The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1860-02-02
Correspondence Fac. Commercial Advertiser.
Female Educnrion-No. ?.
Why Is IT More DIFFICULT TO CIvHIzE HAWAIIAN
WOMEN, THAN HAWAIIAN MN:
ST 1t requires more money.

LIST 1t requires more money.
% The women have fewer resources 10 meet these
requirements.
3rd. They are exposed to peculiar temptations.
If the reader is skeptical as to the first proposition
LEI him look across the way and observe that passing
young man. For sught that appears, he may be an
American or a European. Certainly, he Is respect
ably attired. He draws a little nearer, and proves to
be neither European nor American, but a full-b'ooded
Hawaiian. tlauched a trife by some indoor employ
ment. He is neatly clad in three garments, made Of
nine yards of white cotton-witha new twenty-five
cent palm leaf hat upon his head We do well TO
excIaim, . How civilized - In external appearance
he has reached the degree marked respectable on
the scale of masculine civilization.
Again you are in the street. \ young man is
three rods ahead of you, walking in the same direc-
,ion. You think it is your neightor's native cook,
and call him by name. He turns in the direction of
Jour voice. and you are slightly c~hagrined to find
yourself confronted by your neighbours foreign clerk !.
Such a mistake has happened.
Now, bring a Hawaiian woman within the field OF
your telescope. Draw on your Imagination, (you
will need its add and clothe her in three or four of
the amplest garments that can be forced out Of nine
wards of cotton. Place on her head the best possible
bonnet to be found in the market, for twenty-five
cents. Ii is done. And now what do we say why
cannot the Hawaiian women appear as civilized as
the men - That is what we say, unless reason, and
comparison, have taught US silence. Not one of my
lady readers would consider herself presentable in less
than twice, or three times as much cloth, as is r:.'''ir-
ed for aforesaid masculine outfit. And y she time
we have converted these multip' I'D yards into beft-
ting garments, and redeemed the whole free from the
charge of vulgarity by the nume BUS accessories of a
well ordered female toilet, we have doubled the origi-
nal outlay. So long as we confne ourselves to fabrics
most suitable to a tropical climate. We shall find that
a man can civilize on two dollars, as fast as a woman
can on ten. And is there no significance in this
fact? Must Hawaiian women be f reyer tainted with
comparative barbarism, simply because barbarism fits
on to womankind so badly? Was Burns only in "a
fine phrenzy'' when he sung of . Dame Nature -
Her prentice ham she tried Oh man
And then she made the lassts ="
Does he not admit, and truly too, that the artificial
point of woman's civilization is at 4 greater distance
from the zero of s~avagism, than is that Of man?
If these things are so, it ought 70 follow that the
expenses of Hawaiian W omen are provided
for, either by their fathers and hus ands, or by plenty
of work and, good pay. Would that it were so. At
present the reverssis true, accord ng TO our second
proposition. And here we find a very stubborn OBJ
stacle in the way of civilizing and ,levating Hawaiian
females. The opportunities of providing for their
current expenses by honorable re nuneratiye labor,
extremely limited and found ger orally in demoral-
izing localities, where ciriIi-ed men do mostly con-
gregate. Their actual Requirement = and their ability
to meet them are in inverse prop rtion TO those Of
their fathers, husbands, and brothers. 1t is more
brick, and less straw, over again. only in the present
instance, the demand is made of IL e weaker sex.
School teaching, that blessed, ur Ealing resource of
American females, affords no aid to the women of
Hawaii. New England girls could lot be spared from
This noble work, without very grave consequences TO
themselves, ana to the body polite. Were they ex-
,luded from nm occupation at once so remunerative,
md so elevating, the finger on the dial plate of
American civilization would go back ward ten degrees,
same day. The ''strike'' of all the mechanics
IN England, and all the vulcans of Pennsylvania
would not so clog the wheels of genuine progress.
And work is what Hawaiian women necd-,rork for
he needful discipline it must bring 20 their charac-
and lrork for the means it SUPP lies of providing
or their rapidly increasing wants. Let them not be
aught TO rely on their fathers and husbands, to
honor all their money demands, VIII lie they sit down
II idleness. In an advanced state of civilization,
Of the time of a model woman is spent in train
ng her children, and III ordering , well appointed
household. But every step taken IL any country,
owards providing for the elegant or the squalid idle
less of its women, is a step in the wrong direction.
lany a national bulwark has been d az down by deli
ate hands and taper fingers, trained in idleness.
the best thing Hawaiian householders could
o, would be to provide the female members of their
antilles with such tenements and surroundings, as
hould afford them q truly dignifei and feminine
phere of labor at home. But these appliances of
utilization are for the most part away OF, at an in
einite distance,-may perhaps be ea pected to arrive
ben Sc Birnam forest com s to Dunsinane." Mean
lille want comes on apace much faster than the
bility to satisfy it, for, as has been minated, the
omen Of Hawaii not only have less work to do than
ne men, but they have less pay for doing it. We
eed not 60 far to find native girls who will work six,
not seven long days in the nursery for one dollar,
nd board themselves. Their brothers and husbands
the race of cooks, get twice, or thrice that pay.
ct they have plenty of l~eisure-afect the gentle
and air themselves on horseback before break
st Political economists provide that wages shall
rated according to the amount OF talent invested.
dhering to this rule, it appears that we are willing
pay for three times as much talent to cook our din
as to nurse our children.
The expense of feminine civilization and the pau
~ of resources to meet these expenses, leads us to
le third and most appalling obstacle to the refine
ent and elevation of Hawaiian females. 1t has been
that in all savage nations decorati on comes be-
re dress in the order of time. Be this as it may. it
doubtless true that a race Of savage women was
found, who had not a strong taste for the orna-
entail part Of civilization, and much do We fear,
at race Of civilized men remains TO be discovered,
no will not appeal to this taste wit, base gold or
lse promises. Hawaiian women foei themselves
forward by an advancing civilization. 1t is
lperiously demanded of them that they keep ahead
'tget of the track And many Of them do get off
e track, and returning on their course, they speed
arrive at a lower point than that fro N which, as
savages, they took their depar ture. Would
God this were not true, or that thev went TO the t
arnel house attended only by their own sable coun- {
ymen- We could then hold heathenis n responsible
these human sacrifices. Would that " could prove