The Girl of the Period.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17296, 7 November 1921, Page 6

The Girl of the Period.

Th* series of articles lately published in the London ''Daily Telegraph" on "The Now "Woman" is significant '.if the degree of interest excited l>y a subject that is perennially new, and that i every now and then assumes an importance which makes it one of the, questions of the hour. It is some years now sines the manners and customs of the modern woman, especially the young woman. l>egan to attract more attention than usual, and as time has passed, especially since the end of tho 'war, she. has come more and moro inti prominence. Most of the discussion that has raged! round her has been of a critical nature, a good deal of it has been frankly condemnatory, and only here and tihere has a voice been raked in her defence. The pulpit has thundered at her, tho Press has derided her. She has been charged with lack of modesty, with loudness, slanginess, and vulgarity, wit'h devoting herself to the pursuit of pleasure, and with, not caring greatly how she secured it, with lack of domesticity, and, of course, with a passion for dress, and wild extravagance in gratifying it. Her bobbed hair, her powder and paint, her short skirts, lownecked blouses, and cheap fur coats, " near silk" stockings, and high-lhceled shoes, have all been the object of the world's ridicule, while doctors and others have denounced her cigarettesmoking and her fondness for alcohol, «md, because of tlhese afid habits, have drawn the darkest pictures of the) future of the race. The articles to which 'we have referred, contributed by women'prominent in literature, politics, and social work, and on the stage, and by a few men of some note, have discussed the new * woman from many angles, without flieat or bitterness; but the correspondence which has followed their publication has shown pretty clearly that a.large body of the public holds the opinion that the woman of today compares very badly, in regard to the possession and exercise of womanly qualities, with the woman of forty or fifty years ago. We may quote a description of the, yonng -woman, of the day which agrees, we have no doubt, with the views Ihold by large numbers of people- The ■writer speaks of her as "A creature who dyes her hair and paints her face, as the first articles of her personal religion; whose sole idea of (life is plenty of fun and luxury; and whose dress is the object of; such, thought and intellect as she possesses. Her main endeavour in this is to outvie her neighbours in the extravagance of fashion. ... If a sensible fashion lifts the gown out of tho mud she raises hers midway to her knees. With purity of 1 taste she has lost also that far more precious purity and delicacy of perception which sometimes means more than appears on the surface. . . . This imitation of the demi-monde in dress leads to something in manner and feeling. It leads to slang, bold talk, and fastness; to love of pleasure and indifference to duty; the desire of money before either love or happiness; to uselestmess at| home, dissatisfaction with tiho monotony of ordinary life, and horror of all useful work; in a word, to the worst forms of luxury and selfishness, to the most fatal effects arising irom want of high principle nnd absence of tender feeling. . . . No ono can say of the modern English girl that She is tender, loving, retiring, or domestic" We have said that this is a description of the young woman of the day. It is—but the day was more than fifty years ago Our quotation is an oxtract from that oiiee-fanious article by Mrs Lynn Linton, on "The Girl of the "Period," which appeared in th* "Saturday lleview : ' in 18<36, and provoked a furious discussion. Tho girl therein described was the mid-Vic-torian young woman, to whom we are apt to ascribe nil tho domestio virtues which in the opinion of many, arc totally lacking in the jrirl of the present. There is much comfort to be drawn from this example of history's habit of repeating itself, for many men of to-day hold in their inmost hearts memories of homes sanctified by mothers who possessed all the sweut womanly virtues, though in earlier life they had come under Mrs Lynn Linton's scarifying lash. The moral \s clear. If the "Girl of the Period" circa 1868 could develop into the mother of the '7o'6 and 'BO'S, one may observe with equanimity the many eccentricities of the young woman of 1020-21, confident that they are but a passing phase. We may deplore some extravagances of fashion —they have been the subject of men's wonder and ridicule all through the ages; the older generation may wish that the modern girl did not so often spoil her looks by the lavish, and frequently inartistic, use of powder and paint, thus [reducing herself to the level, in apI pearanoe, of the only class that up (o

twenty years ago practised the same habit. But there is no ground or excuse for pessimism when regarding the modern girl. In many ways she 13 no worse than her predecessors, in some she is better, and if in some others her freakish ways and fashions make her elders grieve, or fume, as the case may be, something must be allowed for the effect of the immense widening of the sphere of woman s work that followed the outbreak of the war. and for the. reaction succeeding the strain, c; years of war. which has made itself evident all the world over. The giri of the day is just as likely to develop into a good wife and mother as wa> her predecessor in the sixties.