MODERN WOMAN AND THE "GOOD OLD DAYS."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 65, 10 December 1907, Page 3

MODERN WOMAN AND THE "GOOD OLD DAYS."

It is tho fashion to decry the modern woman, says Mrs Neish in "A Woman's Notebook." Nothing the modern woman does or wears or says is like the woman who lived in the "good old days." 1 am not an ardent admirer of those good old clays, when it was unsafe to go into the streets'after nightfall, and when highwaymen pursued the traveller, and tho profligate preyed upon the innocent and helpless. Also in the "good old days" tho tone of society was far lower than it is now ,and both words and actions wore favoured that would not now he tolerated for a moment. Since it is undeniably woman who sots the standard of tho society!in which she moves, the modern woman must therefore be more refined than her great and greater grandmothers, although in tho early Victorian clays a certain prudishness abounded which wns only the natural and even necessary reaction from the coarser age. The 1 modern woman is more outspoken than lier bc-ringloted graitdmother would ever nave dared to bo, she is freer too, and independent sometimes almost to a fault; yet to my mind she is far preferable , to the shy and simple maid who wont into hysterics at the sight of a mouse, and who blushed and simpered, and boliiivod every silly speech simply because she was so hedged in and guarded by chaperons and maids and' guardians and parents that her opportunities for listening to silly speeches were very few, and, in consequence, like "stolen kisses," were doubly sweet. The present-day girl, has ample opportunity for weighing the pros and cons of her admirers' merits, for girls are allowed great freedom, oven too much freedom, perhaps nowadays; but hero again tho fault is on tho side of wisdom, I think, for too great freedom is better than none at all. One may lead to a certain over-dependence and boyishness of manner, whereas tho other almost always leads to deceit ana slyness. There is but little need of a Gretna Green in these free days. Girls free to marry wnom they like, have neither desire nor need to olopc. The modern woman has undoubtedly her faults—so had tho much lauded ladies of olden days; thoy were surely as ready to talk scandal with their maids who came x,o them with their early morning chocolate, full of the gossip thoy had picked up for their mistresses by tho way; they were as ready to gamble, and were not only coarser in speech, but wore less cleanly in their habits, and with all their still-room essences for facial beauty, would have stared aghast at the modern well-groomed girl, fresh from her delightful morning tub of clear cold water. Modern women are also accused —chiefly, I think, by unloved spinsters, or by men who do not really know us —about not caring sufficiently about their children. This silly accusation is scarcely worth refuting. No one who has access to the inner nursery life of modern woman can doubt the passionato and tender adoration she feels for her little ones —women who, in spite of busy lives and ties, never for a moment neglect the welfare of their little ones. ' v ' Modern women, as I have already allowed, are doubtless full of faults; so aro men, and so have'all men and women been trom all known time. Human nature varies but little, and although nowadays thero is less chivalry of a picturesque kind, thoro is plenty of chivalry about, which alone is a truo sign the modern woman is as worthy of homage as ovor. ' t "I'Vailty," says Shakespeare—and ho was not speaking of tho much abused modern woman, but all women —"Frailty, thy name is woman!" But are we more frail or lull of faults than our forebears, or in fact than tli« women of whom he spoke? I have no doubt, in tho oklen days there wore finite as many wise shakings of ancient heads over the modern girl of that period, and as many sad prophecies as to the maidens' future ..as there aro now, but nowadays the papers repeat what the pessimists think. A now profession for women has been discovered by a lady N who, realising that nearly all careers aro overcrowded, has tho originalit.y to start as a cluna-mender. It needs delicacy of touch, artistic fooling, and neat workmanship. So far it has bcon left iu tho hands of men.