Married men of course vary enormously. Some are so henpecked they’re absolutely covered in beak-marks, and a burglar alarm goes off if another woman so much as shakes hands with them. Others have what are called adultery toleration pacts, which means they can go off and sleep with whom they like, as long as they tell their wives all about it afterwards. It is all a question of wife-styles.

DIVORCED MEN

“I’m not so old and not so plain, and I’m quite prepared to marry again.”

W. S. GILBERT.

It always amazes me how vitriolic divorced people are to each other. One girl friend of mine came back from work to find her drawing room piled high with dusty books. Her ex-husband had arrived and taken all the bookshelves away because he’d put them up in the first place.

Another wife stripped her house of all its possessions and moved in with her lover. Three days later there was a knock on the door: it was a special delivery of 400 gallons of water.

“But I didn’t order any water,” she protested.

“This was the address we were given,” said the delivery man, handing her a note. It was from her husband, saying: “You forgot to take the water out of the swimming pool.”

Divorced men can be divided into two types: those who left their wives, and those that were left by their wives. If you marry the former, you worry that he’s going to do the same to you, if you marry the latter, you worry whether he’s still crazy about his first wife, and trying to compete with her. First wives always look like Scarlett O’Hara, or are wonderful little homemakers like Katie in the Ads, who spend their time running up thousands of delicious puddings tasting of Oxo. Or they are boots who don’t get married again and cost their husbands a fortune in alimony.