NOTES FOR WOMEN.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16624, 21 October 1925, Page 2

NOTES FOR WOMEN.

Items of social interest and topics relating to the home are invited. Communications must be accompanied by the name and address ot the writer. Notices of engagement must be signed by one at least of the principals, or by some responsible person, as a guarantee of genuineness.

IS BEAUTY REALLY AN ASSET?

(By EDWARD CECIL.)

The writer says it is relatively easy for most woman nowadays to make themselves physically beautiful, but modern man is not content with meie loveliness. ... The cult of beauty is more widespread today than it ever has been. It is also more intensive. Ihe result is amazing. Not only are there more beautiful women than there ever Were in all walks of life—but the standard of beauty itself has lisen. No man knows nowadays when lie may not meet Venus in the theatre or the ballroom or sit down beside Helen of Troy on a motor-bus. It is no uncommon thing to meet a perfect goddess, disguised as a factory-gin, a shop girl, or even as a shorthandtypist. , By beauty is meant, of course, physical beauty. There seems to be a general agreement amongst women that this is the only beauty which really counts with the average man. That it is the best bait with which to catch him and get him into the net of mairiage. A generation or two ago it was a common thing for a girl discreetly to advertise her domestic virtues. I paid to do so. This sort of luie is now deemed out-of-date. Is* this because woman does not wish to be domesticated or because man no longer desires a domesticated woman?

It is comparatively easy, in these modern days ,to be beautiful. To be a Venus, or, at any rate, a good imitation of one—good enough to count—is in the light of up-to-date knowledge, almost as simple as the alphabet. A great discovery has been made. Beauty depends on health. Physical culture is a short cut to beauty—and a very reliable one. The body can be conquered, moulded and shaped. It can be taught to grow into beauty, if it is. not born beautiful. And, _ miracle of miracles, what has been gained can be kept! It is not, therefore,, surprising that a distinguished artist lias recently observed an immense improvement in the general standard of good looks in women. It is not necessary to have an artist’s eye, however, to observe this obvious phenomenon. Really good-looking girls are nowadays • as plentiful as roses in summer. They seem to increase and multiply. A plain-looking girl will soon be as scarce as authentic white heather on the mountain-side.

A WOMAN’S WORK

But is beauty really the supreme asset for women? When practically nine woman out of ten are beautiful, will there be any real value in the sort of beauty which is very easily attained?

The status of woman is high according as women are not just the beautiful envelopes of hardly existent" minds, but as they have the qualities •of integrity, gnowledge, constancy, honesty and courage. The proverbial frailty of the beautiful woman is not excusable, it is merely pitiable, aggravating and silly. Who but the oldfashioned man expects woman to be weak and forgives her if she is beautiful.

Physical beauty and good health are (often the outward and visible signs of real inward efficiency. Quite half the plain-looking women of the past owed their' lack of good looks to their laziness and their weak-mindedness. , We still see the type among women who do not live healthy and natural lives. . It is not merely because she is beautiful that the true modern girl is the hope of the future. It is because it is fairly certain that she owes her beauty to her practical good sense, her frankness, and her strength of character. . A good man loves his wire in tlie long run for what she is, not for wiiat she looks like. The short run in love is never really worth while. Few of us would care to see anything but a continuance of the general improvement in good looks, and good health, in the fair sex. We really do want the fair sex to be the fair sex. But we view with alarm the general tendency to be content with that. The amazing ingenuity of beauty experts and the avidity with which girls and women seek to paint the lily is distressing evidence of belief in a false ideal. There must be real ties of body. Women must be courageous in the qualities of mind as well as real qualibest sense of courage and not merely bold in the worst sense of brazen impudence. They must be true and faithful as well as good to look upon. They must have character as well as efficiency and kindliness as well as character. They must accept responsibilities with the same earnestness, as they seek pleasure. The ancient civilisation of Greece crumbled to the dust largely because it set a higher value on the beautiful woman than upon the good woman. It takes a strong man, with much patience, insight and tact, to live all his life with a really beautiful woman. Is this why so many men admire Venus but do not seek to marry her?

IS NEVER DONE. A BACHELOR’S TESTIMONY. A few days ago at San Francisco a doctor delivered himself of a remarkable pronouncement. He claimed to have made a great discovery. He finds ,after patient and careful observation, that the housewife of to-day is lazier than her predecessors. And he waxes hot in his denunciation of labour and time-saving devices, which, lie says, encourage this horrid sloth. To this attack on her sex, Lady Askwith has made a spirited reply. “Housewives never slack,” she declared. “They can and will always find something to do.” BABY-MINDING. I’m afraid shes’ right. I wish she wasn’t. If I were nearly as confident of the correctness of the American doctor’s theory 1 will confess that I should seriously consider the prospect of emigrating to San Francisco. For my complaint against housewives is that they find too much to do. And in my view, as a mere man, much of it is entirely unnecessary ; it is also irritating and unrestful to those who happen to be near them. Take, for instance, the problem of baby-minding. I often drop in for a chat at a house where there is a lusty infant and a tired, wan-looldng housewife.

“I never get a chance to rest,” slie moans. “As soon as I’m done with the housework it’s time to start making baby’s bottle.” I sympathised with her, until she went away one week-end and her-cousin ,a hospital nurse on holiday, came to mind the kiddie. She solved the problem 3 by making a' twelve hours’ suuply of whatever it is babies have in their bottles in advance. She was able to spend the whole afternoon sitting in the garden. I had never realised what a nice restful garden it was until then. If housewives were as lazy and slack as our friend from San Francisco asserts, I’m sure fewer of them would nod and fall asleep over darning of an evening. If I had a wife I would make her sign an agreement before marriage that she would take a nap each afternoon so as to be bright and wakeful when I got home. MAKING HER, SLACK. I’d make her slack, yes, I would. A fig for the San Francisco doctor! And I’d like her to do her marketing in the morning, as they do on the Continent, not wait until the afternoon or the evening whenever the best of the stuff has grown tired-looking. And if she greeted me on my return from work with a tale of how much spring-cleaning she’d done that day, why, I wouldn’t come home again. So that’s that. What I want to see at my ancestral front porch as 1 come up the road is a nice, clean, tidy, fresh, well-rested soft-tongued wife. .And if she must slack to attain this idea, why, get on with the slacking, say I. Half this “Woman’s Work is Never Done” stunt is just a pose. The silly things think men desire it. And the other half is due to lack of method.