| | | | This, we are told in a tone of pathetic resignation, is a day | of hard sayings for women. It is, we will venture to add, a | day when women have to meet hard sayings with replies a | little less superficial than the conventional stare of outraged | womanhood or the trivial retort on the follies of men. | Grant that woman's censors are as cynical and | hollow-hearted as you will, there can be no doubt that | their criticisms are simply the expression of a general | uneasiness, and that that uneasiness has some ground to go | upon. It is possible that observers across the water may be | cynical in denouncing the

"magnificent indecency"

of the | heroines of New York. It is possible that the schoolmasters | of Berlin may be cynical in calling public opinion to their | aid against the degrading exhibitions of the Russian capital. | It is possible that the thunders of the Vatican are merely an | instance of Papal cynicism. It is possible that the protest of | the Bishop of Orleans is as hollow-hearted as the protests | of censors nearer home. But such a worldwide outbreak of | cynicism without a cause is a somewhat improbable event, | and the improbability is increased when we remark the | silent acquiescence of the women of America and the | Continent in the justice of these censures. It is only the | British who ventures to protest. Now, we Englishmen have | always felt a sort of national pride in the British mother. It | has been a part of our patriotic self-satisfaction to pique | ourselves on her icy decorum, on the merciless severity of | her virtue. Colourless, uninteresting, limited as Continental | critics pronounced her to be, we cherished her the more as | something specially our own, and regarded the Channel as | a barrier providentially invented for the isolation of her | spotless prudery. It was peculiarly gratifying to suppose | that on the other side of it there were no British homes, no | British maidens, no British mothers. And it must be owned | that the British mother took her cue admirably. She owned, | with a sigh of complacency, that she was not as other | women. She shuddered at foreign morals, and tabooed | French novels. She shook all life and individuality out of | her girls as un-English and Continental. She denounced all | aspirations after higher and larger spheres of effort as | unfeminine. Such a type of woman was naturally dull | enough, but it fairly came up to its own standard; and if its | respectability was prudery, it still earned, and had a right to | claim, man's respect. The amusing thing is the persistence | in the claim when the type has passed away. The British | spouse has bloomed into the semi-detached wife, with a | husband always conveniently in the distance, and a cicisbeo | as conveniently in the corner. The British mother has died | into the faded matrimonial schemer, contemptuous of | younger sons. The innocent simper of the British maiden | has developed into the loud laugh and the horsey slang of | the girl of the season. But maiden and matron are still one | point faithful to the traditions of their grandmothers, and | front all censorious comers with a shrug of their | shoulder-straps and a flutter of indignant womanhood. And | maiden and matron still claim their insular exemption from the | foibles of their sex. The Pope may do what he will with the | women of Italy, and Monseigneur of Orleans may deal | stern justice out to the women of France; Continental | immorality is in the nature of things; but there is something | else that is in the nature of things too, and before the | impeccable majesty of British womanhood, every critic | must stand abashed. | Unfortunately, we are no sooner awed with the marble | silence of our Hermione than Hermione descends from her | pedestal and falls a-talking like other people. Woman, in a | word, protests; and protests are often very dangerous things | to the protesters. Nothing, for instance, can seem more | simple or more effective than the | retort, and as it is familiar to feminine | disputants, we are favoured with it in every possible form. | If the girt of the period is fast and frivolous, is the young | man of the period any better? No sketch can be more | telling than the picture which she is ready to draw of his | lounging ways, his epicurean indolence, his boredom at | home, his foppery abroad, the vacancy of his stare, the | inanity of his talk, his incredible conceit, his life vibrating | between the Club and the stable. She hits off with a | charming vivacity the list of his accomplishments ~~ his | skill at flirtation, his matchless ability at croquet, his | assiduity over Bell's Life, the | cleverness of his book on the Derby. No sensible or | well-informed girl, she tells us, can talk for ten minutes to this | creature without weariness and disgust at his ignorance, his | narrowness, his triviality; no modestly dressed or decently | mannered girl can win the slightest share of his attentions. | Married, he is as frivolous as before marriage; he selects | the toilette of the as an | agreeable topic of domestic conversation, he resents | affection and proclaims home a bore, he grudges the birth | of children as an additional expense, he stunts and degrades | the education of his girls, he is the despot of his household | and the dread of his family. The sketch is powerful enough | in its way, but the conclusion which the fair artist draws is | at least an odd one. We prepare ourselves to hear that | woman has resolved to extirpate such a monster as this, or | that she will remain an obstinate vestal till a nobler breed of | wooers arise. What woman owns that she really does is to | mould herself as much on the monster's model as she can. | According to her own account, she puts nature's picture of | herself into the hands of this imbecile, invites him to blur it | as he will, and lets him write under daub | "Ego feci." As he cannot talk sense, she stoops to | baudy chaff and slang. As he refuses to be attracted to | modesty of dress and manner, she apes the dress and | manner of the . His | indolence, his triviality, his worldliness become her own. | As he finds home a bore, she too plunges into her found of | dissipation; as he objects to children, she declines to be a | mother; as he wishes to get the girls off his hands, she | flings them at the head of the first comer. Now, if such a | defence as this at all adequately represents the facts of the | case, we can only say that the girl of the period must be a | far lower creature than we have ever asserted her to be. A | sensible girl stooping to slang, a modest girl flinging aside | modesty, simply to conquer a fool and a fop, is a satire | upon woman which none but a woman could have | invented, and which we must confess to be utterly | incredible to men. But the assumption upon which the | whole of this mimetic theory is based is one well worthy of | a little graver consideration. | | , said Napoleon one day to Madame de Campan. | , was the reply. There are some things which | even a Napoleon may be pardoned for feeling a little | puzzled in undertaking, and Madame de Campan would no | doubt have added much to the weight of her reply by a few | practical words as to the machinery of which we have | spoken before arises simply from the conviction that | woman is becoming more and more indifferent to her | actual post in the social economy of the world, and the | criticisms in which it takes form, whether grave or gay, | could all be summed up in Madame de Campan's request, | . After all protests against limiting the sphere of | the sex to a single function of their existence, public | opinion still regards woman primarily in her relation to the | generation to come. If it censures the sensible girl who | stoops to slang, or the modest girl who stoops to indecency, | it is because the sense and the modesty which they abandon | is not theirs to hold or to fling away, but the heritage of the | human race. But this seems to be less and less the feeling | of woman herself. For good or for evil, or, perhaps more | truly, for both good and evil, woman is becoming | conscious every day of new powers, and longing for an | independent sphere in which she can exert them. Marriage | is aimed at with a passionate ardour unknown before, not as | a means of gratifying affection, but as a means of securing | independence. To the unmarried girl life is a sheer | bondage, and there is no sacrifice too great to be left | untried if it only promises a chance of deliverance. She | learns to despise the sense, the information, the womanly | reserve which fail to attract the deliverer. She has to sell | herself to purchase her freedom; and she will take very | strong measures to secure a purchaser. The fop, the fool, | little knows the keen scrutiny with which the gay creature | behind her fan is taking stock of his feeble preferences, is | preparing to play upon his feebler aversions. Pitiful as he | is, it is for him that she arranges her artillery on the | toilette-table, the

"little secrets,"

the powder bloom, | the rouge , the Styrian lotion that gives . He | has a faint flicker of liking for brunettes; she lays her | triumphant finger on her

"walnut stain,"

and | darkens into the favourite tint. He loves plumpness, and | her

"Sinai Manna"

is at hand to secure | embonpoint . Belladonna flashes on | him from her eyes, Kohl and antimony deepen the | blackness of her eyebrows,

"bloom of roses"

| blushes from her lips. She stoops to conquer, and it is no | wonder that the fop and the fool go down. The freedom | she covets comes with marriage, but it is a freedom | threatened by a thousand accidents, and threatened, above | all, by maternity. It is of little use to have bowed to slang | and shoulder-straps, if it be only to tie oneself to a cradle. | The nursery stands sadly in the way of the free | development of woman; it clips her social enjoyment, it | curtails her bonnet bills. , one fair protester tells | us, . And so she invents a pretty theory about the | damage done to modern constitutions by our port-drinking | forefathers, and ceases to nurse at all. But even this is only | partial independence; she pants for perfect freedom from | the cares of maternity. Her tone becomes the tone of the | household, and the spouse she has won growls over each | new arrival. She is quite ready to welcome the growl. | , a mother informs us, , and mothers turn | restive with nature. , she adds, , and, if | we did, we should not greatly value the conversion. And so | woman wins her liberty, and bows her emphatic reply to | the world's appeal, , by declining to be a mother at | all. | By the sacrifice of womanliness, by the sacrifice of | modesty, by flattering her wooer's base preferences before | marriage, by encouraging his baser selfishness afterwards, | by hunting her husband to the club and restricting her | maternal energies to a couple of | | infants, woman has at last bought her freedom. She is no | slave of her husband as her mother was, she is not buried | beneath the cares of a family like her grandmother. She has | changed all that, and the old world of home and domestic | tenderness and parental self-sacrifice lies in ruins at her | feet. She has her liberty; what will she do with it? As yet, | freedom means simply more slang, more jewellery, more | selfish extravagance, less modesty. As we meet her on the | stairs, as we see the profuse display of her charms, as we | listen to the flippant, vapid chatter, we turn a little sickened | from woman stripped of all that is womanly, and cry to | Heaven, as Madame de Campan cried to the Emperor ~~ | .