THE INCULCATION OF MORALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 133, 5 June 1907, Page 8

THE INCULCATION OF MORALITY.

<Xo the Editor.) Sirj—The. sensation of disgust -which swept over .Auckland when the last see-, sion of the Supreme Court was held ha& died away, and is apparently forgotten. Another session is upon us with another crop" of revolting cases, but nothing has been done, or soems likely to be done, to cope with the evil. When women raise their voices on these subjects, they are almost invariably told that they are alienating the esteem and reverence of men lor their sex. But, judging from present day facts, I am afraid that esteem and reverence is very much overrated, if it exists at all, excepting, of course, towards a man's immediate feminine relatives. Those of us who have seen to what dimensions the social evil has grown in all the large cities of the Old Country may be pardoned for being a trifle sceptical on the subject, for the most innocent of us knows who maintains that army of wretched women. Here in New Zealand the evil has not attained to anything like the same size, as far as may be judged from outward appeaTances, but the number of cases of assaults on women and children that came before the Supreme Court at its last sitting was a disgrace to any civilised •country. But we have a more insidious evil still to guard against, for according to some statistics published recently, a large percentage of the marriages solemnised in New Zealand (nearly half, if I remember rightly} were marriages that had to be because circumstances had arisen that made it absolutely necessary that the union should take place. According to this then, we mothers cannot be sure that the yeung men who axe honoured guests in our home, and engaged to be married to our daughters, will treat those girls with -the respect due to them. This, mind you, is what these statistics tell us of a large number of the men of Australasia. Then, some wiseacre says solemnly that "a wave of immorality is passing over the world," as if it could not be stopped. The State has endeavoured to cope with the evil, and, so far, failed. The churches have honestly -tried to stem it, and also failed. But there is one force which will not fail if it goes to work energetically and earnestly, and that force is the parents of the rising generation. They cannot fail except in very rare cases, for they understand their*children better than any outsider, and they are the only persons who can speak to their boys and girls seriously on certain subjects. And in this connection I pin my faith more particularly on the mothers, as many men have an idiotic notion that '•'boys will be boys, and are all the better ■ when they have sown their wild oats." They do not stop to consider that the sowing of wild oats often results in the reaping of a, crop of vain regrets, or that the boy who sets out to sow that kind of jseed keeps tfn ■'-Bowing it all his life, unless, as often happens, he meets a geod girl, who marries him and saves him. • So, in cases where the father holds these notions, I would* have the mother take the matter into her own hands, lay aside all false delicacy, and talk to her boys straightforwardly. She should make them understand that it is quite impossible that there can be one code of morality for men and another for wo- < men. A eia mast >c * sim no swtte?

who comniite'ifc. Tell them"that the man who degrades an innocent girl (even if he intends to marry her) debases his manhood, and disgraces the mother whd bore him. Tell them that the person who does so is ten thousand times worse than the lowest* larrikin, the burglar, or indeed, any criminal in. our midst, except, perhaps, the murderer. Tell them this, and other things of the kind, not once but dozens of times. Make their conception of morality as much a part of their religion as the Lord's Prayer or the Apostles' Creed, as indeed it. ought to be, for _ what is the use of an individual saying I believe, when his actions deny the existence of a. Judge and the certainty of judgment.

Girls, thank heaven, have never been taught any false notions about morality. A high standard has always been expected of them, and the great majority will live up to it. Nevertheless, a sensible motherly talk occasionally would do them good also, and it certainly should be impressed upon them that if they are unfortunate enough to meet a man with whom respect does not go hand-in-hand with love they should avoid him as if he had the plague. And I would repeat to them Ruskin's words, that it is the height of folly for any human being to act foolishly or wickedly, and then expect a miracle to happen to avert the consequences of that action.

There is another matter that I think we women might very well turn our attention to, and insist upon having altered. I allude to that legal farce, the age of consent. A law which says that a girl may consent to her own ruin at sixteen, but cannot give her consent to a decent, honourable marriage until she is twenty-one is, most sane people will admit, the height of inconsistency. Just think of it mothers, your sixteen-year-old daughter, just emerging from childhood,, with all the bloom of youth upon her, and life stretching out before her apparently one long beautiful idyll Her little head is full of romantic nonsense, she is waiting for the prince, and ready to fall into what she thinks is love with the first good-looking, smooth-tongued specimen of the opposite sex who pays her any attention. And this ebild is the being whom the New Zealand law says is old enough and sensible enough to consent to her own degradation. Of course I shall be told that the boys also need protection, that some girls are as bad as they are, which is, alas, quite true. Some boys and girls apparently cannot be kept straight, no matter how hard their parents try to manage them. But if the law says ;we must have poor, depraved creatures of this kind' in our midst, in the name of God let them be women of mature age. not children. Therefore. I would suggest .the desirability of parents insisting upon the age Deing raised to twenty-one years. And if a girl under that age were proved to have misconducted heiself, she should be punished as well.as' her partner in guilt, excepting, of course, in cases where Nature took the punishment into her own hands.

When something of this kind is done —when parente realise their responsibilities in these matters, and teach their children real morality—then, and not till then, that wave of morality which we ; are told .will succeed the other, will pass over New Zealand, and make her in reality God's own country.—l am, etc., EMILY GIBSON. Kose Road, June 3, 190".