IS IDLENESS A FEMININE PRIVILEGE? .

Otago Witness, Issue 2692, 18 October 1905, Page 75

IS IDLENESS A FEMININE PRIVILEGE? .

The trouble with women is that they do not know how to spend money. The great majority nerer have- any money, or they are at the mercy of some grim masculine creature, be he father or husband, who demands items.

Now, think of the average man bothering himself about items ! I think it must be a survival of the time when we inhabitated harems, or when we were beautiful dames, tio whom our true knights gave undying love, but nothing more substantial, or we rejoiced the souls of the ancient patriarchs, though we" did) not succeed in extracting casl

I don't for a. momoent believe that the lovely Hebrew damsel Rebecca' had a penny of hei own,' nor thai the peerless Guinevere had half a. crown (or whatever the coinage was) to buy her Laxmcelot a love tojcen. I wonder what the world- would have been like had the purse-strings of time been held by women? More comfortable possibly, but, I fear, much less beautiful. It takes the great, splendid masculine spendthrifts in high places to glorify tbe world with treasures of priceless - art.

It is the men who keep alive the extravagance, the beauty, and the ideality of life. But little credit to them who have always been able to put their hands in their trousers pockets and jingle the pennies. Now, time may mean money for a man, but who ever heard that time meant money for a: woman? No one, for the simple reason that it does not. Time and trouble are of so little value to the average woman fliat she squanders the one and is prodigal of the other in the most appalling way. " We are adepts of the idle industries because our time is of no earthly consequence. Think of the miles of lace we crochet, the impossible embroideries we make, the countless odds and ends we construct, of no earthly use except to catch dust. Think of the hours we waste at the piano which nc one wants to hear and which we never learn to play ; think of the awful pictures we make, which no one wants to see; the numerable things we do that are so orach-better clone by someone else. There may be male loafeis, superabundant mak loafers, but it seems to me as if their united numbers are as nothing as compared to those worthy lady loafers who are perfectly respectable and perfectly idle. Why should a woman bp permitted to loaf unreproved? Is idleness a feminine privilege?— Mrs John Lane, m the Fortnightly Review.