Marriage and Dress.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue VIII, 23 August 1902, Page 506

Marriage and Dress.

M. Edgar de Ghelin, a Belgian writer, in a recent article in the “Revue Generale,” declares that American women are a ruin to business in their own land and a menace to industrial and commercial Europe. He writes: “In America, women are now practising several professions which in former times were practised solely by men,” and he gives the following statistics showing that the United States contained — ,

He asserts: “The education of young- American girls is designed to excite in them all possible ambition. Even in their childhood they are taught to be independent, and latei they go to a school where they are taught together with boys, and then to a university where they learn Greek, algebra, mechanics and the sciences. In fact, they are taught everything except how to become good housewives and mothers.” This latterassertion is unpalatable to us, but we are obliged to admit that it is not wholly barren of truth. Commenting on these figures, a contributor to a recent number of the “Arena” writes: “So far as girls in employment displace men, they decrease their chances of marriage; so far as they increase the love of dress, they make the prudent young man afraid of matrimony. The manager of any large department store will tell you that when these girls marry they make, as a rule, a big “splurge" at the wedding— and it is not many months before the majority return, seeking employment. They find themselves unable to gratify their love of dress and to maintain a home on the average man's earnings. Here then is a potent reason why young- men are not in a hurry to wed, and why so many do not rush into matrimony even when they are earning- respectable wages—being aware that the tenure of employment.except in rare instances and where the labour is especially- skilled, is very- uncertain. They see no chance of saving for a “rainy day” with a wife who as a girl became imbued with the love of dress. They- have female “cousins” not to speak of “nearer ones” —and female acquaintances, single and married. They hear their conversation and their repetition of their friends’ gossip: and this is the sort of thing they listen to: “I can’t visit Miss Grown and her friends the way 1 dress. “I should like to go to Mrs Smith's, but 1 haven't anything fit to wear." “1 can’t go calling in this same old dress.” (It is not shabby and it is not worn, but it has been perhaps in frequent use.) “I don’t see how that girl dresses on her income." (An innuendo that likewise has not escaped the thoughts of the young man.) “I am ashamed to be seen again in this costume,” etc., etc., —with the young married women as particular as the single girls. Certainly no one wants a girl to dress shabbily or dowdily if it can be avoided: and with the quantities and varieties of dress goods to be had nowadays it is possible to dress neatly at a modest cost, especially if a girl has any taste and will learn to be handy with the needle—an accomplishment that the vast majority of girls could acquire if they would make an effort. Hut when it conies to wanting a newdress for every occasion; when It comes to deriding n costume, not because it is tattered or worn out, but because it has been in use over a given time; when it conies to striving

to dress as if one possessed an independent income to be used solely for dressing and as if dress were the main object of life (and, by the way, it is only the parvenu and the mosv ignorant of servant girls'wno make displays of themselves upon all occasions); when a large majority of women think of little else than dress (frequently, as the observant young man has found out, procured at the expense of landlord, grocer, and butcher, which is decidedly- not honest)—it is an altogether different story, which at least suggests why the modern young man is holding aloof from matrimony. He is not telling the girls the reason, but his male friends know it. He admires the girls—he likes to take them out in a splendid costume, which draws forth complimentary- remarks and at-

tention—but he is not asking them to marry- him.

In 1870. 995 In 1890. 3,919 Women architects .. 1 22 Women painters and sculptors 412 10,810 Women authors 159 7,725 Women preachers . 66 1,235 Women scientists 24 337 Women engineers . 0 127 Women journalists 35 888 Women legislators . a 208 Women doctors and surWomen officeholders. 414 4,875 geons 527 4,555 Women bookkeepers 9 27,777