SPANISH WOMEN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6601, 19 May 1925, Page 7

SPANISH WOMEN.

In Andalusia, where Moorish customs and influence still largely prevail, the women of all classes are housewives, if not house slaves, first, last and always. The traditional window bars are the bars of a prison. The care of their families—cooking, sewing, cleaning—fully occupies these women. Frequent visits to church supply their only spectacular entertainment. Besides ironing, washing the clothes in a neighbouring stream and carrying water for the house in earthen jars, little or no manual labour is allowed or expected of them. In the north of Spain, and even in Old and New Castile, the countrywomen work in the fields and on the land as hard as, if not harder, than the men. They are strong mentally and physically. Their husbands appear to be incidents in rather than masters of their lives. One caftnot imagine the peasent women of Northern Spain submitting to the law which empowers husbands to dispose of their wives, like bits of furniture, as they think fit. The woman rules the roost. Although the contrast between the peasant women of north and south is so marked, all Spanish peasants, men and women, are united by one common link—their firm belief that their own village is the most beautiful, the most flourishing, though always in the face of the most difficulties, the most famous; in fact, the most perfect and desirable spot in Spain, if not in the whole world. In Spain, as in most countries, it is the upper classes that are the most strictly conservative. Spanish conservatism is something of which the most conservative American can hardly conceive. It stands for political and religious intolerance and repression, and endeavours to keep out of Spain the modern tide of education. It is a powerful and determined enemy of democracy in even its attenuated forms. It is reactionary to a degree, unthinkable in most civilised countries. Practically all Spanish women of aristocratic families are carefully brought up in this tradition. Their daughters never move without chaperones, except perhaps to church in. the mornings. Two or three girls are not allowed to chaperon each other even at the cinema. The average upper-class woman lives a secluded life. She attends to her household duties in the morning no matter how many servants she employs. She takes her drive down the Castellana in the afternoon. She meets her friends in one of the little, fashiofcable tea shops, or at a tea party in a friend's house. At the parties and receptions the men and women gather in separate groups at opposite ends of ,the room. Sometimes the women fade altogether to another room. In polite society it was considered indelicate up till quite recently for a girl to sit with her knees crossed. It is easier to realise the revolution effected by the first girl who some teq years ago was brave enough to wear breeches when ski-ing and tobogganing in the mountains near Madrid. Her example, which at first shocked and outraged, and which has since been generally imitated, indicated that ( the influence of the more modern and liberal ideas about women, disseminated in Spain by a small group of idealists and intellectuals, was being felt. Spanish women have a long journey to go before they can take their place among their emancipated sisters in America, England, and other enlightened countries. But they have started on the journey. The municipal vote, in a limited form, was recently granted to women in Spain, and in acquiring this they left French women behind. A small, undenominational group of women has been working here for a universal suffrage for some 14 or 15 years. These women feel assured they will obtain their goal very soon now. They believe Spanish women are wanting better conditions, and that they need only encouragement and more modern education to ’ •enable them to participate intelligently in politics. Spanish women are naturally quick and intelligent, and when fully aroused their influence should be enormous. —“Dearborn Independent."