THE AMERICAN WOMAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7923, 30 January 1904, Page 3

THE AMERICAN WOMAN.

As Others S9O Hor. The American woman bas been so long accustomed to praise, fervent and unqualified, that she will probably resent the remarks of Mr H. B. MarriottWatson, who writes in the "Nineteenth Century " upon " The. Deleterious Effect of Americanisation upon Women." Mr Watson regards the American woman as just what a woman should not be, and almost too far gone for repair. Her worst defect in his eyes is her boast that* she seldom loses her heart and never her head. " The evidences that American women are deliberately turning their backs on natural laws have accumulated of recent years," he writes. "Their cold-bloodedness is, in fact, a signal of degeneracy, testifying to the dessication 0 f natural sentiment. And that this exists in all classes, and not alone in tho moneyed classes", is apparent from a perusal of the instructive book, 'The Woman Who Toils,' by Mrs Van Vorst and Miss Van Vorst, to 'which President Roosevelt recently contributed a prefatory note." The attitude of the factory girl, is characteristic of her more fortunate sisters. " I ain'b ready to marry him yet," she says. " Twen-ty-five is time enough. I'm only twenty - tliree. I can have a good time just aa I am." That is precisely where the danger lies — in the good time. Mr Watson even regards European faults as healthier than American virtues, and would rather that the human spirit should vibrate with passionate human feeling and fall than that ifc should " starve of coldness in virtuous orthodoxy." The world is face to face with a new type, he complains. Whereas the savage woman acted as beast of burden to her lord, the American man works like a beast of burden to support in luxury his triumphing lady. Mr Watson also quotes with appreciation Mrs Van Vorst, who declared that she had never heard of a baby in the factory town in which she had worked. " The American woman," she said, " is restless dissatisfied. Society, whether amongst . the highest or lowest classes, has drawn her towards a destiny that is not moral. The factories are full of old maids, fche colleges are full of old maids, the ball-rooms in the worldly centres are full of old maids. Por natural obligations are substituted the fictitious duties of clubs, meetings, committees, organisations, professions, a thousand unwomanly occupations." In fact Mr Marriott Watson is quite convinced that American civilisation, and particularly the American woman, are on the downward and not the upward grade.