DO WOMEN TALK MORE THAN MEN?

Evening Star, Issue 20311, 21 October 1929, Page 11

DO WOMEN TALK MORE THAN MEN?

THEME OF JEST AND SARCASM ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW As far back as history goes it has been the common opinion of philosophers, scribes, husbands, and others that woman has _ been, topmost and thoroughly, the talking animal, particularly domestically and connubially. Indeed, in the olden days, a special instrument of punishment, sanctioned by the law, was devised for women who constantly jawed at their husbands. It was called the scold’s bridle, and you may see samples of it in museums. It was an iron ring, with a protuberance for the mouth that prevented the tongue moving, and was fixed round the lower part of the face (writes “ Ben Adhem,” in the ‘ Liverpool Weekly Post ’). A WORD FOR MRS SOCRATES. I daresay there are husbands to-day, barbarous and ungallant fellows, . who would welcome a revival of that silencing invention. Solomon, I believe, denounces wordy wives in ‘ Proverbs.’ We know that the philosopher Socrates, in ancient Greece, had a nagging wife. Yet Socrates himself was no example of the teaching that speech is silvern . and silence is golden. Indeed, if that were true he would have been a bankrupt; for we read that he spent most of his time in the market place asking questions and arguing with any man who Would twist words with him. Perhaps that was the reason his spouse gave him lectures when he got home late for dinner, or tea spoiled by waiting for him. If we could only get Mrs Socrates’s story, perhaps we should find that the lady was not with out cause for deluging her husband with vocabulary. Saint Paul, wonderful writer, but rather biassed against women (he was a bachelor) laid- down the law that women must uot be allowed to preach (in churches). Perhaps he was afraid that if you once let one into a pulpit you would never get her out of it. Or maybe it was fear, or jealousy. The men wanted to have all the preaching to themselves. The tongue of woman has been man’s theme of- jest and sarcasm for ages. Some of you may remember the famous ‘ Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures,’ which .appeared in (Punch’ in the Victorian era. Even in these modern wireless days (it’s an old joke now) our Mother Eve is merrily spoken of as “ the first loud speaker.” MAN THE MONOPOLIST. I grant there are gassy wives, nagging wives, whose tongues are like a dripping tap. Let me say, felicitously, that I am not’ speaking from my own matrimonial experience but from observation. My own lady was of the quiet sort, and I have met so many others like her that I am beginning to think that the garrulous dame and the scold are the exceptions, not the rule. . In this matter, as in most others, it is the _ exceptions that get into' notoriety an d literature. Moreover, I have known husbands so lively at language that their wives could never get a word in, as the saying is, even if they had wanted. Then I have heard, men talking and arguing for hours about anything and nothing. These facts have set me wondering if woman has not been somewhat libelled through the

centuries, and have caused me. to ask the question: Which is the talking animal, woman or man? WHERE WOMEN DRAW THE LINE. Whichever it he, man till’recently has certainly had a monopoly of the talking in parliaments, church councils, conventions, town councils, committees, and everything else. Ho has always had a penchant for prattle, always been ready to seize any excuse for a conference or confab, or a discussion except when there was most need for it (such .as in Labour disputes).. The misogynist cynic will contend that man has been driven to this course to create occasions for letting off steam outside because he never bad any chance at home. But that is not correct. There are men (I have known some) who could gas so much at home that the women folk never got a look in. You never see women arguing at street corners till midnight and after, either at election time or any other season, "as you may see men so engrossed in the battle of words that they forget it is past bed-time, that their wives are waiting up for them, and that they have to get up and go to work in the morning. You never see groups of women sitting in parks, or standing in public places, debating foxhours, and you certainly never read of Their being brought up at the police court, as men are, for causing an obstruction or being a nuisance with their oratory. I read recently of a case at Blackpool. At a certain sheltered spot on the promenade, any fine afternoon or evening, and sometimes even when the weather is wet, you may como across a knot of men gassing and gesticulating and passersby gathering and grouping round them to see and hear what is going on. They are mostly residents; some of them middle-aged men retired from business, full of the confidence of material success, for they seem to have a notion that they could manage the country better than any government. But they are not all middle-aged and old men. There are young men amongst them, men of all ages. But they ad like arguing, they all like to show off such knowledge as they possess, to parade their experiences of travel, and so on. Some of them are in the same category as the Sunday school superintendent who walked three miles one wintry day to give a talk to the children at a village school. He opened his address this way ; “Do you children know why I have trudged all this way, through the cold and rain, to deliver this address to you? “ Yes, sir,” cried out one little boy. The speaker beamed at the boy, and said, expecting that the lad would reply that the gentleman had come because he loved to do good work, or something of that kind, “ Well, now, my good little boy, just tell us all why I have come all this way, in this inclement weather, to deliver an address to _ you dear children." And he looked with smiling anticipation at the young rasca] who, no doubt repeating a phrase he had caught from his elders, naively answered “ Because you like bearin’ yourself talk.” “CONTINUITY.” It’s usually amusing, sometimes interesting, occasionally instructive, to _ hear these open-air. debaters, who discuss

everything under the sun, from caterpillars to comets, trade, politics, theology, town council work, parliament, work and wages, capital, and labour, generally running round and round in x-ings of argument, and finishing about where they began. They slip into infinite digressions, side issues, and often fly off at tangents The debate may begin with tariffs and end with reincarnation, or start on local rates and land at the North Pole. The man with one or two ideas, or some personal travel experience, butts in at every opportunity. But what I want to point out particularly is this : Though sometimes women passing by with their husbands atop to listen, it is rarely that a woman chimes in. It is the men who do all the talking in fact, monopolise it. It is curious, too, how fond they are of certain words and phrases that have chanced to take their fancy. They are almost obsessed by them. They get hold of a big word, and make the common mistake of thinking that it explains the thing, where as a rule, it only clothes it with a great cloak. But big words are impressive and sound conclusive. “ What w- want, said one man, “is continuity. That s the thing. Not stagnation. Continuity. The Universe is continuity. Life is continuity. Everything is continuity.” A.nd ne thought that magic word “ continuity solved and settled everything. But really ords settle /ery little about the eternal mysteries. It is not in speech, but rather in the silences of the soul that one finds answers to tho riddles and problems of life and being. TALKERS AND POLICE. But let us hark back. Like the debaters I am describing, I have digressed. I crave pardon. I was remarking a little while back that women didn’t got in the police court for talking and arguing (though now and then they do for slanderous gossip, but that’s a different thing). Some of these debaters have been summoned, not for talking, but for obstruction (which is a bit of a legal quibble). One man has been fined several times, but be persists in his public speaking In other days he might have been regarded as a martyr in the cause of tree speech. But to-day we don’t manufacture martyrs. Fanatics are not looked upon as men of heroic, if extreme, principle, but as nuisances. Still, the police ought to let these men alone There are other things far worse than street debating to which they might turn their attention in the public’s interest. Also,, it is best to allow men to let off steam openly. When yon begin to muzzle you begin to make martyrs, and they get sympathy. - But that, too, is by tho way a little. Our question was: Which is the real talking animal, man or woman? Our investigation seems to indicate that, despite -the common notion to the contrary, man takes the medal for mouth work.

Let us do justice to woman. I daresay she has quite enough to answer for without being saddled with loquacity. Though she docs rouge her lips and powder her face, she’s not so black, nor so red either, as she’s painted. It’s man, not woman, who is the endless talker, isn t it.