MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 178, 28 July 1903, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

WHAT WOMEN MOST

ADMIKE IN MEN,

The "Young Man" contains a very striking symposium by women consisting of their own witness as to what they admire in men. It is a series of confessions fit to make thorough-go-ing advocates of equality between the sexes weep. For of the fifteen noted women who take part, almost all declare that what, woman needs most and'likes best is a master. When educated and enlightened women confess that the chief ambition of their sex ik to be in a state of adoring slavery under the dominance of man, the prospect of frank equality between man and woman seems very far removed. Mrs Sarah Tooley observes that the men most popular with women are the black coats and the red coats—the minister of religion and the soldier. The distinction of clerical and- military •__"-. form has its value. Woman has always a quick eye for genius, > and "women have a tendency to adore sensual and seductive men and to despise the prosaically virtuous. .... Every woman likes a rake.": "Women admire courage, forcefulness and individuality in a man. In their heart of hearts they like a ; master. This has been so from the earliest epochs of humanity, and if tho equality between the sexes, which-the onward march of civilisation %has; brought about, makes it less apparent to-day than in primitive times, the worship of strength in a man is still 1 the cult of woman. And to return to my opening premise, she admires the soldier because he stands for physical force, and the minister of religion as typical of moral strength and spiritual authority." Lillifts Campbell Dafidson repeats the, same conviction. The premier quality in man is, to her, manliness. She says: "To weak women it ,4s man's strength that forms his greatest bid for admiration. She admires strength of body, strength of .character, strength of will. She desires her master, all the world over, and down all the ages, and when she finds him she is ready to bow down to him. It is her instinct to make heroes to adore, to raise upon.a pedestal higher than herself. AH the qualities she feels herself destitute of, she endows man with to worship him. And her' greatest lack is strength." It" is somewhat surprising to have the further confession that neither handsomeness nor ugliness count much with women:; "The fact is that women, for the most part, are not endowed with any special taste for personal beauty, and its oppoposite does not repel them. Nature made men keenly sensitive to physical attractions, and endowed women, with them that they might attract. What attracts woman, speaking generally, is man's attraction to herself. He does not need the physical beauty to draw her, and she is not affected by it, nor repelled by its lack. Looks, in men, do not much affect woman one way or the other after she has passed the stage of school-girl romance." It is not true, she says, that women like wickedness in a man. "What they admire is Bis daring to be wicked when they themselves have not to dabble in any but inferior sins": "Pluck and courage and strength, those are the virtues with which endows her ideal man. She will forgive the absence of much else in him, but the lack, of those she cannot tolerate." Adeline Sergeant says the. same, of women: "Physical strength attracts them; mental strength fascinates them; and there is a certain kind of spiritual strength that dominates them altogether. And the reason why seems .feme quite apparent. Women are Weaker than meri. s*.'. Nothing really | subju-, gates a woman's heart so thoroughly as a belief in her husband's strength of will or strength of arm." "', ' Sarah Doudney says: "In spite of Mr Ruskin,' I believe that what a woman' really admires in a man is strength": "The desire that never dies out of true womanhood is the longing for someone stronger than ourselves. One glimpse of real strength in a man will make us forget a hundred handsome faces and fine speeches, unless indeed we. are among the number of those who have eyes, but cannot see. . . . Stated briefly, what a woman most admires may -be said to be dignity and strength, with the. potentiality df tenderness." .-:.' Marie Connor Leighton arrives at the same conclusion: "What women admire most in men are good style and a certain subtle suggestion in their manner that they would act heroically if f" occasion for heroism should present itself. It may safely be said that a coward is a man whom no woman on earth admires. Good looks in a man do not count for very much." Miss Elizabeth Banks puts bravery and kindness first, but adds, "Every noimal woman likes a man who is m some sense her superior, and, in the very hest sense of the term, her master.". L. B. Walford agrees with what the rest have said, but remarks that there is one little trait in the" feminine character "which may explain their preference for the ineligible over the eligible—perMeade repeats that "WoniaH v likes a master. Let a man »c. stro . n f and manly, and she will follow knn; »j'. him be also a gentleman, and she wadore him." , „ Miss Hulda Friederichs introduces^ shock of surprise by the confession: "I have always had a.gre» leaning towards the Shakespearian lines — " : ; 'Let me have men around me that arP; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep j nights.' " "- A less startling variation is supply by Miss Ethel F. Heddle, who finds courtesy the most attractive characteristic Jean Middlemass thoroughly agree that what a woman admires in a man strength. "To have some one to lean. o , is a-woman's invariable craving, t_ou„ , she rarely acknowledges it-even to fl» self." Mrs Campbell Praed prefers in a-gg along with his typical courage, streD ° }j5 and robust common-sense, a cci blending of the gentleness, v and intuitive sympathy of the o

woman. . j2 Mrs Max Pemberton most a man strength, courage and. courtesy-