THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN WOMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2758, 23 January 1907, Page 85

THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN WOMAN.

By Emmeline.

No. 3.— OUT-OF-DATE WOMAX.

It is the Victorian woman who really is

We have heard

the cut-of-date woman,

a good deal of her during the last few years certainly, but mainly from the all-absorb-ing point of view of the toilette — of the woman herself it did not seem worth while apparently to inquire. Her dress — adapted to our own better taste, of course — has proved most becoming ; but her sentiment bores us, her simple prettiness i.s '• feeble,"' ' she " leally was quite uneducated," from our point of view, and " what an unambi- ' tious, narrow creature she must have beon" — so lam often assured. Seton Merrimen tells us that the women of the beginning of tne last centuiy placed but a small part upon the woild'e social or political stage. " This was ,i day in ! which women were treated "with a great ! show of dofeience, while in reality they ' 'had bub little voice 111 the world's affairs,"' | he says; and again, "A hunched yeais ago women did not know their place as they do to-day. They ignored the primai}- | ethics of the equality of the sexes, and did 1 not know as we know to-day that a woman's opinion is always of" immen-<j value, whether she knows anything of the I matter or not."' Writers of crisp magazine ■ articles dt-light to show us the little weaknesses and absurdities of the caily Victorian woman, and we turn over the pages of Leech's drawings from Punch, and find her in her cottage bonnet, her shawl or "paletot," with her long ringlets and her crinoline — "such a sketch, don't you know," that "she isn't funny a bit ; voa can't laugh at her, she is too utterly im- ' possible."' ' That is all quite true, of couise, and , yet if we stop there, how untrue is the impression the truth hat. left us! I like Mis Frederic Hanison's tme and womanly appreciation of the Victorian woman" when she says : '"She had a delightful reserve, the maiden of the middle eighteen hundreds, though she may have appeared at fitst sight obvious enough, discharging her little household duties with a pretty pie- ! chion and a. happy pride. The care of a ' household, the .spending of money, the | household biidget, the education of chil- 1 dren, the training of young servants, were considered high soc^i duties, to which the wise woman should bring all her skill 1 and courage. Is it conceivable that the servant question, now always with us, is in a great measure caused by the absence of such training, in the ini*stre-->es? [To which I unhesitatingly answer: "In gifMt measure, Yes."] Other piecc-pts weie that a young mother should live a great deal ■ with her chiidicn, teach them, play with , them, read to them, be their playmate and their fuend. It was no uncommon thing for a cultivated mother to teach hei children, boys and enls, up to the time 1 they went to school." It was not the actual teaching, but all that it implied, which made the 1 elationship between the woman of the eaily Victorian period and her ehildien so different to the atmosphere which suirounds thy modern mother of evex^ clasi and, her i j

young family. People did not incessantly talk about horne — spelt with a capital H, — • its influence, power, and suggestion, in those days. They lived at home. The majority of women take the tone of their morals and tastes from the Queen and Court, and Englishwomen, impressed by the homely unostentatiousness of Queen Victoria's life, copied their Queen and Court, — and overdid H ! Domesticity, family responsibilities, home duties, like every good thing under the sun, can be rendered a boie and a nuisance by overdoing.

Who shall say that the revolt of the modern women "against the perpetual responsibilities of domestic life is not due to a natural reaction from that supersweetness and faminity of the early Victorian woman? And may not the" same oe said of "accomplishments"' 60-called, and of sentiment?

You remember, perhaps, in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice " how Bingley expresses his wondering admiration at the ladylike industry of the girls of his time. ''It is amazing," he declares, ''how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they are — they all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses — I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this." Evidently this was a, selection of the most favoured accomplishments of the time, culled, however, from an apallingly lengthy list of useless abominations, prominent among which stood basketmaking. Not the manufacturer of useful baskets for the sexvice of the household needs, but baskets that weie pretty (?), useless, and fragile enough to rank in their manufacture under the heading of "accomplishments."' Moss baskets, to take one of the long li«t of this popular divertisement, appear to me to be as thoroughly typical of the mild atmosphere and feeble artificiality of the time as our own wattle cushions, draped easels, and bead portieres are of our own vulgar, but moie aggressive travesties of ait. "Moss baskets," then, as their name implies, were preferably made of moss, '"6ewn or glued on to cardboard shapes, neatly lined."' But it is noted as a strong point in favour of this pleasing drawing-room ornament that "imitation moss may be made by knitting green wool tightly, damping and drying by a gentle heat to keep it curled, "then ravelling out and sewing on" ! The finishing touch of mock lustioity is study given when it is added that, coloured chalk eggs, lying in the imitation moss baskets, weie "extiemely pretty." On the subject of plain needlework in the early Victorian age, still more appalling revelations await us ; and we waste no more wondeiment on "why so many young people wear glares nowadays" or "why the children of the present day seem to have so many defects of vision that were never heard of in my young days."

Mrs Child, the American Abolitionist, a notable woman in her day, explains the matter' for us quite unintentionally in tho following sentence : "At the infant schools in England children of three and four years old make miniature shirts about big enough for a large doll. I have seen a small, fine, linen shirt made with crimson silk by an English child of five yeais old, and it was truly beautiful."

A reaction against domesticity and masculine mastei fulness seems the natural reaction from the Victorian woman's social atmosphere and mental outlook ; defective eyesight may reasonably enough be presumed to I>9 the Fad result of infancy devoted to fine needlework; outdoor sports and outspoken sneech, the swing back of the pendulum from the consuming trivialities of making moss baskets, alum crystals, cut paper work, and painted tables; — but what about sentiment and romance? How has the attitude of the eaily Victorian woman affected her modem descendant there?

"Sentiment," says a recent writer, "as it existed at the beginning of this centuiy, is a thing our bicycling, examination-pass mg, healthy -minded girls have no knowledge of, and still less have they v desire to practise it ; but 50 years ago, at the age of 16, heroines of novels had complete knowledge of it, and were hard at work practising it. Perhaps the change is for the better, but our wise young women hardly know what atti active cieaturcs their motheis weie with their pretty heads full of romantic dreams."

That women are less sentimental and more practical now than they were 50 or 100 years ago no one will, I think, deny. Is this, too, a reaction? Did the inneal attitude of devotion and woislnp of the men who in leality considered hex as a playmate first ajid a housemother last pall upon the woman of a generation or two ago. And m the actualities of a distinctly non-mairying and independent existence, full of such hithcito undreamed-of possibilitif-s as a wag-e earning competency, equal political rights, and pci fec.tly 'ice and recognised coniuanioiiship between the .sexes, aie women finding the lcbound from the surfeit of sentimentalism, the immatulity of mock passion presented 111 suc-h types as our great grandmotheis wept ovci and emulated:

The theory seems reasonab'e enough. Altogether, one scarcely wondeis that the more feasible and intellectual women of the early Victorian age set their face* longingly enough towaids changes which should break the dull monotony of their own lives, and bring them to some common meeting ground of companionship with men other than the meie field of sentiment, the walled garden of love, or the mysterious and dangerous ways of intrigue. Instead of joining the throng of speakers and writers all bent on extolling the up-to-date woman at the expense of the dear out-of-date woman -whom our fathers an-1 i<r<indfather.s found so adoiable, let us see what she did for us in the way of betting our feet m the wider p.itlis of freedom. For these women weie the motheis without whose aid and sympathy the girls of t he middle and later Victoiian period could. not have done what they have. In 1870 women were admitted to School Boai-ds in England. In 1875 women had succeeded so well in demonstrating their aptne'-s to share at least some forms of local government that tlje iiret female guardians were appointed in

England in that year. Thirty odd venrs ago ; and there are now, as a result of their success and ability, over 1000 women on these Poor Law Boards in Britain ! There ai'e a number of women acting as factory inspectors, and theie is a constant demand for more, while as sanitary inspectors women, once admitted, have proved themselves indispensable in much of the work connected with the oversight and direction of the conditions under which female and child labour is undertaken and carried' out.

We m New Zealand have led the way, and, like all pioneers, shall put Tip with the drawbacks while others will reap the advantages, in women's parliamentary franchise. It may not be geuerally known among us that women may also vote in the I^le of Man (they can't do much harm there) and in four of the United States — • Wyoming. Utah, Colorado, -and Idaho.

Along the lines of the professions the concessions vary much in different countries, and these variations I propose to touch on when the modern woman in her new place among the world's toilers Lomes under our consideration.