The Triumphant Way of the Woman.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 40 (Supplement)

The Triumphant Way of the Woman.

| By Oxk ok Them. J 'F the women of any land may be assumed to hold a vital interest in the triumphant way of the woman, surely it is the women of New Zealand. In the very forefront of pro- i gross they, by their struggle for and acquisition of electoral privileges, have ' heartened and encouraged women all over the world. True, the women of Finland . have hurried on to the legitimate sequence J of the political position before U6, in that they now occupy seats in their House of < Representatives, but that we do not grudge them The women of New Zealand having , had their rights thrust upon them, as it ' were, by a 6trong-mindod minority, desire and welcome a pause in the path of progress which will enable them, when the | supreme moment arrives, to take their j political place worthily and well. The t evolution of the modern woman in our little j corner of the world, far removed from the Sturm and Drang of life in the older centres, has yet been coloured and influenced in part by the same currents which have beat hot and cold, for and against, the development of women all over the ■ world. Therefore, even in a mere glance , ■ at the way of the woman, it is infinitely | ' more interesting to run over the various I 3tages of development from which we ' ! modern women have been evolved, ere we

consider the rcnult- ' ing product. The ( progress of women has been a varying and erratic- one. The | lines along which

they have from time !to time emerged

from their conventional position of subservience to men. have not always- been marked by enhor suoeest, or distinction. "If it 1«> true to say that women at their bo>t anJ wornt arc ai heaven and hell, it is truer still to say that the extremes of women's fate have touched heaven and hell." Women have been — Mill are in more paits of the -work! than wo care to remember — drudges and l>easts of Inn den. minister injj with patient phy-ical toil to the material need-> of indolent, masterful men and helpless children. They have been shut up and sequestered, their beauty and scn.suou* charm cared for, developed, and worshipped, while their mental and spiritual qualities were stunted and dwarfed. They have exercised, lawfully or unlaw-

fully, by moans legitimate or the reverse, secretly or openly, such 6upreme power over men as has swayed the destinies of nations. They have been idealised and exalted to a point scarce lower than the angels — more, to the very heights of heaven. They have been ruthlessly and mercilessly forced into the most complete degradation of body and 6oul that the world can conceive. They have been praised beyond their merits, abused beyond their deserts, worshipped as saints, and ridiculed as fools, — and through it all, while exceptional women ha\ c risen or fallen to the highest and lowest conception of their critics, the average woman, the uncounted millions, the unending procession of sweethearts, wives, and mothers, have remained, as they will always remain, what God created them to be, A Helpmate for Man. We are apt to consider that in our time alone have women asserted their " rights," and forced their waj to the grave responsibilities of public life, or shared with men the duties and self-donials of citizens. We read. ho\ve\er, of women even before the Christian era holding the position of magistrates, and presiding at games under the Roman Empire; and it is on record that among the Jews of Smyrna a woman was appointed to a prominent position, which enabled her to preside over meetings somewhat like our parochial meetings. The early Christian Church in Macedonia also permitted women to take a prominent place in her organisation, and it would appear that already there were members Df our sex whom m these times we should :lass as " progressne," since they were more or less independent of their husbands. Dne inscription on a tomb of the period ;,„*. u««« .i^i.^^.qJ as h a \mg been erected by the wife for her dear husband and herself out of their joint earnings. The girls and maidens of ancient Rome were, we know, educated in the same way as their brothers ; the same learned slaves were, the preceptors of the girls and boys of noble families, and girls, studying the same great classical writers as their brothers, acquired a taste for elegant literature which coloured their maturer years. The plebeian families sent their lx>ys and girla to the same school* oUfitom rather tha .' conceding to girls each freedom and privilege. Finally, e\ en the marriage law became equal — a step certainly not anticipated by Cato, who had in his time rejoiced that a woman who was unfaithful to her husband might be put to death by him summarily ; although, if the jKisitions were reversed, the wife was powerless to avenge her wrongs. The progress of women, however, at this period was accompanied by a most discouraging laxity of morals a n<l freedom of life, for the pagan faiths of the time, distinguished alike by m>stery and licentiousness, admitted and encouraged their "^pintaiil deterioration by admittingwomen at> priestesses. This was probably the reason that presently within the Christian Church the power and position of women was limited to the cloister. Hero they rivalled men in 6aintline--s; but in vi nk into tho'r original inoie hous4> and home on their lordo.

i ihe outer world < I position of the j keeper, dependont

The Dke\.m Worn \x

The age of chivalry, while it gave to women a great deal of theoretical exaltation, was more a dream, a fantasy, a vague ideal only then shaping itself for future truth and reality, than we care to admit — for the phrase — "the Age of Chivalry" is one of those charming conceits of speech — suggestive of such delightful i possibiliies — that it is no wonder we cling

to it. Chivalry was a seductive id>a. and. as a forerunner, had its uses, but vas itself too fictitious a thing to last. Uuler the graceful cloak of courtesy, romaice, and

gallantry it concealed a lack of morals •which proved its destruction. The highilown romanticism of the upper classes. ■the knightly de\otion which turned the attitude of men to women into an attitude of unreal worship and adoration, expressed in joust and tournament, and knightly quest aji-d a<Uenturo penetrated no lower into -the social scale, but remained .» kind of draw-ing-room play ■which the rustics looked on -at, without its in any way affecting the miserable immorality of vtheir own lives. The Rfal Woman. The Middle -Ages were not marked by any great change •or advancement in the position of women. Here and there .a great saint, like St. Catherine of Sienna, -cast the radiance of her .lovely life upon the darkness; or the inspired 'figure of the young Joan of Arc flashing upon the amazed world showed what wjmen were capable of, just as Boaditea in the past and Pocahontas in the future

Wire to mark the flood-tide of exceptional had our " returned troopers " — the modern b illiance in other fields. The great and colonial equivalent for those ragged majority of women, however, in the Middle and footsore derelicts from Ramilies and -tges remained an inconspicuous social Malplaquet who begged their way through nultitude, their influence unrecognised; English counties; — but to which of them. Jet since home was their one and only even the poorest, dared we have offered $>here of action we may be sure that /he best among them were, in all classes of life, a powerful and muchwielded factor in social development

It is truly when any cause is at its lowest ebb of contempt, or its dreariest level of indifference in public esteem, that nobility of life in its exponents tells most strongly, and what help and influence, and cheer, the lives of the noblest women of the Middle Ages exercised upon their time, we may only dimly guess.

It has been pointed out before by women writers and speakers that the learned women of the Renaissance of Italy held positions which might well content the mo6t intellectual and ambitious women of our own day. Women were teaching mathematics and philosophy at Bologna and other learned centres, and were treated with equality and respect by their masculine contemporaries at a period when an Englishwoman aspiring to -•uch a position would promptly ha,\ c paid the price of her presumption at ihe red fire of the witches' stake.

The progress of women. howe^M in the nineteenth century differs from all former steps in several particulars. It has beon diffused thiouph all sections of the community — tho advance has been all along the lino, and has been continuous. Tim ii one difference. The other i< that, unlike those former periods of women's power and ascendency which were marked by increased laxity of morals and the obscuring of spirituality i behind a veil of sensuous freedom the New Procuress of Woman has j been marked by an undoubted rise in tho standard of moraht\ .

a- sixpence! And. auam. Li-ten to this entn : "To a. pjor Clorgv man, one -hilling . r ' Not ll- o amazing to v- arc the ontiics of wages— the maid'- »a<-,s : ,t £3 lier

annum, the fjim niin', -it llio tamo At | the same time many of <.ur everj d«i\ ' necessities must have been .serious enough , luxuries in the frugal housewife's ' accounts. With candles at 5* 2d a •dozen land "oyl" a, shilling a pint, we may bo sure there was much sitting by gloaming, I or firelight, in the long winter eienm^; I and the frequent entries of " worsted ; 6d," may well augge-t that knitting was about the only work piacticable. " Ru-hes

The Eighteenth Century Woman*. To come nearer to the heart of the thing's which ha\e mtluenced Iho women of our own colonies is to consuler the t\pe of women under whose caie and influ en co our immediate forbears (i ]) en t .heir girlhood. Xot a type that made much ado in the hit-tor\ of her time, or rushed into print, or plajed to the gallery in any waj. Jane Aust <> n has painted her for us in delicate, intimate detail, and the Brontes throw the fierce light of their brilliant intellects upon her feeble femininities. We ha\e learnt of her hou-o-hold ways from old letters and diaries, and can picture her girlhood in the da\s when good, uninteresting Queen Anne *at upon the English throne and Marlljorough fought at Malplaquct. We know that already the arts of the dentist were confidentially requisitioned to eke out Nature's descrepancies, for there were advertisements of "Artificial teeth ret in so well as to eat with them and not be discovered from natural." And we know, too, that the metaph\sician and faith healer of today had his forerunner in the '' licensed physician and 6tudont in a«trologv, who is prepared to cure all 6orts of agues in one dose, by the astrological way. which is surest--without seeing the patient." Surely a most convenient method for both patient and practitioner. Of the little intimate details of a woman's life, one gets the surest trlimpses in all time from that now almost ob«olete form of feminine confidence—the diary. Some of the little account books and diaries combined, which have come down to us from the dear house-mothers of long ago, are full of information, breathing in every line of the little cramped entries on household expenses, charities, and personal doings and spendings — the inward truths of long-forgotten lives. Nothing strikes one more than the difference of money value. "To a poor Souldjer" is a frequent entry, and ings were used and changed with quite always against it stands the modest item lavish profusion. Five shillings for 11 of sixpence. Well, we in our day have chickens is certainly not dear, or 8s 6d

I and sand" entered frequently, and always at the same price of 1~ (the pute of a pig 1 was only 2«). shows that the«e floor co\er-

for 171b of butter, or pheasants at Is each but what about tea at 12s per lb ! It i no wonder they brewed their own ale an< supplemented it with cowslip wine, evei though the cowslips had to be bought Sugar is only mentioned once, being s trieat luxury; but thr art of the careful housekeeper compounding her house hold remedies speak? from the entry of "poppies." 6d, or sometimes even Is. Of the London wonan of that time we really know less than, of her country lister. Of the lives oF the poorer classes, the toilers of tteir time, we know that they were ts unlovely — thoug-h in a different fa&ion — as the lives of the slum dwellers and the '■sweated' workers of to-\ay. Much of the work about the rivusides, the wharves, and the lighters wa done by women, who toiled, and dunk, and cursed their lot with the freelom and vehemence of men. Most of he market gardens round London wer cultivated by women, who car rid the " o-roen stuff" to market and hwked if ~ through the streets. Perhapi this similaritx in tho work of men and women of the labouring classes ttows , nnic licrht on an otherwise astoiming feature of the times namely, the re - quoncy with which women enhsteain both Arnn and Navy. Of the middle class London wo ma of the period we know singularly little though we know a great <leal of the srleet little group of government ollicials politician", noblemen and their families, who were clustered together at the West End and treated with .'reat disdain the "city" man and the tradesman of the period. The temptation to refresh our memories by a. passing glance at the general life of London as evpie— <'d in her streets and public places is hard to resist. It is impossible fo withstand a iin lie at tho modern "oWfa^liioned'' woman's complaints of the subtle fascination of clubs for her erring menkind. as one rend-, how the Londoner of the

eighteenth Lontui\ passed the largest part of his Uusiiro tune in coffee houses, and taverns. Is it not a.n old ator\ this ' Have not m c n always inclined to play the truant from the wholesome. j«'t somewhat dull. delights of 1) om p ' "' Coffee hou^e "' 01 "' ta\orn " did not of necessity uiipl \ extravagance or dissipation, but merely stood for that companionship and ex- < ha-nge of news and \ lows which WiL-. the substitute of the time for our greater <le\otion to newspapers and general reading. .V woman's life in London w<us m truth, not so widely different fiom that of her M-ter m the countrj. Her mo«t cnj,'rossii]« duties were -still the care and management of household ami children, though contact with the city's activities of trade and impro\ ing socia.l conditions were already rousing new desiretand ambition^. The journals of the poriod complain that even the tradesman's wife "must have her fine clothes, her chaise, or hor=e. with country lodgings and go three times a week to public diversions. " By public diNersions we may understand the theatre, for thie was practically the only place of rational evening arnuvmenb where both M'xe.s of all classes of the community met. We, who enjoy an <»ndle£« variety of amusements, and have an unlimited choice of novels, magazines, and litorature of aJI kinds wherewith to beguile our leisure hours, our idle evenings, can ha\e no conception of the wel- < nine change and excitement which these evenings at '"The Play " offered to our foremothers of a century and more ago. But play-going was expensive, and the little lea\en of unrest and progress which, by-and-bye. should le^\en the whole se\. was already unconsciously working in the London -woma,ris temperament and inducing- her to cast about her for 6ome means of lightening the routine of house-

iceeping and ne edlework, whose monotony l ac began to . find unendurable. The uraeroua tea gardens in and around

I London, no less than club. |. VMn , ~,^. codec hou^eh. afforded pleabbjf. r6 sorts I^l i the men of mkldle-class family but VV^H recreation could women resort ,_? 'jj^^l followed tho fashion of the little 'Nroir^^H -rvnt \Yn*t l"]nd ladies, whose mem. leisure perm^^J them to imV^H in the excitem^H of gambling, al rocr "j to playii-« of (nlucatioik, Jj^H town mouse ,i^ iioorly equip^^B ;is country mouP) Slio was taught leading, writing, si ml needlework of useful and ornamental varieties while in her (♦■en-,; later on tho accomplishments of playing, dancing, cards, an<l even a little T '" r o ne h were a d ded. Their teachers were, lioMewr. poorly c<|iii]ipexl themi'lm v s, and might pioliataly have liocn ladies' maids 111 some great family. The subjects taught were as few in number as they wore superficial in treatment. and further mental cultivation depended

upon the will, on t-portunity,t -portunity, and ability of the pupil heree.l' -t. when her period of sooaUed "tuitio -fl" was over. Contrasts •'« calmly the opportunities and acquiremr '** of <> ur great-grandmothers with our ~# n eeems to me to be a healthful mental « woise, And calculated to give ue a much " r opinion of our own wonderful atta lis than we usually take ! a cure ii 'or, that - Nly .^£/' ' our bi ',r-<»"*^'*«4|^flHg have though . , bare, 00l ; ception. w* I nrmn Vl/~ ' \

■"U the hitfh pulpit from which ymai. -doubtless a man of learnH*tainments— preached sermons of •ly unimpasuonod and comnioni»;ac , .'c. It ha» been *aid, and with much truth, "the eighteenth century was without ideals. Emotional religion, tho intercourse between a personal Deity and humanity, was entirely foreign alike to the minds of preacher and congregation . . . and the worthy merchant who livtd a. sober, charitable, and not profane existence might regard himself as on the high road to salvation." There was clearly then no soope for that emotional and pictuie-quo piety which in its own earlier time had been so powerful an instrument in the

progress of women's refineinent, and 6uch a refuge from the sordid daily round of the poorer middle classes. Some of our own worries, familiar demons of the modern household, were beginning to make themsplv3s felt in the live, of the eighteetfh century worn ar. Scarcely a wenjh, according to the Idler (1750), wa^ to ie got for all wort, since educai tior had made such nunbers of fine laiies that nobody v>uld now accept a Uwer title than that <5 "Waiting maid." «r something that .night qualify her to wear laoed 6hoes. and long ruffles, and sit at work in the parlour window. History — even domestic history — repeats itself. 3T3 T o v see and myself I shrewdly suspect that the problems of domestic service disturbed the neaco of the Roman matron no lees than that of the British or cranial descendant ! The Victobian Woman. Its when we get to the woman of the ear' Victorian period that we begin a^ it we to feel the immediate in- " Bui' is which are near enough bo own time to be classify nd valued. We have a good deal of her „g ' • last few years certainly, at mainly from the all-absorbing point of view of •■he toilette -of the woman herself it did not seem worth 'hile ■ !>arently to inquire. Her dre s «—« — adapted to our own better ta=te. of course — has proved mo6t becoming; but her sentiment bores us, her simple prettine«s is " feeble," she '' really was quite uneducated," from our point of view, an d " what an unambitious, narrow creature she muet ha\e been" — so I am often assured. Seton Merriman tells " c that the \- «" IJ . en of ♦«■; beginning of the laet century play ed but a small part upon the world's social or political stage. " This na& a day in which women were treated with a great show of deference, while in reality they haU but little voice in the world's affairs." he says; and again. "A hundred years ago women did not know their place as they do to-day. They ignored the primary ethics of the equality of i 'ie ?exo«, and did not know as we know to t' j.\ that a woman's opinion is alwa\-> of immense vaJue. whether she knows anything of the matter or not." Writers of crisp magazine articles delight to «how us the little weaknesses and absurdities of the early 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 ; you can't laugh at her. «he is too utterly impossible." That is all quite true. , of course, and yet if we stop there, how untrue is the impression the truth has left us ! I like Mrs ' Frederic Harrison's true and womanly apprecia- ' tion of the Victorian woman when she says :

" She had a delightful reserve, the maidon of the middle eighteen hundreds, though she ma 3" ha-ve appeared at first sight obvious enough, discharging, her little household duties with a pretty precision and a happy pride. The care of a household, the spending of money, the household >

bridget. the etlucation of children, tho training of \oung ser\aii*» weie con^ideied hisjh social duties to which tho «w womaii should brintr all her -Kill and courage. lit concenablo that tin- M>r\anr (jiu^t on

now always with us, is m a gioat mea-uie caused by the absence ot such naming m t lie nnsti e.s^L-. ' |'lo which 1 unhesitatingly aitiwer : "In great measure. Yo-."'| Other precepts were that a joung mother li\e a great deal with her children, teaf h them, pla\ \%ith them, read to them, be their playmate and their friend. It wojs

no uncommon thing for a cultivated mother to teach h<>r children, boys and girls, up to the time they went to school."' It was not the actual teaching, but all that it implied, which made the relationship between the woman of the early Victorian period and her children .so different , to the atmosphere which surrounds the modern mother of every class and her 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 morale and tastes from the Queen and Court, and Englishwomen, impressed by

the homely unostentatiousnoss of Queen Victoria's life, copied their Queen and Court.— and overdid it I Domesticity, family responsibilities, homo duties, like e\ery good thing- under the sun. can be rendered a bore and a nuisance by overdoing. Who shall say that the revolt ot the modern women against the perpetual responsibilities of domestic life is not due to a natural reaction from that super-jwoctness r.nd feimnimt\ of the earh Victorian wo11.an''. And may not t lie same be «did of " accomplishments" t-o-c illed. and of sentiment '

You remember, perhup-. in Jane Austen's ■' P r 1(1 o and Prejudice " how Bingley c\pie-~»- hi^ wonderiii!; admiration at the I id\ hUe industry of tno jruU of his time. "It i* amazing," he declare*. " how young 1 idio«. can ha\o patience to be -o \ cry accompli^hed as they are they all paint table.s cover screens, and net pur.-es — I scarcely k - 'o\\ anyone who cannot do all this."

On the subject of plain needlework in the early Victoiiaii age, appalling ro\elations await u< ; ami wo war. to no more wonderment on "win ■«o many young people wo.ir ir lasses nowaday" or "win the children of the present du\ seem to have ?o many do fects of \i«ion tint were ne\er heard of in my young da\^." Mis On Id ihe AnioiK.ui \lK)htioniet. a notab'o woman in her day. explain* the mitter for us quit-e unintontionalh in Ihe following -cut o nee : "At the infant schools in England <hildien of tluee and four \eai-> old make minia tv re shirts about big enough for a large doll. I have --roil a --mall. fi n c. linen shirt ( rimeon ?}*}* by w English child of five \ oa r s o1 <\ and it was truly beautiful.'"' A reaction again6t domesticitj- and masculine maaterfulness M'cni') the n itural rcaetion fiom the \ ie t o ria n woman's «-oc lal atmosphere and mental outlook ; defectne eyesight may reasonably enough he presumed to be the - id result of infancy do\oted to fine needlework ; outdoor s)>oits and outspoken speech, tin ~wing hack of the pendulum from the eon ~uminp trivialities of makinp moos ba=ket> alum crystals, cut paper work, and paint <■(' tables; --but what alout sentiment and romance How has the attitude of the early Victorian woman affected her modern descendant there '!

"' Sentiment," says a reoent writer, "as it existed at the beginning- of this century, is a j thing- our bicycling, I examination - parsing, healthy-minded I girls have no knowj ledge of, and still U-.ss have they a desire to practise it; but 50 years ago, at the age of 16, heroines of novels had complete knowledge

of it. ani wore ha.nl at work practising it. Perhaps •'he change i^ for the better, but our wise \oung women hardly know what attractive creatures their mothers were with their pretty heads full of tomutitic dreams."

That wont 1 " art- l<-> -ontinu ntal and moro practi<al now than th"\ were 50 <ji* 100 \t-ars ag» not one will I th nk. deny. 1^ this too, "» reaction' Did the unreal attitude of devotion and wor-hin of tho men who in reality considered her as a

pl.iMiiate first aid a hoiu-e'nother last paJl upon the woman 01 a general .on or two !.<;« "' And in the actuautus of a, distinctly iioii-niarrying and md 'i oiident exist-i-nce. full of such hitherto utu!r<>ained-of po— ibilities a.s a warn* earning competency, equal iwliticdl right-, aii'd perfectly freeand recotini"<'d companion~hi\i l-eiweon the sexco. are uumrii fiiulmir the lebound from the -urfeit of sentimental sin. the immatu-

rity of mock passion presented in such types as our great grandmothers wept over and emulated ? The theory seems reasonable enough. Altogether, one scarcely wonders that the more sensible and intellectual women of

'the early Victorian age «et their faces. longingly enough toward*, changes which • 6hou!d break the dull monotons of their -own lives, and bring them to some common meeting ground of companionship with men other than the mere field of apnti •rnent. the walled gar:len 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 and grandfathsis found so adorable, let us see

.\hat our own especial --ettion did for us in the wav of sotting our feet m the wider paths of freedom. For three women wore the mothers without who=e aid and -\mpathy the girls of the middle and later Victorian period could not have done what they have.

The Pioneer Women of the Dominion. Lt must have been a strange awakening from the narrow and decorous convent.onalities of English life which awaited the wives of the first settlers in New Zealand. Ihey came to a state of things whose hard-

t-hi|>n and toil were utterly unrealised whose perils were undreamed of. Between the surroundings of the northern and southern women was from the very first a marked difference. Climatic conditions and the luxuriant beauty of natural surroundings in the north were but an insig-

nificant eet-off to the freedom from racial disturbances, the peace and security from the dread of ''murder and sudden death,"' enjoyed by the southern women. The long drawn out uncertainties of the Maori wars in the North, punctuated by the red

horror notes of massacre, the fluctuating commas of panic and fals<> alarm, wero experiences in which the pioneer mothers of the north ~hed their natural timiditj and dependence as dro-s in the firefc of advert-ity, and revealed the lure gold of a

courage, «i i -" and ci ar undreamed c l I do not 3i it the actu. pei i 1 and the tv« ">rs of that first Maori war poken of afterwards by th. ( -:ed it all With

a courage tli.it pai took alternately of the iiibliinit\ of faith, and the desperate quietude of despair. The days— with their -uriihuif and lx>aut\ and their endless round of toil, while the axes rang out in the f-ivc-t. and women who had never known \,hat menial toil was, bustled to

and fro in the simple dwellings, cooking. washing, butter-making — passed in comparative happiness, for the land was a goodly land, and the daylight is a woman's bulwark of strength.

But the nights— the long hours of darkness when the silence was broken by the weird sounds of the encompassing forest. the throb of the surf on the shore, the melancholy crescendo and diminuendo of the river hurrying seaward over the shiugly reaches. The long hours of darkness that led up to that dread hour of the dawn — the "morning darkness" — in which the sound of a war cry, the glint of tomahawk and whirl of " mere " might usher -in the last dawn for the watchers whose every sense seemed merged in that of listening. These were days to leave their prenatal mark on the unborn, to influence unconsciously the children, as well as to shadow with a, lofty isolation of soul, a great and splendid communion with the All Father, the pioneer women of the north. They passed, and though the smothered flame of Maori resentment and blind, passionate hatred broke out from time to time, conditions were different. and the daughters of the pioneer mothers had what their daughters would describe as "a jolly good time " while the Imperial regiments so long quartered here enlivened colonial society with the leaven of their gay trappings and flamboyant gallantry. But there was one feature in the lives of the pioneer women that was common alike to north and south, as it was to all the women of all the colonies in their first settlement — the distance from Home, the sense of isolation from the ties and associations of use and dear familiarity. We women of the present cannot realise in the faintest degree the meaning of distance and isolation. We are the unoon ' ecious sybarites who wax pathetic when country residence forbids the enjoyment of daiiy papers, the mental menu available from circulating libr arks, reading rooms, an j magazine clubs. We are ourselves a part in the daily and yearly unfolding pageant of " The triumphant way of the woman all over the world. Consciously or unconsciously, we are acted upon by the forces which show their activity now in one part of the world and now in another. We are becoming less original year by year we colonial women, being too much m touch and correspondence with the rest of the world. The frankness, the freedom, the charm of unconventional freshness and directness of vision which yet leavens the colonial woman is her inheritance from the pioneer mothers of the lonely settlements. when, cut off from outside influences, they developed a broad-minded, deep-hearted type of worth and beauty. Of the developments of woman all over the world in work and in play no one is a keener critic and watcher than the New Zealand woman. As to the evolution of some present century types, many people ■ I known consider that we are too remofe in distance, too indifferent in surroundings for these developments to affect us. My own impression, however. is that among colonial women of all classes— but especially the wealthier and more leisured— there is an ever-increasing desire to follow as much as is possible the tone of society and the trend of activities in the older countries.

The bachelor woman and the club woman are types of the most up-to-date woman, of which we know little in our more strenuous, less wealthy colonies. — none the less we are interested in these "freaks" of modern emancipation.

The Butterflies

Bachelor women have recently been designated by an Italian writer as the third sex," combining in themselves so strongly the essentials of both men and women as to render them akin to neither Signor Ferraro's opinion of this " third sex" is so original and so startling, because it bears the possibility of truth, that you must hear it:— "Women are gradually invading all the fields in which man had formerly no competition; and the women who compete belong to a new type— women who have accepted the necessity of single life and who throw into their work all the energy which Nature designed to meet the drain of maternity. . Consequently the competitor who now meets man at every turn is a creature like the working bee. in whom the desire to be a wife or mother has been atrophied, and the driving force of that desire is converted into a feverish hunger for work. Woman will count for more and more in the world: all careers will soon be open to her, for she will knock passionately at every door till she w admitted, and once she is allowed to compete, this sexless creature, this working bee, has such an advantage in the struggle for life as a man would" have who could live without eating." This no doubt is as exaggerated as rb is brilliant, and yet there is some truth in it. We need not go to older countries to find examples of these busy working bees, though at present our bachelor women with few exceptions do not live by themselves and work for their living just as their brothers mierht do — preferring to live at home, possibly because it is cheaper — possibly because we have at present no attractive and economical arrangements specially planned or co-operative for their existence as bachelor women.

The club woman is essentially a being of American evolution. She has elaborated herself to a certain extent in England. but America is her true habitat. Ten years ago there were about 500 women s clubs in America with a membership of 1,000.000; probably the number of clubs and total roll-call of members is more than doubled. But America is a big country. and 2 000.000 club women is not a startling percentage for her vast areas and population.

The Bees

of the human h«'ve are more in range, perhaps, of the colonial woman s sympathy than the Butterflies. The busy workers, the wage-earners of the world have always a voice that finds its echo in our own busy lives. If the modern woman's field of development ha*'' enlarged, if she has become the busy human bee. whose tapping highheeled shoes and frou-frou of silken skirts penetrates into realms hitherto undreamed of, she pays for her privileges ; pays, too. in a direction she had not reckoned upon, limiting still further the capacity for

marriage of her male rival. Yet, with that irony of Fate (or Circumstance) which works its impish tricks in all our plans, it is the mere womanly woman, working patiently at home for husband and children, content to be entered in the census returns "occupation" column under the heading of " domestic duties," who pays the real price of her sister woman's " freedom." This, however, is a crude statement which requires thinking out. Woman in the field of industrial labour has been already characterised as "a frightful failure." That she is not in any degree a financial success is attributable to several causes which may be briefh put as follows: The majority of single women workers, as in factories and businesses, are simply working until they get a chance of marrying, and thus there is not really any heart in their work, any pride in its excellence, any espirit de corps. Rather there is always the tendency to sink to that lowest level of labour, unskilled work. Nor is the effect of the married woman toiler in the industrial market any better, for it has been truly pointed out that "By marriage the industry of woman is rendered so fitful and elusive of adjustment to economic principle that it defies establishment as a constant force to be counted on, as labour may reckon with machinery. It appears to-day, unexpectedly substituting the cheap woman for the higher-priced man, and tomorrow it disappears in matrimony, leaving both its employer and its male rival at a disadvantage, the only definite result it has accomplished being that it has attached a lower wage to the performance of a certain amount of work."

The result of woman's invasion of the world's work ac a wage-earner has been to lower the rate of wages. A natural and inevitable result, too. Single women, the majority of them at all events, can afford to work for less than men, because their living co6ts them less. They do work for less because they would not otherwise get the work. One great reason they can. as a rule, live more cheaply than men is because thov are rarely entirely self-sup-porting. They usually live at home, often free of cost, or if they do contribute to home expenses it is on a much lower scale than is expected from the boy 6of the family. Very frequently, even among the poorest classes, wage-earning girls are helped a little by their fathers, brothers or some male relative, because the instinct to help and protect our women-kind is still, thank Heaven, natural to us. If they live in lodgings tho- pay less than men. Thus the flood of girl and woman labour, being cheap, wells up in factory, in warehouse, commercial and Government office, and the tide of wages ebbs in proportion, till the unskilled man and unskilled woman, standing on the same plane, the woman pushes the man into the outer darkness of the unemployed, and. taking her small earnings with triumph serves to illustrate " the progress of women " and gradually sinks the standard of the living wage a degree lower. Thu<= every successful woman wage-earner limits the field of her male competitors, and in bringing down the standard of wages renders it harder for men to keep their families.

But it may be urged they do not now need to keep them. Families even of girls^— that once undesirable domestic commodity — now keep themselves, are independent, self-respecting, emancipated unit' no longer a household of helpless women ruled by the all-important man. But all women do not desire to be wage-earners, and there are women even poor-spirited enough to prefer marrying and fulfilling that hopelessly old-fashioned roe of wi\o» and mothers. On their shoulders the now burdens fashioned by the modern disturbance of the labour markets lie. Men. too. beyond the mere competition caused by female labour, have another grievance and a very natural one. " The man remains liable for the support of the family even though his wife and daughter competing with him in business should lower his wages to the starvation point."

Frankly speaking, woman ha 6 emerged from her legitimate sphere of home, her natural place ac wife and mother, into a round of action where, being " a foreign body." her advent causes, and will cause, discomfort and annoyance until a complete readjustment of conditions restores harmony. It is true that unless we resorted to polygamy all women cannot marry. It is equally certain that all women do not desire to marry, would not be hapnv themselves or make others happy in tho married life. Therefore it certainly should be for the pood of both soxes that some — many, in fact — women «hould be independent units, willing and able to support themselves, and thus directly help others, by freeing them from expenditure and responsibility.

But because this is so, why should marriage and maternity fall into disrepute ? In listening to the conversation of a certain section of up-to-date persons one would think that maternity is ridiculous absurd, almost a crime. Well, if we are appraising women from the wage-earning point of view, certainly maternity, marriage even, must be a hindrance and an interruption. The trouble i 6 that wo women cannot sort ourselves out with some clearness and conviction, choosing our place in the general scheme as best befits our gifts and inclinations. Thus the wage-earners would be regarded by marrying and married women as a species of special providence, clearing the marriage market of " too heavy stock." and thus increasing the chance of marriage. The domestically-inclined woman, on the other hand, would be regarded as of a type nobler, finer, and bearing higher duties and responsibilities by far than her single business sister, in that upon her health and perfection of mind and body, as the mother of men. depends the welfare and greatness of her country and nation. There is one field of woman's labour in which ■she has always been a wage-earner even if her wages only amounted to a roof over her head and a lord and master to slave for, of which I have said nothing — domestic service. Yet by virtue of the millions of women who thus earn their living, who spend their lives with no other home than the little bedroom which is their sole share of privacy, and the kitchen which is the scene of their daily monotonous battle-ground. ; something should be said. The fact is, the subject is too large to combine with other branches of women's work, too r old to come under new headings. The woftv novelty which surrounds the question of domestic is the outcome of the modern development of mistress aftjkmaid.