VANISHING FEMININE TYPES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143838, 12 July 1912, Page 7

VANISHING FEMININE TYPES.

The last two or three years have witnessed the gradual elimination of three pronounced feminine types—the Nagger, the Martyr, and the Cat. All were more or less the result of a narrow, circumscribed environment _ and the curiously limited conception of life which this produces. Monotony is responsible for many failings usually labelled feminine—failings which are the outcome not of sex, but Of circumstance. Men would probably be. similarly afflicted if they were compelled to lead the colourless, narrow lives' which the majority of women led in •the past. . , In a circumscribed environment the power of controlling thought is weakened, and the mind becomes captive to one or two ideas. The horizon of the married Victorian woman was limited' to her husband, her home, her next-door neighbour. The wider issues of life never touched her. The capacity for viewing life in its broader aspects effectually safeguards women from the vices of the Nagger, Martyr, or Cat. THE, NAGGER ON THE HEARTH. The Nagger was not, on the whole, “a bad sort." She was merely a victim of the “fixed idea.” A thought came into her head and she could not resist it. Her husband forgot something, or he was' late, or he spilt some tobacco ashes on the carpet. Not content with reprimanding him for it once, twice, yea even thrice, she returned to the assault again and again. Yet probably she was greatly attached to her husband—more so, perhaps, than ■ -the colder woman who does not nag because she cannot be bothered. Nagging presupposes a certain amount of interest in the person named. The nagging mother who is continually telling her little girl not to dq this and not to. do that is generally actuated by an excess of motherly zeal. Let the wellmeaning woman watch hersclf that she fall not into the snare of the Nagger. THE MUMMIFIED MARTYR. The Nagger and the Martyr have much in common, though on the surface they appear to be opposites. The one is garrulous, the other grimly silent. .Hotter on the whole have a Nagger on your heart than a Martyr. The Nagger, at any fate, is lively. She gives opportunities of retaliation; she keeps alive the fighting instinct. But the Martyr is petrifying and funereal. Her look of pained resignation is a perpetual reproach. Her whole attitude suggests; “Please— please— do not mind me; oh, dear, no, I’m of no account whatever." Her life is'one long succession, of unnecessary Self-Sacrifices. The most uncomfortable chair in the room is invariably captured by the Martyr. She foregoes visits to plays and concerts in order that she may “sit up” and wait for the others. She .never nags her hnshand, but she sits in-pained silence. Now and then she adroitly allows a large tear to “well up” in her eyes and roll dovfn her cheek. In her patience and pallor she suggests a marble tombstone. Her husband; if he is here to-day, is generally gone to-morrow. PURRING AND CLAWING. The Cat is more complex than either the Martyr \or the Nagger. On the surface she is much more agreeable, but, like her prototype in “Alice in. Wonderland,” though she looks goodnatured, she has very long claws and a great many teeth, . She does “unkind things with kindness,” as William Blake puts it Not so long ago there wore few women who had not a touch at least of cattiness. One catty woman makes many. It is a highly contagious quality. Now, the typo is becoming comparatively fare. Women are more given to barking than purring. Apart from such considerations as the developed intelligence and the broader interests of women nowadays, the times we live in are somewhat too strenuous for cattiness which necessitates some .subtlety, to flourish. Brutal frankness is somewhat fashionable, and though it may bo a painful process to 'listen to home truths, it is in a sense preferable to the cruel clawing of the Cat. It is better to he bitten than tobe scratched, and generally much less dangerous. THE POPULARITY OF THE BITER. The reaction against Early Victorian 'insipidity is also,to a certain;*extent responsible for the disappearance of the purring woman. “I love you because you are biting,” wrote Prosper Merimee to Madame Beanreaincourt. “There, is nothing I dislike so much as people iwho are always sweet.”.. This dislike to the saccharine quality in women is shared by many others. The catty woman is usually a “sweet” woman. The sourer she feels inwardly the sweeter she shows outwardly. One may shed a tear over the Nagger, who often concealed a good heart under a hard exterior; one may even “make moan” over the poor. MaHyr who was her own worst enemy, hut no one will regret the passing of. the Cat. She was altogether unlovable.—Daily News.