISWARA DUTT

In the course of an address recently delivered by him at the North-Western University, Dr. Edward Layman is reported to have prescribed certain rules to girl-students who have to pick husbands as well as to boys who are inclined to ‘wiving.’ While there are innumerable subjects on which he could have lectured to the pupils of an institution, why Dr. Layman who is both a physician and a professor stumbled on matrimony as his principal theme, is more than I can tell. But I would venture a conjecture. It is not unfair to draw the inference that he was convinced of the desirability of addressing the youth on a problem which they would be induced to tackle at one stage or other in life's journey, unless they have definitely set their faces against it. And between our-selves, Dr. Layman must have also felt a secret pity for the green-horns in the field of matrimony who scarcely display wisdom in their choice. We are not told by the vigilant news-reporters how his grey-haired intervention–I imagine Dr. Layman is pretty old–in such a ticklish affair as marriage was received by his audience, but his prescription makes me a bit sceptical.

Among other accomplishments, according to Dr. Layman, the male aspirant to matrimonial honours should be healthy enough to swim twenty-five yards in thirty seconds. For one thing, a husband should be a swimmer: for another, he should be able to swim a number of yards within a given time. I am at a loss to understand again why the Doctor makes the subject of swimming compulsory in the matrimonial examination. It will interest him to know that there is an Oriental justification for this American prescription. Bards in Ancient India were fond of comparing family life, the inevitable sequel to matrimonial bonds, to the endless sea, and man's endeavours to survive the pains and penalties of family life to a swimmer's capacity to withstand the fury of the waves of stormy waters. It is not unreasonable that Dr. Layman should prescribe at least twenty-five yards in thirty seconds to the rash young man who embarks on a matrimonial voyage, obviously as a preparatory training ground for the toils and tribulations he is bound to experience.

He advises the girl to take care that her partner would allow her to audit his finances. This is wholesome advice, for there are several men in the world who bungle in money matters and at the same time do not tolerate any scrutiny into figures. There ought to be no objection on the part of a man to allow his wife to take him to account if anything goes wrong with accounts, as running a home involves joint responsibility. Such submission casts no reflection on his position as master of the house, and at times the memsaheb's supervision is an effective check on his extravagance or ignorance, if he is guilty of either. And if he is guilty of both, so much the better. Even so able a man as the Earl of Birkenhead made the amusing confession that ‘I have never understood finance: I have never understood my own finances.

Eliminating the issue of financial safeguards, what has Dr. Layman to say? Man should have yet more qualifications to establish, his fitness to take the hand of the fastidious modern girl. He should be willing, for instance, to rear children. And why not? He has no business to overlook the glaring fact that children being stock he cannot shirk his share of responsibility in rearing them. Here again, Dr. Layman who gave this serious counsel to his American audience, apparently in view of the social conditions obtaining there, has abundant support in this country where men are never known to show reluctance to bring up children. Some of the rules laid down by Dr. Layman are sure to create m Indian minds the suspicion that all is not well with the civilized West and that social life in Europe and America is in need of a radical, and a rational, change.

It is now interesting to see the other side of the shield as presented to us by Dr. Layman. He is also liberal in giving advice to the man who thinks of ‘whoever she may be, that not impossible she’ –the future bride. For some reasons, the Doctor suggests that if the candidate for marriage is a professional man, he should marry his secretary–of course, if she would have him. Is it a labour-saving device? one wonders. Or is it to prevent the lady secretary's presence from becoming a source of annoyance or suspicion to the woman whose hand he grasps? It is pretty difficult to know why Dr. Layman has turned a promoter of this particular kind of matrimonial alliance. Perhaps, secretaries to men who are also their wives are better secretaries. Or perhaps, wives who act as secretaries to their husbands make more lovable wives. Dr. Layman further insists on the girl for marriage having a good telephone voice, if she were to answer the description of an ideal wife. The demand for a good voice, not for speech nor for music but for exchanging a few words on the phone, is another puzzling item in the American lecturer's catalogue.

And when he speaks of beauty as the last quality to look for in a woman, I am afraid that Dr. Layman is making a vain suggestion. He might have been snowed under vehement protests from all parts of the inhabitable globe. I am not prepared to say that there is no sense in what he so courageously proposed to a mixed audience in lusty youth, but surely he uttered something unpalatable and psychologically defective. Since the dawn of creation, men have been temperamentally disinclined to give so low a place to beauty in the list of qualities which they wanted in the fair sex, lest that sex should cease to be fair to us. Literature is replete with instances of men who sacrificed even their dearest ties and most precious possessions in the world for that bewitching thing, called beauty. Prince Florizel suddenly turned democratic in quest of that ideal. Jessica stole Lorenzo's heart ere he discovered it was stolen. What could the poor fellow do? The poet Burns confessed how, when working mensuration in his younger days, his eyes fell on ‘Proserpina gathering flowers, herself a fairer flower’ and as a result Love put Trigonometry to flight. Surely, Prince Florizel, Lorenzo of the plebeian rank, and poet Burns have their counterparts in modern society. It is not unlikely that some of them were present in the gathering which the venturesome Doctor himself addressed, and they chose to tolerate his matrimonial prescription out of some such consideration as that Dr. Layman was but a layman in these matters. Inspired by beauty, poets have struck their lyres in rapturous moods and woven golden melodies, while artists have lavished all the wealth of their affections on feminine models. It is too much to think that Dr. Layman can now make converts to his beauty-proof cult. His solemn advice to bachelors must have at any rate stirred the soul of Jonathan Swift in his grave, for it was he who said that ‘beauty is but skin-deep; beneath it is vile carcase.’ Men agreed with the dictum of the Dean but heeded not the hint it conveyed. The same thing will happen to our friend Dr. Layman. This is but a voice–another voice if you so like–in the wilderness.

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