PRIMITIVE WOMAN.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 19 November 1923, Page 7

PRIMITIVE WOMAN.

One constantly hears of the primitive man, but seldom of the primitive woman. She still exists. Recently two Frenchwomen fought a duel over the man they loved, so writes, a contribute ai Home paper. A. casual glance at such an episode fills the reader with disgust. “How degrading,” says the' woman. “Disgusting,” mutters the man as he inwardly pities the object of such untamed’ devotion’. 'Subject to a keen scrutiny, however, it is not half so degrading or disgusting as it first appears. Every woman fights in some way for love; there is no obstacle too great to be overcome, more especially if it is her first love.

Cherished ideals, conventions, forms and ceremonies, principles once dearer than life itself, are mere straws in the patli blown away by one breath of the mighty wind storming the- citadel of her heart. Once possessed of the knowledge of an existing rival, a woman will fight tooth and nail for supreme possession of the man she loves. It is seldom, if ever, that educated women stoop to fight with their hands, but they fight with every art their brain can produce, fight grimly and desperately, knowing that one false move and the game is lost. In the heart of the meekest and apparently most harmless of women often seethes a very tumult of hatred and jealousy at the smallest attempt to rob her. and very often the mental fight she puts up has. a far more degrading effect than if she had fought with her hands.

A veritable avalanche of moods is at a woman’s command with which to woo the man she loves. With all the depth of her tenderness she will seek to held him, or with a lightning change of mood she wiil teas? and provoke him until her very uncertainty makes her appear the one possession most to be desired. From the very brink of death her love will call her back, all the pent-up passion, may be, of years breaking all -bounds, and by its very force holding the dread enemy at bay. In fiction alone one insets the woman whose love rises to so sublime a height that she stands meekly aside to make room for her rival. Jealousy and hatred are primitive passions common to all. and more than on? woman has sunk to depths hitherto undreamed of in a vain endeavor to retain the love that means her very existence.