THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1895. THE NEW WOMAN.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2692, 16 December 1895, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1895. THE NEW WOMAN.

With which are incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845, and the New Zealander .

Ladv f*T6uT has a short article on the above subject in the last number of the 'Oitizen which will repay perusal by reason of its bright stylo, broad views and very sensible conclusions. People talk a great deal about the New Woman. Part of what they say is sheer nonsense, and part is unhappily deadly with a certain spice of uncomfortable truths. These two portions of the subject Lady Stout analyses at the outset with some humour, much good temper and that brevity which is the soul of all wit, more particularly the wit which serves as the introduction of a great subject. “Oh yes, I am a New Woman,” she says to her numerous and not unshoeked questioners, “I am a New Woman, but I have not the faintest desire to adopt any of tho vices of the men, my dear—-I do not want to smoke [(though I have not the slightest objection to men smoking), drink, gamble, or have a good time at anybody olse’s expense. I don’t even intend to deck myself out in the graceful and artistic garments that the deposed race of mankind wish to cling to as the emblem of authority. No, my friend, I don’t want to bo a man woman, either in dress, morals or manners.” For a short, straight out, most effective, utterly demolishing criticism of tho nonsense so freely talked about tho New Woman in many circles in these days, nothing could bo bettor in the compass of such brief disclaimer. It is possible indeed that nothing could bo better in a space equal to three volumes. In the theories applied to the Now Woman there is, of course, nothing which is either truo or roal. The sex have every reason to be grateful to Lady Stout for having put their case so well. To her credit bo it said, she does not stop there. She writes frankly and bravely, as one facing tho trutli without any desire to minimise what is inconvenient in it. There is a type of woman before tho world which cannot be hidden; is determined, in fact, not to be hidden. Not the New Woman at all, this,writes Lady Stout. An old type, very; they used to be called loud and fast, and will be called so to the end of the chapter. The type always was the effect of some predisposing cause, and is so now. Those fast, loud women of our day are those “ whoso brains are not strong enough to boar the sudden change from restraint to freedom." There we have tho whole case put into a nutshell. The evil is there, and Lady Stout fearlessly points it out; and having pointed it out she proceeds to indicate tho remedy. Wo agree with her as to the fact that there are many fast, loud women who have come to occupy a bad eminence in the front ranks, and we further agree with her that they occupy that position, to the detriment of their sex, iu consequence of the increasing freedom which is the necessary outcome of the increasingly artificial conditions of modern society. In a community of pioneers they are conspicuous by their absence. Under other conditions they are tho victims of ignorance and want of thought. Teach them to think, give them an ideal, remove their ignorance and the world will know them no more. That is the scope of Lady Stout’s admirably conceived, very logical, very moderate paper. She will, wo hope, pardon us tor saying at this point that she has not covered all the ground. It is quite true that fast and loud women are bringing discredit on what is called the Now Woman. But they are by no means alone in that fault. There is a large class of women who, with tho greatest abhorrence for the loud and fast type, help that typo to belittle the cause of Woman striving to accommodate herself to the new conditions of life. They are tho imperfectly educated women who mistake hysteria for earnestness, and imagine that good-will covers all the sins of ignorance. They are more dangerous to the cause than their loud and fast sisters. Those are simply responsible for their actions, while their ignorant, well-meaning, injudicious, hysterical sisters are responsible for the paths which they insist upon making the roads of feminine life. The sarcasms levelled at the New Woman tall far more heavily on them than they do on the loud and fast ones, whose eccentricities are quite well understood, discounted and despised. But though they have not been referred to by Lady Stout, her paper will bo of the greatest use to them, if they will read it with the care and modesty that befit all great reformers and true idealists. The great question is what is the New Woman? The answer is that all that is best in the New Woman is as old as the world, which has always, thank Heaven, contained good women. That is the line worked out with much force in Lady Stout’s paper. The mother of tho Graochi was no doubt in her day styled as of the New Woman typo. In the ages that have passed since that great woman brought up her sons to do, and die and dare unselfishly, regulating their lives by the high ideal of simple duty, there have been many such. And there were many before her time, as witness the matron of old Sparta, who told her son that she would rather see him come back from tho fight on his shield than without it. In palaces and in the homes of the peasantry such women proved themselves, not “tho frivolous mistresses or adoring wives of weak men,” but the mothers of grand races who put their stamp on generations. Hero we have the key-note sounding clear and bright. Domesticity enters into it largely, so largely that without domesticity it would have no meaning. In all ages, no doubt, such women when they made their power felt through their strong individuality wore traduced, and satirised and belittled by a world that was neither earnest nor thoughtful. Thus the New Woman has always been with us, with the result that tho world has over realised that “ there is nothing now under tho sun,” not even the “New Woman.” The New Women were of old wives and mothers and housekeepers, the helpmates of men and their counsellors in all things. Tho wife and mother ideal is still, as Lady Stent points out, tho ideal of the New Women of to-day ; an ideal which requites conditions of equal virtue on both sides, as a necessary preliminary condition to the wellbeing of the race. “We wish to be wives and mothers,” she writes, but on those conditions. And inasmuch os all women cannot gratify that wish which is uppermost in every good woman’s heart, tho conditions of modern life requiring that many women shall make their way in the world unloved and alone, it is imperative that their fate must be watched over by their own sex. To that end there must be a certain equality between tbe sexes in the affairs of life, where attainable, and to produce that equality * tho sphere of woman’s employment must be enlarged. Moreover, there is much work which women can do better than men; such as the work of inspecting hospitals and asylums, the work of education and of charitable aid boards, and such institutions. By that we mean, not better along the whole line, but better so far as tho interests of tho sex are concerned; for whioh'roason the sphere of woman’s work should embrace these things. “ Then

•when men and women are better equipped for the battle of life, and understand equally well the consequences of tb‘o nogleot of mental and moral sanitary conditions "upoii,.their offspring, wo will bo able to do avfay with most of our institutions for tfie maintenance of the rick, deformed, and imbecile.” It touches firmly one.great department of a, great subject, and we can all say “amen." For the.rest, the object of the New Woman is, wo gather, to ameliorate society by working with Man, taking part with him in the management of the world so far as is possible, in the hope of improving both sexes by well directed effort for the amelioration of the World, It is a very fine ideal, and let us all hope attainable. The first instalment is to organise for the Parliamentary franchise and to get women on to Charitable Aid Boards, Education Boards, Hospital Boards, and to watch generally over the interests of women. Wo quote the concluding words of the paper:—“ The New Woman has set herself the task of improving the conditions of life for women, hoping thereby to improve the conditions for men as well, thus making it possible for both to raise the standard of the life of fatherhood and motherhood to a higher* purer plan© than has over been dreamt of in the past." Having quoted, wo recommend the paper to general notice.