OUR DAUGHTERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4902, 17 March 1894, Page 3

OUR DAUGHTERS.

Mra Crackanthorpe's article in the Nineteenth Century ou " Tha Revolt of the Daughters" has given rise to a lively discussion in London papers of all complexions. .Woman of a recent issue for instance contains the first instalment of a series of contributions on the subject by well-known people. The Hon Mrs Henniker, sister of the Lord Lieutenant of ; Ireland, takes sides against the daughters. Mrs Andrew Lang holds herself strictly impartial. Archdeacon Farrar says that be haa seen nothing of the " revolt " personally. The Duchess of Sutherland regards the problem as " seemingly insurmountable." Lady Jeune, it ia interesting to learn, is at work on a magazine article dealing with the subject. The Speaker haa an article apropos of some letters ifc has received on tbo "revolt." It reduces Mra Crackanthorpe's article to this question : " Ought mothers to let their girls go to music halls ?" The daughters " want to go to the music halls ; they want to choose their own acquaintances independent of thoir mothers' approval, and they want a ' wanderjahre.' " One correspondent wants to, know whether by " wanderjahre " ia meant a latchkey. But all the "wants" are regarded by tho Speaker as springing from the same fundamental desire, the desire for the things which are " tabooed," and therefore "nob to be encouraged." Aa to the "wanderjahre" suggestion, " the prospect of the maiden starting forth with a latchkey in her pocket to sow her wild cats, while her mother gazes after her retreating form - from the watch-tower of her love," the staid Sneaker confesses an inclination to ask, with Truthful James, "Ib visions about, or is civilisation a failure ?" The claim now, saya the Speaker, "is not that the man shall have an equality of innocence with the girl he marries, bnt that the girl he marries shall have an equality of experience with the man." Thatsome sortof readjustment in our mode of treating the young girl ia oalled for there seems to the Speaker little reason to doubt; but itentera a strong plea for the preservation of " the tradition of the innocence of the young girl." In an article in Black and White the mother owns, with the cynicism of despair, that she has entirely given up the game, and that ib ia for her — if any one— to strike against the rule of tyrannical daughters. All this reminds "Autolycus," of the Pall Mall Gazette, somewhat of the contention of the old woman apropos of the borrowed kettle. Firstly, the daughters have their liberty ; secondly, they don't want it; thirdly, they would not know what to do with it if they had it.