ON THE DECAY OF PRETTY MANNERS IN WOMEN.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12392, 4 January 1906, Page 3

ON THE DECAY OF PRETTY MANNERS IN WOMEN.

Br Hil-h Mat-ixs (Author of "Co_in* thro* tbe Bye," 4c) Is the decay of pretty manner- in women nowadays, to put it plainly, to be found in the absence of piettiness in tho women themselves P Tho streets aro filled with fine, athletic girls, but .the pretty little girl, with her. smile, her blush, her little foot and hand, her gracious "ways," her thanks for some small service rendered; where is she? She has vanished from tho highways of the world, or it would seem that at her first fluttering essay into she has been pounced on, and hidden, away by greedy man for his own secret joy and pride, himself a willing slave to those winning arts that bo much more appeal to his heart than the mannish habits, tho cool insolence of the overemancipated, over-athletic girls of today. For tho dismal fact remains that as tho health and growth of the female race advances, beauty recedes, becomes almost a lost quantity, as you may easily ascertain by going on foot for several successive days through the West End of London, passing in review tho thousands of women driving, motoring, cycling, and on foot. If during those days you see in oil, half a dozen faces that fulfil your idea c-f beauty in form, colouring, and expression, you are fortunate, but the chances, one might almost say,,the certainties are, that you will meet miles of tall, aggressive, striding lasses who contemptuously shoulder you out of their way, returning you cold glance for glance, or crowds of carefully made-up iniddle-age_ women, whose attempts to attract your admiration are even more disagreeable than the total indifference to your good or bad opinion displayed by tho "grenadiers" of the sex. * If you happen on a dewy-soft, medest, sweet little face, you may bo pretty sure that it came straight from the'country, and will shortly return there, for it is only in Town that I affirm this rarity of beauty—-.the place where freedom of gait and thought is carried to such lengths that "I care for nobody no, not I, and nobody cares for mc," may well appear to be tho guiding motto of women. .Men complain that when they offer some such slight act of courtesy to women as Grandpa and even Father offered E6 a matter of course, they do not receive ono word of thanks or acknowledgment, consequently tho pretty-mannered women (and they are yet to be found) have to suffer for the rudeness of their sisters —and are tarred with the tame brush of man's disgust. On tho one hand you hear bitter complaints of the decline in men's manners, on tho other, men talk contemptuously of the change for the worse in women's, yet when all is said and done, it is the mistress or tho daughter of the house who gives the tone to tho manners of the men -who live in, or visit ifc. Where the women are careless, immodest, illbred, mocking at all the gracious amenities and restraints of social and family life, there will be found men only too willing to let themselves go in their company, gladly discarding those restraints that formerly hid their seamy side, as much from themselves as from others. .Thus a moral support of incalculable moral value is withdrawn, for to lea\e off one's .manners is equivalent to never changing one's clothes at the proper times, and just as a slovenly negligence of the person inevitably degrades and underminesMt, so does a carelccs bearing tend to similar conduct, and rapid deterioration of character. Briefly then, what is tho reasoa of this falling off in good breeding in both women and men? There aro three reasons—of which this is the first and most important, that there aro not enough men to, go round, thus a vast surplus of women havo no chance of marriage and motherhood, which is the state for which they weiro born, naturo having emphatically •laid down tho law that '• FOR EVERY JILL THERE SHOULD BE A JACK, ■'■■ , and so a- chance of happiness afforded her. -':..- ' ■ • ■' Nothing tames and sweetens a woman like love, to be wooed, to be companioned, to know herself first with one human, being is the supreme joy, and though tho woman without a lover may not be actually conscious of this 1 want, will even fiercely deny its existenco, still it is there, embittering: aud I hardening her, till at lost her speech ; and gait correspond with the defiant, ..-starved heart within her.. Let the ; right man take the most aggressive, the j most self-willed, the most self-contained j woman of them all, and teach her love, and she will soften hour by hour before his eyes, love gives humility, endows j with charm, her manner, informed by her heart becomes gentle—this is the i typo of woman who treats man as an | enemy because she secretly wants him as' a lover, whereas the born old maid remains neutral and tepid all her life long, neither to be sweetened nor soured by man, since he docs not eriter into her scheme of existence. There ;'s, of course, a certain minority of women, who honestly do not wish to marry, and mistrust all men, hut again the question arises, havo men sufficiently, tried to overcome their prejudices, and do they not unduly flatter themselves on their brain and will power to live happily in a celibate state? The woman, who, looking back ona successful career that has had no love in it, counts'-herself happy, is not a woman at all, but a freak of nature, in which . something warm and human has by accident been left out, rendering her frustrate and incomplete. The second reason (and it is a very grave one) for the general discourtesy between the sexes, is the springing up in our midst of a class- of women, always married, usually middle-aged, who refuse to grow old gracefully and decently, and whose manners niay be described as carneying or fascinating, according to taste, but who will SUBMIT TO. ANY SORT OF TREATMENT, j brutality even, rather than let go of j men who take them about, amuse them, j pay for their menua plaisirs. and give them generally what they call "a good time"—and at what a price! Men are not good at classification, have not time to differentiate between women ond women, thus the pure i women are made.to snffcr for the fast, the flighty, the ridiculous, and can only withdraw into themselves, standing apart from those who enjoy the pleasures flung to them by man's contemptuous hand, having indeed no taste, for a familiarity that strikes at the very root of their self-respect and womanliness.

I do not say that such women are met evervwhere-i-there are vast tracts . of English society into which they have never penetrated, but that they exist as a type is painfully well known to many I a fresh young girl, who sees her bit of Eleasure filched from her by those who, aving eaten their cake, are determined to have it also. It is a misfortune, I know, to feel young inside, and be old out, but there are other ways of working off this vitality than by aping Ninon de I'Enclos' airs, and is not the antagonistic attitude of daughters to mothers nowadays often duo to the total Jack of dignii_ with which these mothers behave? There is something revolting m the sight of clean, fresh-faced boys dancing attendance on women whose eons are of the same age as themselves—youth to youth—age to age—dignity to the meridian of life, and the ripe charm that experience gives, thus should it be now, as it has been in the past. It is a- hard saying, but it seems to mc, that with our own dear mothers of the Last generation we buried all that are left of the old-fashioned pattern, and that until the present-day women initiate a vast forward movement to a change urmanner towards men, so long will men fail in theirs towards the other

sex. The remedy lies in the women's own hands—-where shall they a beginning? From time immemorial they have been the bulwark of the country, whose importance as rearers of sons and daughters is more vital, more important to the State than are statesmen themselves and without whom (should they become universally corrupt) England must go to pieces, inevitably destroyed like other great __„on_, from within. For to keep tho homo together; to look properly after husband and children, ful-, filling daily a thousand acts of duty that no ono else can, that is THE WORK FOR WHICH WOMAN WAS BORN, and in the main it_ is very strenuou? work, engaging every faculty of heart and brain, and not all the successes of women who usurp men's places and professions, will leave the mark on posterity that this one, by the bringing up of her sons, the moulding of her husband, will. There is a third reason for the decay in courtesy between men and women — and perhaps it. is the saddest and- most menacing of all to our womanhood (being as it is, almost a. direct result of the two reasons I havo given above). It is when a certain type of girl realises that in addition to the eaarcdty of men, her chances of. marriage are still further, reduced by tho depredations of older women, and too often she becomes a free-lance, picking up eagerly a bit of pleasure here and there, and gradually cheapening herself to the restaurant or the theatre, the smoke and the wliisky-and-scda girl, who no more exacts fine manners from man than he expects'-them of her. Probably there is no real vice in her, but knowing that there is no fun possible to her without a man' to take her about, "die drifts into a false position, and sometimes, very rarely, is married by a man whoso reputation is as off-colour as her own. For men worth having decline to marry tho girls who place their good looks, their charm, their agreeable company at the disposal of chance comrades. As a rule a man marries because he wants come particular woman all to himself, but is it to be wondered at'that between, his disgust at grandmothers who ope the manners of girls of sixteen, and contempt for the facile giriis who will go anywhere, _o anything he pleases, that a man's own manners and self-re-straint deteriorate, and he decides not to marry at aH ?

With the whole dessert laid oh tho table before him, he reckons that ho would be ; a fool to sit down for the lest of his life with an especial fruit for diet, and often disgusted .with-the profusion, ho turns his back on the banquet, and will have none of it.

If a man of breeding (and though some female members of "the aristocracy set the worst examples of all, their men who despise them, never show it) he will keep silence, and only by his avoidance of women show his contempt for them, but the harshest, misogynist of them all may have all the harm light women have done him, undone a single good one, and if he go sufficiently far afield, he can still find her.

For as surely as violets hide under their green leaves, and come back year by year to rejoice our hearts, so surely do good, pretty, and charming gir»3 lurk in this island of ours, only awaiting the resolute seeker, breathing that atmosphere of womanliness, of charm, natural to them as the perfume is to the violet, being the-emanation of physical, moral and mental health;; From them you will get the" old-fashioned, pretty manner that answered so much better with our mothers and grandmothers, that answered so much Dettor (in the,matter" of lovers) than the rude, the carneying, and the so-ic-lled fascinating one of to-day.

Roughly, then, we may divide women into two classes nowadays, those who use violent and meretricious means to attract men;, for mercenary purposes, and wamen.who deliberately revolt men by their aggressively rude manners, claiming not only an equal status, L.nt an actual superiority- over them in physique, brains, and position, so .that one might suppose their aim to w a race of brainy Amazons, placing pigmy man behind them for protection nnd patronage. # i That women must work, is one of the sad conditions of their overpowering numbers, it may also be taken as granted that no woman likes long and sustained effort, for which,, as fashioned by nature, she is eminently unfitted, still Bhe can do that work quietly if she pleases, and there is no need, to antagonise by her attitude, the only legitimate worker in the open market that God and nature ever intended—man.

As I said before, , work she has enough at home, and to spare, let her then, with her sisters, turn" over a new leaf—the grandmothers discard their wigs, and capering foolishnesses, the married women who cannot live without admiration, turn to the cultivation of their homes, the girls who are contemptuously allowed to share men's pleasures, emigrate, and become honest wives of honest men, then, though thero must still remain a vast amount of incomplete womanhood, vio may look for a return of those pretty manners in women that men secretly cherish co deeply, and to meet which, their homage, so long forgotten, will inevitably spring again.