Smyrna times., 1868-09-23
SPOILT WOMEN.

Like children, and all soft things, women are
soon spoilt if subjected to unwholesome condl-
tions. Sometimes the spelling comes from
over harshness, sometimes from Overindulg
ence. What we are speaking of to-day Is the
latter conditiOn-the spelling which comes from
being petted and given way to and INDUCED,
till they think themselves better than anybody
else, and as if living under laws made specially
for them alone. Men get tspOilt too IN the same
manner; but for the most part there is tough
er fibre in them, which resists the habby int1u-
ences of fattery and exaggerated attention bet,
ter than can the morals of the weaker sex; and
besides, even arbitrary men meet with OppOsi- |
ton in certain directions, and even the most |
self-contented social autOcrat knows that his !
humblest adherents criticiSe, though they dare |
not oppos'.
A man subjected to this insiduous injury is
simply ruined so far as any real manliness of
nature goes. He is made into that sickening
creature, =" a sweet being, as the women call
him-a womans man, with flowing hair and a
turn for poetry, full of high flown sentiment,
and mOrbidly excited sympathles; imam almost
as much woman as man, who has no backbone
of ambition in him, but who puts his whole
| life into love, just A. women do, and who be-
comes at last emphatically not worth his salt.
| No greater damage can be done to a man than
is done by this kind of domestic idolatry. But,
|
and there is scarcely man so far master of
| himself as to withstand the subtle intoxicatlon
of woman's tender hattery and loving submlS-
sion.
Spoilt women are spot mainly from like
cause-over attention from men A few GER
tainly are to be found, as pampered daughters,
with indulgent mammas and subservient aunts,
given up wholly to running their young charge
with the utmost dispatch possible but this is
comparatively a rare form of the disease, and
one which little wholesome matrimonial dis
cpline would soon cure. For it is seldom that
a petted daughter becomes spoilt wife, human
affairs having that marvellous power of compen-
sation, that inevitable tendency to read just the
balance, which prevents the continuance of
like excess under different forms. Besides,
spoilt daughter generally makes such a
premely unpleasant wife that the husband has
no inducement to continue the mistake, and
therefore either lowers her tone by judlcous
exhibition of snubbng or, if she is aggressive
as well as unpleasant, leaves her to fight with
her shadows in the best way she can, glad for
his own part to escape the strife she will not
foregO. One characteristic of the spOlt woman
is her impatience of anything like rivalry. She
never has female friend-certainly not one of
her own degree, and not one at all in the true
sense of the word. Friendship presupposes
equality, and a spoilt woman knows no equality.
She has been SO long accustomed to consider
herself as the lady paramount, that she cannot
understand 1t if any one steps in to share her
honOrs and divide her throne. To praise the
beauty of any other woman. to find her charm
ing, or to pay her the attention due to charm,
ing woman, is to insult our SpOllt darling, and
to slight her past forgiveness. If there Is only
one good thing it must be given to her-the
first seat the softest cushion, the most protect
ed situation and she looks for the best of all
things as if naturally consecrated from her
birth into the sunshine OF lite, and as II the
"cod shade which may do for others were
: by no means the portion allotted to her. 1t Is
almost impossible to make the spOllt woman
/ understand the grace or the glory of sacrifice.
I The spot woman as the wife of an unSuc
cessiul husband or the mother of sicky child
rem is a pitiable spectacle If it comes to her
to be obliged to sacrifice her usual luXurieS, to
make an old gown serve when new one is de
sired, to sit up all night watching by the sick
bed, to watch the painful details of Illness
, perhaps of death, to meet hardship face to face
to bend her back to the burden of sorrow, she
E is at the first absolutely lost. Not the thing to
be done, but her own discomfort in doing it, is
i, the one master idea-nOt others needs, but her
J own pain in supplying them, the great grief of
I the moment. Many are the hard lessons set
us by life and fate, but the hardest of all is that
given to the spOilt woman when she Is made to
sacrifice her own ease for the greater necessi-
: | ties OI uCE klllu
S All that large part of the perfect woman S
: nature which expresses itself in serving is an
o unknown function to the spoilt woman. She
t must be waited on, but she cannot in her turn
$ serve even the one or two she loves. She is the
e woman who calls her husband from one end of
Il the room to the other to put down her cup,
+ rather than reach out her arm and put 1T down
!; for herself; who, however weary he may be,
s will bid him get up and ring the bell though
e it is close to her hand, and her longest walk
q during the day has been from the dining room
d to the drawing room. 1t is not that size can
Il not do these small offices for herself, but that
Il she likes the feeling of being waited on and at
IL tended to; and it is not for love, and the amla-
e BILE if weak pleasure of attracting the notice OF
the beloved 1T is just for the vanity of being
! a little somebody for the moment, and of play
ing off the small regaity involved In the pro
IS cedure She would not return the attention.
IS Unlike the Eastern women, who wait on their
J lords hand and foot, and who place their high
IS est honor in their lowliest service. the spoilt
J. woman of Western life knows nothing of the
It natural grace of womanly serving for love, for
l. grace or for gratitude. The spoilt
n woman of the mental kind is horrid nuisance
e generally. She is greatly given to large dis
II course, the discourse of kind that leans all tC
one side, and that denies the right of any one
Is to crticse, doubt or contradict is an lntellec
e tual Tower of Pisa, under the shadow OF which
% it is not pleasant to live.
- Ooo.e,o~ys WurN I AR SuSpTrToUS Il