COURTESY TO WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 20

COURTESY TO WOMEN

PHILOSOPHY OF AN'ORDINARY MAN

■.Hyde Park, and later the District Railway, offer me little spectacles which inspire reflection, writes Guy Stenning, in "Chamber's Journal." A •white-haired gentleman stands by the railings of Rotten Eow in conversation ■with a lady on horseback. Notwithstanding a keen east wind, and an age which has thinned his hair, he stands bareheaded; and it is not until the lady has bowed her adieu, and spurred her horse on, that this courtly gentleman replaces his hat.

In the evening I am, reminded of tho incident when going homo in a crowded District Bailway train. A young girl rises to give her seat to an^elderly woman,' while some'half-dozen men of Varied ages retain theirs, reading their newspapers with . an attention which suggests a tribute to modern journalism.

The Ordinary Man is, to-day divided in opinion on the question of this simple act of courtesy which prompts • him to make the sacrifice of a short period of discomfort in obedience to the natural law which constitutes him 'She protector of his woman-kind. But the prompting is there, and the journalist need not preen himself unduly, for his article is not so entertaining as it would appear, but merely servos to conceal a sense of embarrassment. If, , for example, you werei politely to beg one of those gentlemen for his seat .ion account of, say, your wife, who was . feeling faint, he would get4 up ' with alacrity, and •with a expression,of countenance intended to convey his astonishment that there was such a! thing ( .as a -woman standing in the whole ' rlength of the carriage-f-so absorbed had he been in; his newspaper.

Oh! I know, because I have done- it!

; Which goes to provo that we Ordi.Jiary Men are rather ashamed of this "custom we are introducing, one which runs counter to our essential decent inclinations. ■•■■'"■■

■ And now let us examine the subject from a standpoint of which we are, '"perhaps, losing.sight.' ■ ' ' r . ', ;' !

There is no man on the whole face of this planet who has such a chivalrous regard for his women as the Ordinary Englishman. Did not those French, Italian, Greek, and other nations' women whom wo met during the war show us their appreciation of this 4act? ; Then why object to a. negligibly small sacrifice to express that regard? ■;•.-, ■ .;■

The principal objection appears to be that since women have thrust themselves into the sphere of men's activities they must be subject to the- same inconveniences and. discomforts; that they are becoming masculine, and must bo content with the rough courtesies which men mete,out to each other. Is this, frankly, a sufficient excuse for an ungracious ' act? Ate we become so petty as to plead such casuistry?

" The lady in Hyde Park was wearing breeches, and riding nian.'s saddle! I. do not know what her occupation may have been, but I am certain that had she been the managing director of a .limited company,-or a 1 barrister,' or a doctor, or merely a humble clerk, that old gentleman would still liavc stood before her bareheaded; neither would he have sat while she stood, whether in a drawing-room, a train, or. on a desert island. , .

We may welcome or not the emancipation of woman, but wo must accept it as a process in the law of evolution,' obedient to forces over which we have' little- or no control.- , After all, ■ whatever.work .she does 'cannot alter her; sex, the beauty of which has been throughout the ages, and will remain through, all earthly time,: :tho • inspiration of man's greatest efforts. Take away from man his lovo' for woman, and what a poor thing ho becomes! I do not mean his mere passion, although even in that he may touch the fringe of the Divine,1 but the love of mother, daughter, sister, or wife—the love that moulds his finer sensibilities, ■, aud prompts, him to daily acts of unchronicled sacrifice and heroism; for there is much of heroism in. the dullest family circle. : ' ■;,...' ' : '.. -. ■ What visions did; those men in . the trenches have of home and:-mother-land? Was it not always a picture in which rose up the- form of some beloved woman for whoso beauty . of soul and body they had risked the' ghastly carnage of, a modern battlefield? And so, it will ever be! She may become a Judge or a Prime Minister, but she must always be our mother, daughter, sister, or lover. . Without her, life would lose its beauty, and heaven, itself its promise. ' . , . ' . .

Then let us'honour her in'.tho little as in the great, and let us in the trivial gesture of offering-her-our seat express that sense of chivalry which, ia an instinct in the Ordinary Man of to-day as it was in the Knights of the Hound Table.