MODERN YOUTHFULNESSITS PENALTIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3205, 18 August 1915, Page 74

MODERN YOUTHFULNESS—ITS PENALTIES.

By Coxstaxce Clyde.

(For the Otago Witness.)

It is usually considered that women [ have gained immensely by the greater ' extent of youth which they are now peri mitted to enjoy. No longer are we forced : into caps at 40 and into the ranks of the i wallflowers before the thirtieth birthday is i reached. Dancing, game-playing, and •j sports, once relegated to girls" are ours | now as long as we wish. And no doubt on the whole this is a good thing; yet in some few respects it really means a curtailment of liberty and of" privileges! It even presses on us at times like a weight, this necessity to be young always. to be even looking forward to the future to refrain religiously from harping on the past! For instance, in certain conventional ways women were freer in Victorian days than now. This may seem strange; but if we keep to middle-aged women, we see that it is so. Betsy Trotwood, typical middle-aged woman, was probably no older in years than many a, tennis-play-ing "girl" to-day; yet because middle age was middle age, then she was really freer to do what she liked than her prototype would bs to-day. It was evidently not thought odd that, living alone, she should keep a single gentleman (albeit a little mad} as solitary boarder; yet this the modern "girl"' of 40 could not do. From other sources—fiction written at the time and facts come down to us—we realise that women when they came to years of discretion could really take up responsibilities and attack life, as it were, with far less fear of " talk_" than they can now. One conies to the conclusion, indeed, that so far from being forced into cap and shawls, as we depict them, they took up these insignia very willingly.' I They wore the uniform that made them I free to do and speak as they liked, and as such they were appreciated. The women did not keep young, as we do—true: but we pay for our uncapped heads and cur unshawled shoulders all the same. Our modern system, of never growing old has other disadvantages. Some of these disadvantages are social, such as that which befell the bride when a eporter unfortunately mistook her for the mother. " Surely Ido not look middleaged? lam only 30," she said. "But middle-aged people so often look only oO nowadays." he replied with confused dextetlty. Sometimes the disadvantages of the new cult are more subtle. Women, for instance, are not so charmed as is popularly imagined when being assumed to be younger than they are. They are also assumed to be, therefore, less experienced, less fit to exercise authority. Women of 30 or older, for instance, have often exclaimed against the atrocious habit some women have of alluding to them as "girls." They are quite past seeing in this expression a compliment to youthful appearance, but rather wonder what particular foolishness they have been saying. On the other hand, no man can ever realise the annoyance of this no-longer-youncr woman when inadvertently she refers to herself as a girl. She is not in | the least pretending that she is a girl: I it is a pure momentary lapse of memory, nothing -more; but she knows what it sounds like, and she remembers that. • Hubert Bland in his " Letters to ,i Daughter " says that nothing gives a man a nastier jar than to hear a woman no longer young allude to herself in this manner, though, curiously enough, he adds, it rather gives him pleasure when a girl alludes to herself as a woman ! Even while bound by social law to remain as young as she can, woman : s sensitive to a possible charge of really claiming that youth so far as years are concerned. Yet at the same time., for the sake of her contemporaries (even if she chooses to disregard herself), she must not claim these years. That is one of the trials of modern life. "You remember when," cries 40-year-old CVlia eagerly, and mentions a politic: l .] incident of nonu lar interest come 22 years ago. " No; that was before my time," says Delia, gravely. Now, Doha's and Ceha's "time" are the same. p.r.J Delia must remember the incident quite well, unless she were j a deaf imbecile it 18 years of age, which lis unlikely. Delia, however, knows that j a modern middle-aged woman must not I remember more than 10 or 15 years back. I "If you recollect what happened at 18, no one ever dreams vou were only 18; they think you 25 si least," said one wise lady. ' There is no reason why this should be so: but undoubtedly there is something in it. "Nor do I quarrel with this unwritten law." said another. . " It helps us to look forward, which is the best view after all. It keeps us from retrospection, from pessimism, from weariness of life, and these are the things which make us .seem old to others." Undoubtedly 'that is the way of the wise woman to-day. Take note of her, and observe that she scarcely ever reverts to the years the. locust has eaten, and that when she does it is alwavs in an aggressivelv cheerful spirit. .As for the future, it may be her strength, but it is also a little of Iter weakness that she is full of it. Her joy in life is child-like, almost, one sometimes thinks, a little too child-like to be quite genuine. Yet in her footsteps we must all follow, j for it is the only attitude that is recognised in the world to-dav. Some times ! one almost longs for the days when one ! had not to be so "bright," so alert, so J happy, when one could subside (for a | time, at least), bv the fire and. " remii nisre." unchecked by alarmed contemporaries, or what the world was 20 vcars ago. ________