WOMAN'S COLOUR. SCHEMING

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 12

WOMAN'S COLOUR. SCHEMING

FIGHTING FOR FAVOUR OF CO.?. ■:•■•' MAN/ -.- j;

A '•■ ■-. • ■ , A ■■ ■ f. "Until monogamy was ■ established/ the problem of superfluous women didnot exist," said Dr. Josiah Oldfield iijj the course of a lecture* before the Eclec;, tic Club in London. "The Early ChurcH tried to solve the problem by making nuns; modern society tries to solve it by developing theTnasculine woman who rejects maternity." ; Nature insistently demanded marriage, and reproduction, he continued, and however much they flouted nature and apotheosised science,: there was no other alternative before them. In the lower orders of nature the great battle was between the males for the ownership of. the females. This warfare sometimes, developed brute strength and natural .weapons, but it always developed sex attractions, such as the glorious songs of the serenading thrush and nightim gale, or the brilliant and beautiful colouring of the male pheasant or peacock. Due, no doubt, to monogamy, the fight was transferred among the higher races from the male to the female warriors; Man. no longer fought to win the woman, but woman to win the man. !'■','

It was woman who put on'gay colours to. win the favour of sober-hued and coy! man. , Since woman could not imitate the vegetable world by blossoming out in the spring time with the full glory of the flower, or the supreme radiance of;;?, bird's plumage, she did the next best thing, and donned jazz jumpers, dazzling dresses, and scintillating .silk stockings, surmounted by an indefinite variety of hats of every hue. Women fought/each other in the !silk markets of Oxford-street,. the colour; modistes of Bond-street, and in every ribbon shop in the villages of the land.

While in the lower world it was sufficient for the niale to trap his mate, that was not enough for a woman. Having got her man, she must learn to keep him. Marriage was not merely a sex. union^but a life comradeship.. Poisonous women, like the scarlet belladonna, might catch men by colour, only to find themselves cast out again on to the Divorce Court scrap-heap;. or good women, like the red rose, might win men by colour, and be' cherished for their fragrance till they died. A powdered, nose, a painted lip, a darkened eyelash, or henna-dyed hair might catch a husband, but.they could not keep him:

Proceeding to give advice to women, Dr. Oldfield said every woman should develop some special attraction all her own, until it became something her man would be proud ofi . To; striim on the piano, to rank "below the poorest songster bird in singing, to wear the' clothes selected for her by: the shopwoman, to odorise herself with stale tobacco smoke, to stride over a golf course, to gamble on horses, or to be good at bridge was worth nothing in an existence in which a man and woman (lived together, each seeking comfort and love1 in the other. "A -A : '