They are coming together in clubs and societies and by this intercourse they are gaining a philosophy of life, which is helping them over the rough places of life. Most of us can get along very well on bright days, and when the going is easy, but we need something to keep us steady when the pathway is rough, and our wandering feet are in danger of losing their way. The most deadly uninteresting person, and the one who has the greatest temptation not to think at all, is the comfortable and happily married woman--the woman who has a good man between her and the world, who has not the saving privilege of having to work. A sort of fatty degeneration of the conscience sets in that is disastrous to the development of thought.
If women could be made to think, they would not wear immodest clothes, which suggest evil thoughts and awaken unlawful desires. If women could be made to think, they would see that it is woman"s place to lift high the standard of morality. If women would only think, they would not wear aigrets and bird plumage which has caused the death of G.o.d"s innocent and beautiful creatures. If women could be made to think, they would be merciful. If women would only think, they would not serve liquor to their guests, in the name of hospitality, and thus contribute to the degradation of mankind, and perhaps start some young man on the slippery way to ruin. If women would think about it, they would see that some mother, old and heartbroken, sitting up waiting for the staggering footsteps of her boy, might in her loneliness and grief and trouble curse the white hands that gave her lad his first drink.
Women make life hard for other women because they do not think. And thinking seems to come hardest to the comfortable woman. A woman told me candidly and honestly not long ago that she was too comfortable to be interested in other people, and I have admired her for her truthfulness; she had diagnosed her own case accurately, and she did not babble of woman"s sphere being her own home--she frankly admitted that she was selfish, and her comfort had caused it. I believe G.o.d intended us all to be happy and comfortable, clothed, fed, and housed, and there is no sin in comfort, unless we let it atrophy our souls, and settle down upon us like a stupor. Then it becomes a sin which destroys us. Let us pray!
From plague, pestilence and famine, from battle, murder, sudden death, and all forms of cowlike contentment, Good Lord, deliver us!
CHAPTER V
THE NEW CHIVALRY
Brave women and fair men!
This seems to be a good time for us to jar ourselves loose from some of the prejudices and beliefs which we have outgrown. It is time for readjustment surely, a time for spiritual and mental house-cleaning, when we are justified in looking things over very carefully and deciding whether or not we shall ever need them again.
Some of us have suspected for a long time that a good deal of the teaching of the world regarding women has come under the general heading of "dope." Now "dope" is not a slang word, as you may be thinking, gentle reader. It is a good Anglo-Saxon word (or will be), for it fills a real need, and there is none other to take its place.
"Dope" means anything that is calculated to soothe, or hush, or put to sleep. "Sedative" is a synonym, but it lacks the oily softness of "dope."
One of the commonest forms of dope given to women to keep them quiet is the one referred to in a previous chapter: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the World." It is a great favorite with politicians and not being original with them it does contain a small element of truth.
They use it in their pre-election speeches, which they begin with the honeyed words: "We are glad to see we have with us this evening so many members of the fair s.e.x; we are delighted to see that so many have come to grace our gathering on this occasion; we realize that a woman"s intuition is ofttimes truer than a man"s reasoning, and although women have no actual voice in politics, they have something far more strong and potent--they have the wonder power of indirect influence." Just about here comes in "the hand that rocks!"
Having thus administered the dope, in this pleasing mixture of mola.s.ses and soft soap, which is supposed to keep the "fair s.e.x" quiet and happy for the balance of the evening, the aspirant for public honors pa.s.ses on to the serious business of the hour, and discusses the affairs of state with the electorate. Right here, let us sound a small note of warning. Keep your eye on the man who refers to women as the "fair s.e.x"--he is a dealer in dope!
One of the oldest and falsest of our beliefs regarding women is that they are protected--that some way in the battle of life they get the best of it. People talk of men"s chivalry, that vague, indefinite quality which is supposed to trans.m.u.te the common clay of life into gold.
Chivalry is a magic word. It seems to breathe of foreign strands and moonlight groves and silver sands and knights and earls and kings; it seems to tell of glorious deeds and waving plumes and prancing steeds and belted earls--and things!
People tell us of the good old days of chivalry when womanhood was really respected and reverenced--when brave knight rode gaily forth to die for his lady love. But in order to be really loved and respected there was one hard and fast condition laid down, to which all women must conform--they must be beautiful, no getting out of that. They simply had to have starry eyes and golden hair, or else black as a raven"s wing; they had to have pale, white, and haughty brow, and a laugh like a ripple of magic. Then they were all right and armored knights would die for them quick as wink!
The homely women were all witches, dreadful witches, and they drowned them, on public holidays, in the mill pond!
People tell us now that chivalry is dead, and women have killed it, bold women who instead of staying at home, broidering pearls on a red velvet sleeve, have gone out to work--have gone to college side by side with men and have been so unwomanly sometimes as to take the prizes away from men. Chivalry cannot live in such an atmosphere. Certainly not!
Of course women can hardly be blamed for going out and working when one remembers that they must either work or starve. Broidering pearls will not boil the kettle worth a cent! There are now thirty per cent of the women of the U. S. A. and Canada, who are wage-earners, and we will readily grant that necessity has driven most of them out of their homes. Similarly, in England alone, there are a million and a half more women than men. It would seem that all women cannot have homes of their own--there does not seem to be enough men to go around. But still there are people who tell us these women should all have homes of their own--it is their own fault if they haven"t; and once I heard of a woman saying the hardest thing about men I ever heard--and she was an ardent anti-suffragist too. She said that what was wrong with the women in England was that they were too particular--that"s why they were not married, "and," she went on, "any person can tell, when they look around at men in general, that G.o.d never intended women to be very particular." I am glad I never said anything as hard as that about men.
There are still with us some of the conventions of the old days of chivalry. The pretty woman still has the advantage over her plainer sister--and the opinion of the world is that women must be beautiful at all costs. When a newspaper wishes to disprove a woman"s contention, or demolish her theories, it draws ugly pictures of her. If it can show that she has big feet or red hands, or wears unbecoming clothes, that certainly settles the case--and puts her where she belongs.
This cruel convention that women must be beautiful accounts for the popularity of face-washes, and beauty parlors, and the languor of university extension lectures. Women cannot be blamed for this. All our civilization has been to the end that women make themselves attractive to men. The attractive woman has. .h.i.therto been the successful woman. The pretty girl marries a millionaire, travels in Europe, and is presented at court; her plainer sister, equally intelligent, marries a boy from home, and does her own washing. I am not comparing the two destinies as to which offers the greater opportunities for happiness or usefulness, but rather to show how widely divergent two lives may be. What caused the difference was a wavy strand of hair, a rounder curve on a cheek. Is it any wonder that women capitalize their good looks, even at the expense of their intelligence? The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest injustice that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury to the race.
Men are not entirely blameless in respect to the frivolity of women.
It is easy to blame women for dressing foolishly, extravagantly, but to what end do they do it? To be attractive to men; and the reason they continue to do it is that it is successful. Many a woman has found that it pays to be foolish. Men like frivolity--before marriage; but they demand all the sterner virtues afterwards. The little dainty, fuzzy-haired, simpering dolly who chatters and wears toe-slippers has a better chance in the matrimonial market than the clear-headed, plainer girl, who dresses sensibly. A little boy once gave his mother directions as to his birthday present--he said he wanted "something foolish" and therein he expressed a purely masculine wish.
A man"s ideal at seventeen Must be a sprite-- A dainty, fairy, elfish queen Of pure delight; But later on he sort of feels He"d like a girl who could cook meals.
Life is full of anomalies, and in the mating and pairing of men and women there are many.
Why is the careless, easy-going, irresponsible way of the young girl so attractive to men? It does not make for domestic happiness; and why, Oh why, do some of our best men marry such odd little sticks of pin-head women, with a brain similar in caliber to a second-rate b.u.t.terfly, while the most intelligent, unselfish, and womanly women are left unmated? I am going to ask about this the first morning I am in heaven, if so be we are allowed to ask about the things which troubled us while on our mortal journey. I have never been able to find out about it here.
Now this old belief that women are protected is of st.u.r.dy growth and returns to life with great persistence. Theoretically women are protected--on paper--traditionally--just like Belgium was, and with just as disastrous results.
A member of the English Parliament declared with great emphasis that the women now have everything the heart could desire--they reign like queens and can have their smallest wish gratified. ("Smallest" is right.) And we very readily grant that there are many women living in idleness and luxury on the bounty of their male relatives, and we say it with sorrow and shame that these are estimated the successful women in the opinion of the world. But while some feast in idleness, many others slave in poverty. The great army of women workers are ill-paid, badly housed, and their work is not honored or respected or paid for.
What share have they in man"s chivalry? Chivalry is like a line of credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it. When you are prospering financially and your bank account is growing and you are rated A1, you can get plenty of credit--it is offered to you; but when the dark days of financial depression overtake you, and the people you are depending upon do not "come through," and you must have credit--must have it!--the very people who once urged it upon you will now tell you that "money is tight!"
The young and pretty woman, well dressed and attractive, can get all the chivalry she wants. She will have seats offered her on street cars, men will hasten to carry her parcels, or open doors for her; but the poor old woman, beaten in the battle of life, sick of life"s struggles, and grown gray and weather-beaten facing life"s storms--what chivalry is shown her? She can go her weary way uncomforted and unattended. People who need it do not get it.
Anyway, chivalry is a poor subst.i.tute for justice, if one cannot have both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not nourishing. It is like the paper lace around the bonbon box--we could get along without it.
There are countless thousands of truly chivalrous men, who have the true chivalry whose foundation is justice--who would protect all women from injury or insult or injustice, but who know that they cannot do it--who know that in spite of all they can do, women are often outraged, insulted, ill-treated. The truly chivalrous man, who does reverence all womankind, realizing this, says: "Let us give women every weapon whereby they can defend themselves; let us remove the stigma of political nonent.i.ty under which women have been placed. Let us give women a fair deal!"
This is the new chivalry--and on it we build our hope.
CHAPTER VI
HARDY PERENNIALS!
I hold it true--I will not change, For changes are a dreadful bore-- That nothing must be done on earth Unless it has been done before.
--_Anti-Suffrage Creed_.
If prejudices belonged to the vegetable world they would be described under the general heading of: "Hardy Perennials; will grow in any soil, and bloom without ceasing; requiring no cultivation; will do better when left alone."
In regard to tenacity of life, no old yellow cat has anything on a prejudice. You may kill it with your own hands, bury it deep, and sit on the grave, and behold! the next day, it will walk in at the back door, purring.
Take some of the prejudices regarding women that have been exploded and blown to pieces many, many times and yet walk among us today in the fulness of life and vigor. There is a belief that housekeeping is the only occupation for women; that all women must be housekeepers, whether they like it or not. Men may do as they like, and indulge their individuality, but every true and womanly woman must take to the nutmeg grater and the O-Cedar Mop. It is also believed that in the good old days before woman suffrage was discussed, and when woman"s clubs were unheard of, that all women adored housework, and simply pined for Monday morning to come to get at the weekly wash; that women cleaned house with rapture and cooked joyously. Yet there is a story told of one of the women of the old days, who arose at four o"clock in the morning, and aroused all her family at an indecently early hour for breakfast, her reason being that she wanted to get "one of these horrid old meals over." This woman had never been at a suffrage meeting--so where did she get the germ of discontent?
At the present time there is much discontent among women, and many people are seriously alarmed about it. They say women are no longer contented with woman"s sphere and woman"s work--that the washboard has lost its charm, and the days of the hair-wreath are ended. We may as well admit that there is discontent among women. We cannot drive them back to the spinning wheel and the mathook, for they will not go. But there is really no cause for alarm, for discontent is not necessarily wicked. There is such a thing as divine discontent just as there is criminal contentment. Discontent may mean the stirring of ambition, the desire to spread out, to improve and grow. Discontent is a sign of life, corresponding to growing pains in a healthy child. The poor woman who is making a brave struggle for existence is not saying much, though she is thinking all the time. In the old days when a woman"s hours were from 5 A.M. to 5 A.M., we did not hear much of discontent among women, because they had not time to even talk, and certainly could not get together. The horse on the treadmill may be very discontented, but he is not disposed to tell his troubles, for he cannot stop to talk.
It is the women, who now have leisure, who are doing the talking. For generations women have been thinking and thought without expression is dynamic, and gathers volume by repression. Evolution when blocked and suppressed becomes revolution. The introduction of machinery and the factory-made articles has given women more leisure than they had formerly, and now the question arises, what are they going to do with it?
Custom and conventionality recommend many and varied occupations for women, social functions intermixed with kindly deeds of charity, embroidering altar cloths, making strong and durable garments for the poor, visiting the sick, comforting the sad, all of which women have faithfully done, but while they have been doing these things, they have been wondering about the underlying causes of poverty, sadness and sin.
They notice that when the unemployed are fed on Christmas day, they are just as hungry as ever on December the twenty-sixth, or at least on December the twenty-seventh; they have been led to inquire into the causes for little children being left in the care of the state, and they find that in over half of the cases, the liquor traffic has contributed to the poverty and unworthiness of the parents. The state which licenses the traffic steps in and takes care, or tries to, of the victims; the rich brewer whose business it is to encourage drinking, is usually the largest giver to the work of the Children"s Aid Society, and is often extolled for his lavish generosity: and sometimes when women think about these things they are struck by the absurdity of a system which allows one man or a body of men to rob a child of his father"s love and care all year, and then gives him a stuffed dog and a little red sleigh at Christmas and calls it charity!
Women have always done their share of the charity work of the world.
The lady of the manor, in the old feudal days, made warm mittens and woolen m.u.f.flers with her own white hands and carried them to the cottages at Christmas, along with blankets and coals. And it was a splendid arrangement all through, for it furnished the lady with mild and pleasant occupation, and it helped to soothe the conscience of the lord, and if the cottagers (who were often "low worthless fellows, much given up to riotous thinking and disputing") were disposed to wonder why they had to work all year and get nothing, while the lord of the manor did nothing all year and got everything, the gift of blanket and coals, the warm m.u.f.flers, and "a shawl for granny" showed them what ungrateful souls they were.
Women have dispensed charity for many, many years, but gradually it has dawned upon them that the most of our charity is very ineffectual, and merely smoothes things over, without ever reaching the root. A great deal of our charity is like the kindly deed of the benevolent old gentleman, who found a sick dog by the wayside, lying in the full glare of a scorching sun. The tender-hearted old man climbed down from his carriage, and, lifting the dog tenderly in his arms, carried him around into the small patch of shade cast by his carriage.
"Lie there, my poor fellow!" he said. "Lie there, in the cool shade, where the sun"s rays may not smite you!"
Then he got into his carriage and drove away.