Woman's World AND ITS WAYS

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 21, 25 January 1930, Page 15

Woman's World AND ITS WAYS

WORLD OF TO-MORROW.

A WOMAN "WRITES OP WOMEN. •(By'MMB. ALEXANDRA. KOLLONTAY, Soviet Diplomat and Authoress.) ■ In the world of to-morrow there will be no flappers—-because flappers are drones. It will be a really, discreditable thing for a girl to marry. someone she cares almost; nothing about, just for a home and freedom from jobs, and alimony in case her husband grows tired. There will be no Don Juans and. Lord Byrons; for the simple, reason .that women won't have time for them; And, by the same token,* no soft-hearted maidens "who sacrifice all for love and take poison. .' Every one, both ,man and woman, will have a job and a and love will be a luxury for both. A gorgeous luxury, perhaps, but one to be indulged judiciously, just,as wise intelligent people have always treated luxuries.-'' ■'. • - ' '■ . That is, the world that-1 believe will be—once the philosophy of "the modern women'' lias, become generally accepted by the 'heretofore weaker sex and made a political force—like votes for women.

There is no doubt in my mind' that this will come to pass; that the modern women's ideals will rule the world, and that men—mere men—will be forced to, accept these ideals along with "the new woman'.? "The only alternative; for the man will be for him to 1 become a hermit. "The fact is that love and family are no longer; a woman's whole existence. Love .and romance rio longer-play the chief role in the' modern girl's life as they did in those of her mother, and to even extent of her grandmother;: ■. - Take the girl of yesterday. She was brought up in a sheltered home, let us say, and the sole purpose of her existence was to marry and settle down. So, however much she might have wanted to do the same things thai, young men do, however much she might have dreamt of work, she could only settle, -down and cultivate the sweetness, tenderness and sentiment would ma"Ke her attractive to ineri. " • % Suppose,; then, that, she married. If children came, that was her life. She truly /loved her husband, and for a time he was, probably, very much in love wither;-But soon he began; to think more and more of his businesSi his assQciates in the outside world. His wife was just his wife, he was sure of her, sure she 'would always be there waiting for hfei'got hbme, sure that she would gracefully accept whatever kisses and tenderness he might, on o'ecar sion, deign to give her. • : Naturally, i there was' another side: to this picture. -In many families there were women'we called old maids.j They were women; who never succeeded in, catching, a husband. •';' And there was nothing on earth for them to do, but live out.their lives as old maids.':-, They never had learned any practical thing so that they could have gone to work and paid their way; in the world. And then, of course, there were other women who never married,tand who, having,to make' their own way, did.it in the.only.waiy they.knew:how; ?They,became parasites, using all ;the tricks of, tenderness and love-making that they had'been, taught as girls, to get ;from men. :i I so hate that [picture. But after all,; it is a fading picture-rHme that I think is about to go out of the world for, ever. Let me draw you the hew. one, as I see: it: , ff4 ' - '-':.'. '-' ''- , ': ; ' : ' : The,key tcPit is the fact that more: and more girls are going-into business, teaching, engineering, eyerything.j; More' and .more .of thein are be-' coming self-supporting ieach year; They are for that reason; indepehdent of men; they do notneed to marry to live full, "useful "iives—as men : hafe' always done, They no longer need those devices of tenderness and sentinient with which 7 'they formerly "angled ■ for husbands.:, 1 In fact;, they, find such things a burden'to them, a handicap; ;-. \ '•'} TheTmodern woman, the self-support-ing -professional, woman,, cannot,, allow, love fro'take first place in her life,""'.Cam-

you imagine a, woman doctor, for intance, adapting her time to the demands and desires of even a very beloved husband ? Soon she would come to the' point where she,would have to give up either husband or career; and certainly the modern woman would, I think, hold to her career. A typist, an office girl, a teacher, a policewoman, or company director might have the most ardent desire to'hurry "home to ner ill husband or sweetheart, but in the modern code business obligations come first; The -modern woman is learning,to subdue her emotions to reason, to master her tenderer feelings and put business and work before sentiment. She is learning to do what men have- always done. Consider the average man and you'll see just what I mean. Has the average business or professional man time for emotionß? Why, men have, not even time 'to fall in love any more. A man generally marries, nowadays because he needs a woman in his home; there is no longer such a thing as desperate love, or tender all-consuming passion. Men are completely rational, even in love affairs. And, curiously enough, this very tude is, I think, responsible-for most marriage conflicts, divorces, separations and desertions. We still have in the world great numbers of women- brought up under-the old regime—women of the

pre-war. generations who think love is everything, who are full of sentiment and the hope that marriage may be for them a union of hearts and souls. But such,a woman to-day soon finds that the [ man she marries regards love-making j in ihe home as something of a bore, and ; herself as a charming little'creature j with no intelligence or knowledge. She | feels cheated in her love and the union | is a failure. . So the modern, after-war girl totes no j burden of love illusions. She> keeps her heart She tries to take love, as I lightly as men do, to stay out of love entanglements. But >if sometimes she falls deeply in love—and with her; heritage this -is more likely to happen to 'her than to"a man—and she; is disap- | pointed, She does not take poison. l Neither does she believe she can never be happy again. $he just.picks herself tip, steps over her misfortune and ; goes on living, struggling, working, supporting -herself and finding solace in her career, until, mayhap, she finds some man with, whom she will be willing to go hand in, hand for years. Brave, rational,' clear-eyed at last—that is the modern girl, the woman of to-morrow. /" 'Love- and sentiment doomed* andromahceiforced into the discardi by such women?i By no means 1 ■ . I think love'i sentiment, and romance will be dn a sounder, more -interesting: basis to-morrow than in the case to-day, or was, for that matter, in, a/ny;'yesterday. Certainly, the woman of to-mor-' row will be., broader, -better infdrmed, better able to cope with life than the old-type woman.,. Certainly she will be more interesting in love; even if she never again;gives herself to a man; so wholly, that, as often happens-nowadays, he becomes surfeited and •! bored- and anxious to • get 1 away. i And; on the other hand, man 'will have Ito learn that now as woman joecomes more and more -independent, eebnomicallyi he, cannot buy her and her affections by merely going through a marriage ceremony,-paying for her .clothes arid, a home and occasional amusement. No'longer, then, can he buy, a woman. She will be* his only on, the'basis of sure and continued love! and she will have* to be won; always.' ■ He will have to- repay her love and; loyalty in kind, or lose her. And, since we; always want;what we T cannot have and strive itoekeep ithings we fean-we are. about to: lose, marriage will be on a sounder f oun-' dation than, ever. /[ The thing that; has; always mainly against .happy marriage has been just the certainty of the man that his, woman was Ms, come what migbt; that; she*, could'not get •away.., , '..;.-■ ', r " You can see this for yourself. In the;j old days, and,lndeed, amongtheipassing type of women to-day, it was.the woman who put all her •heart's:capital into lbye.t The. husband was, generally, rather, nig-; gardlyl He always hoped,and expected

to gefc ; more of affection and comfort than lie gave!, Society backed Lim in this hope and expectation. Bat the society of to-morrow 'will no longer do that; and if a man wants tokeep a woman''he will have to bring into the union finer moral values, appreciation and sympathy than he does now. Love-and marriage will be -a bargain between equals, not between master and slave as it was so often in the beginning, nor between economic dictator and economic dependent, as it has been more recently. . , ,> , ': . ■.-■■:■•-'■ A curious thing about this change that's now working in the world is that the flapper is a sort of intermediate type. She is half-way between the oldtype woman wlio was utterly dependent on winning a husband, and in that way a living, and the woman of to-morrow. She is *a gold digger, and lives without Work, mostly on what she can get from men. ; But she has somehow got iold of the modern woman's view of love. She does not take it so seriously as to let; it wreck her life if it should go wrong. She is not sentimental. She'has nothing in her of the tender Mimi of 'La Boheme,' or of Shakespeare's impassioned Juliet. She realises that love in this harder day is indeed a luxury. She only to go to work, to take life' seriously,'to become, .quite probably, the best type of the women of to-morrow. '