Our Girls Part 14

I wonder if it is improper to speak plainly about what so many are thinking of.

I will venture a little. Now don't take on airs and turn up your noses. My hair is of a color which might introduce me to you in the character of father. I shall speak very plainly. It cannot compromise anybody, for, as I told you, this is all private and confidential.

YOU WANT HUSBANDS.

Now don't deny it; it sounds silly in you. It is, all of a piece with the earnest declaration of the mother who is managing her daughters through Saratoga, Newport, and an endless round of parties, but who constantly declares, in the most earnest way, that she has no more girls than she wants, that she could not consent to part with a single one of them, and who, at length, when pressed to part with dear Arabella, gives a reluctant and painful a.s.sent, and who may be seen on the wedding day penetrated with inconsolable grief at parting with that dear child. Girls, don't join in this farce; it is too thin.

You want husbands. You think of them by day, and dream of them by night. You talk of nothing else. Think on, and dream on; even if you never get them, it will make you better and n.o.bler to think about them.

On our side of the house we are all thinking and dreaming of you, and, although we may never marry, our hearts will be the warmer and purer for having been occupied with thoughts of you.

WHY MEN DO NOT PROPOSE.

In entering upon this most important and delightful relation, we men are expected to take the overt initiative. You are perplexed and grieved that so many of us hold back, and wander about, homeless bachelors all our lives, leaving you to die old maids.

Let me whisper in your ear.

We are afraid of you!

As I am out of the matrimonial market, I will let my friend Robert, who is in said market, explain.

Robert is a splendid fellow, and dying to have a home of his own. He declared in my parlor the other evening, that he would prefer ten years of happy married life to fifty years of this nothing and nowhere.

My wife said, "Well, Robert, if you cannot find a wife, you had better give a commission to somebody who can." With a flushed face; he replied:--

"Now see here, Mrs. Lewis, I am a banker; my salary is two thousand dollars. I cannot marry a scrub. I must marry a wife with manners, one who knows what's what. My mother and sisters, to say nothing of myself, would break their hearts if my choice were below their idea.

Just tell me how, with such a wife, I could pull through on two thousand a year? Why, her dress alone would cost half of it. Board for the two would cost at least fifty dollars a week, and even with that, you know, we should not get first-cla.s.s board.

"And then there are the extras,--the little trips, the lectures, the concerts, the operas, etc.; one cannot live in society without a little of such things.

"Oh no, unless I first make up my mind to rob the bank, I cannot think of matrimony. If I had five thousand a year I would venture; but with two thousand,--well, I am not quite a madman, and so I stay where I can pay my debts.

"My lady friends think I am so much in love with the--Club that I have no time for them. One of them said to me the other day, when we were discussing this matter,--

"'Why, what you spend in that miserable club, would support a wife, easy.'

"'It wouldn't pay for her bonnets,' I replied."

Now ladies, Robert is getting extravagant, so we will let him retire, and I will go on with my little sermon. I do not often preach, but in this case, nothing but a sermon will do.

BEAUTY OF WOMAN'S BODY.

Firstly, you are perfect idiots to go on in this way. Your bodies are the most beautiful of G.o.d's creation. In the continental galleries I constantly saw groups of people, gathered about the pictures of women. It was not pa.s.sion; the gazers were quite as likely to be women, as men. It was the wondrous beauty of woman's body.

Now stand with me at my office window, and see a lady pa.s.s. There goes one! Now isn't that a pretty looking object? A big hump, three big humps, a wilderness of crimps and frills, a hauling up of the dress here and there, an enormous hideous ma.s.s of false hair or bark piled on the top of her head, and on the very top of that, a little nondescript thing, ornamented with bits of lace, birds' tails, etc.; while the shop windows tell us all day long, of the paddings, whalebones, and springs, which occupy most of the s.p.a.ce within that outside rig.

In the name of all the simple, sweet sentiments which cl.u.s.ter about a home, I would ask, how is a man to fall in love with such a compound, doubled and twisted, starched, comical, artificial, touch- me-not, wiggling curiosity?

THIS DRESS CHECKS YOUR MOVEMENTS.

Secondly, with that wasp waist, your lungs, stomach, liver, and other organs squeezed down out of their place, and into one half their natural size, and with that long trail dragging on the ground, how can any man of sense, who knows that life is made up of use, of service, of work; how can he take such partner? He must be desperate to unite himself for life with such a deformed, fettered, half breathing ornament.

If I were in the matrimonial market, I might marry a woman that had but one arm, or one eye, or no eyes at all, if she suited me otherwise; but so long as G.o.d permitted me to retain my senses, I could never join my fortunes with those of a woman with a small waist.

A small waist! I am a physiologist, and know what a small waist means. It means the organs of the abdomen jammed down into the pelvis; it means the organs of the chest stuffed up into the throat; it means a weak back; it means a delicate, nervous invalid; it means a suffering patient, and not a vigorous helpmate.

Thousands of men dare not venture, because they wisely fear that, instead of a helpmate, they will get an invalid to take care of.

Besides, this bad health in you, just as in men, made the mind, as well as the body, faddled and effeminate.

You have no power, no magnetism. I know you giggle freely, and use big words, such as splendid, awful, etc.; but then, this does not deceive us; we see through all that sort of thing. The fact is, you are superficial, affected, silly. You have none of that womanly strength and warmth which are so a.s.suring and attractive to men.

Why you have actually become so childish, that you refuse to wear decent names even, and insist upon little baby names.

Instead of Helen, Margaret and Elizabeth you affect Nellie, Maggie and Lizzie.

When your brothers were babies, you called them Bobbie, d.i.c.kie and Johnnie; but when they grow up to manhood, no more of that silly trash, if you please.

I know a woman, twenty-five years old, and as big as both my grandmothers put together, who insists upon being called Kittie, and her real name is Catherine; her brain is big enough to conduct affairs of State, she does nothing but giggle, cover up her face with her fan, and exclaim, "Don't now, you are real mean." How can a sensible man propose a life partners.h.i.+p to such a silly goose?

My dear girls, if you would get husbands, and sensible ones, dress in plain, neat, becoming garments, and talk like sensible, earnest sisters.

You say you don't care, you won't dress to please men, etc. Then, as I said in opening this sermon, I am not speaking to you. I am speaking to such girls as want husbands, and would like to know how to get them.

You say that the most sensible men are crazy after these b.u.t.terflies of fas.h.i.+on. I beg your pardon, it is not so. Occasionally, even a brilliant man may marry a silly, weak woman. But to say, as I have heard women say a hundred times, that the most sensible men marry women without sense, is simply absurd. Nineteen times in twenty sensible men choose sensible women.

I grant you that in company men are very likely to gabble and toy with these over-dressed and forward creatures; but as to going to the altar with them, they beg to be excused.

Thirdly, among the men in the matrimonial market, only a very small number are rich; and in America very rarely make good husbands. But the number of those who are beginning in life, who are filled with a n.o.ble ambition, who have a future, is very large. These are worth having. But such will not, they dare not, ask you to join them, while they see you so idle, silly, and so gorgeously attired.

Let them see that you are industrious, economical, with habits that secure health and strength, that your life is earnest and real, that you are willing to begin at the beginning in life with the man you would consent to marry, then marriage will become the rule, and not as now, among certain cla.s.ses, the exception.

Ah, if ever the time shall come, when young women have occupations, and can sustain a healthy, dignified att.i.tude toward men,--if ever the time shall come when women are not such pitiful dependents, then marriage will become universal, and we shall all be happier, better, n.o.bler.

I hear some plucky, spirited young woman exclaiming:--

"This is all very well. No doubt your sermon, as you call it, contains a good deal of truth; but how about these young men who spend their time drinking, smoking, loafing about club-houses, and running after strange women? I suppose you think they are perfect angels."

My dear friend, have I said anything in this sermon, or do I say anything in this book, which leads you to suppose that I think men better than women?

It is because I believe that, in the const.i.tution of the race, you are the fountain-head of social, moral and religious influence, that I come directly to you.