The Middle-Aged Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 2 June 1906, Page 61

The Middle-Aged Women.

At what age is the spinster superannuated? And when may a woman be regarded as middle-aged?

It depends on the individual woman and her will power. The readiest method wherebv a woman manufactures herself into a superannuated spinster is to allow people to give her the impression that because she is not married at thirty she is necessarilv a “has been.”

The woman who remains at home still at her mother’s apron-strings after reaching maturity is almost bound to wither early on the parent stem. Average mothers are apt to subject their grown-up daughters to the discipline and regime of the nursery. And the process is terribly ageing. Suppression, and the chronic subjection of her will to that of another woman takes the spirit, spunkiness, and vouth out of the grown-up daughter.

Some family circles are not sparing in their cvnical reminders that one of their number is getting on in years. Younger sisters “coming on” impress on their elder Elizabeth, who is still remarkably handsome, the necessity that she should take a social back seat. ; “You must give the girls a chance.” urges the mother. Elizabeth’s spirit of coquetry is chilled by the cynical attitude of her more youthful sisters, to whom a woman of thirty is synonymous with an old frump. Because she has not married, her family regard her as a failure. To live in an atmosphere of failure, regarded as an old maid whom no man has wanted in the past, or woos in the present, is about the most ageing influence there is. Tf the eldest of several grown-up daughters dresses her hair in a new and becoming manner sundry hints drop that she is setting her cap at somebody, or trying to look young. Unless she has the courage to face the music she subsidies into the sad and depressing role her relations have so industriously prepared for her.