SARAH BERNHARDT ON WOMEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10079, 14 March 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

SARAH BERNHARDT ON WOMEN.

THE POSITION OF THE SEX.

AN INTERVIEW.

"American women 1 consider superior to all others," said Mine. Sarah Bernhardt, resting her chin on the palm of her hand and looking straight ahead of her. " Put even they are inferior to men." {She gave this opinion after reflection and with emphasis. " No," she continued, " from every point of view women are men's inferior. I have always been of that opinion. Everywhere, and at all times, they are inferior. Women are sometimes very clever, very intelligent, accomplish a great deal in the world, and sometimes attain eminence; but such women are rare, exceptlenal. You cannot say all women are beautiful because one woman is beautiful, or clever because one woman here and there is clever. The world is man's world. He has made it. Woman is not man's equal." •' But, raadame," I asked, " the new woman in America is a superior personago, one that makes us hopeful of the new man ?"

" Bah ! Men are all the same the world

over, and the woman too, except tlmt in some countries you find them under better or worse conditions. You Americans fsrour women by law, perhaps, too much; that makes your new woman. Our laws in France don't favour women at all, which is bad for women. Bud your laws make your new womtn ; she is not a real .creature, she is not reality. She H but a fancy, 'a fad,' as yon Americana call it, A delegation of the Societe des Femmes, from Belgium, did me an honour. They called on me and asked me to be President. I laughed. I told them I was fluttered, but I aid not believe in the emancipation of woman. I believed woman was best off when she was a woman."

",VVhab is your idea of the everyday woman?"

"Mine? Oh, ray—l like a woman to be 11 woman— sweet, pretty, amiable, the inferior of man, who believes him to be greater, wiser, better than alio. Women may like to think they are stronger, abler, cleverer than man until a crisis, then their physique tells. They are no longer unreal, fanciful thing'?, but real women, who need the strong arm, the stout heart, the clever head of the man. God made man to be the headwomen must obey." " Do you believe in divorce?" I asked. "I believe it is good that divorce is possible, but since divorce has become easier in France separations have decreased very much. People, knowing that divorce is possible, think more before marriageasto the character, temperament, and circumstances of their partners. In France society turns its face against divorced people; they can never go in good society. In England it is not quite so strict, and Auierioan friends tell mo that it makes no difference here. But 1 don't balieve such conditions can last; it strikes too hard at the family; it makes society too unnatural."

"Do you believe,as some do, that marriage will become a partnership dissoluble by mutual consent? 1 " Never, never. Three hundred years hence-that, Moil Ditu, and the little children? Oh, never, never. It can never be! Laws will become more stringent, not leas. By-and-by, fifty years, perhaps, there will be no divorces ala Dakota, it is bad for society. No, not oven the man-woman pardon, the new woman—would want that. Women may want the law to give them great privileges, too much for their good, but they will never want the marriage tie to be too easily broken. Some women are old at forty." " The newspapers have universally stated, madams, that you look younger to-day than you did ten years ago. How do you manage to do it?"

Mme. Sarah laughed heartily, " I really cannot tell you—c'tst It bon Dm, voila tout."

" Have you discovered no secret, no conduct of life, no royal road to perpetual lovelnoss and youth.'' "Ah, if I only knew, if I could only tell all women how to keep young. Would they not bless me, pray for me I French women ask me the same question, and all J can say is, it is th« good God,"