New Realtionship of Sexes

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 3, 1 September 1926, Page 47

New Realtionship of Sexes

‘By Lady Ossulston

(/iris CM ore Comradely, But Chpot Less CMaidenly

Latterly there has been a constant and undignified bickering between those who uphold the Victorian as the paragon of all the virtues and those who consider that until the advent of the modern girl, women were nothing hut a dull and inferior prototype of man. The fact is. people who make these generalisations are as wrong as those who make sweeping and prejudiced statements always arc. 1 he two types certainly express as wide extremes of difference as is possible between two kinds of one species. Both extremes have charming attributes and odious ones. The seclusion of women in the home and the repression and artificiality of the V ictorian code bred a creature who had insincerity and affectation forced on her, whose reasoning was warped by sentimentality, and who was urged to emulate the "patient Griselda" in all things a type which insistently reminds one of. a beast of burden. /"An the other hand, the slap-dash, mannerless, domineering, brusque ways of many present-day girls arc equally irritating, but should, I think, he regarded as the vice of her virtues. These arc sincerity, straightforwardness. a dislike of artificialities and affectation, independence in wishing to he self-supporting, a broader outlook which mistakenly tries to express itself in a disregard for the “little” things of life. The Victorian lady had many beautiful things about her. toounselfishness, dignity, gracious manners, womanliness, and strength of char-

acter; and the modern girl could learn much from her example. I believe that the unpleasant extremes which we deplore to-day arc the result of the mushroom growth of women’s rights in the forcinghouse of the war. Few people realise what the thrill of such newfound freedom could have meant after long repressing. It meant not only freedom but new spheres of usefulness and capacity. Is it to be wondered at that in the intoxication of the moment woman lost her head I he sensible ones will rapidly shed the extremes and find the happy medium of deportment, which in this, as in all things, is the ideal. The pendulum is continually swinging and is about to do so again indeed, there are indications that it has already started; the masculine pose is beginning to wear off. T most of all admire the attitude of the modern girl towards marriage. Her slogan is partnership—not dependence. This, to my mind, comes far nearer the state of complete interdependence, which is the highest ideal in marriage. r | 'he modern girl is not troubled -*■ by these thoughts, and only asks herself if the young man is interesting or amusing as an individual. This attitude means that she is becoming not unsexed but merely more discriminating, and she shows that she places love on a higher basis than mere sex-attraction. The man still comes along who storms the citadel of her heart, and it should then be well worth the storming—and keeping. —Daily Graphic.