Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-11-05
Women in Enropc and America.

Womcn in Europe and America.
Miss Kate Field, in a recent letter. thus COM
pares European and American women and the
places and opportunities assigned them re-
spectively in society:
Europe is the place TO visit; America is the
place to live and work in. There is the widest
field for activity and for intelligence; there one
breathes the purest air; there one is least tram
meled with cOnventionalities; there one has the
lairest chance of being a whole man, and, vet
more, a whole woman. As a woman, Sally, |
cannot be too grateful to those stern Puritans
who, in the MayflOwer, braved the dangers of
an almost unknown sea. The more think of
their courage the more | respect them; the more
think of their effect upon civilization the more
| rejoice at being born after their advent. If
you are duchess, or what is almost the equiv
alent, an American woman of wealth and posi-
ton, Europe will give YOU so much as to cause
the unthinking to ask, "What more would Won
have?' Go below the highest classes and the
reverse of the medal is soon seen. Say what
they please, woman is woman is not respected
here. Be grdRde dame, and you are courted,
admired, treated with Difference, because you
are a grdRde dame. You go about with car
riage and lootmen, which paraphernalia denote
position or power. Go about on your
two feet, and you will soon discover
that to be woman is, on the continent,
outside of Germany, to be an object of insulting
interest, creature whom no man Is bound to
respect. In Germany men do not insult women.
Ihey simply regard them as inferior animals,
women carrying the heaviest loads while hus-
bands are comparatively free from burden, or
women yOked with dogs or COWS is no uncom-
mon spectacle. In France, though women are
the most industrious half of the population,
though they, as a rule, are cleverer than the
men, though they show the greatest aptitude in
managing business men speak OF them lightly,
and see in them probable OF possible TILES De
jOle have very great regard for French
women; ! don't believe them to be naturally
corrupt, and regeneTated France will mean &
proper appreciation of women, and accord to
them that equality which is their due. OF
French men, the less said the better. There are
noble exceptions who prove that corruption is
more a fashion than a necessity; and when
women are strong enough TO dictate terms,
Americans will readily sympathize with this
same abused France. don't mean shopkeeping
or imperial France, mind yon. Both are be-
You'd redemption.
The great comfort of America is that woman
is not always made to feel her sex. She really
is allowed tQ exist as a human being, not, I'M
fortunately with all the liberty of a man, but
still with so much more than elsewhere as by
comparison to be free. In Europe never lost
the sense of sex, You will be told that il is
highly improper for young lady 10 walk alone
in London, that she thereby subjects herself to
insult. This is all nonsense. For eight months
| have walked about London daily, sometimes
going through the Seven Dials | have never met
with anything dsagreeable; but then always
dressed plainly, and always assumed severe
cast of countenance, as though bound on affairs
of state. can't say that | ever enjoyed these
walks, because knew that was doing what no
En@lishWoman OF position would dare to do for
fear of shocking that amiable person, Mrs.
GrUndy. There is little pleasure, also, in walk
ing about town if one may not saunter and
gaze; but my experience teaches me that,
outside of Paris, which is simply incorrigible
it is generally woman's own fault, if she
is spoken to in the street by strange
men, and l heartily wish that instead of i'm
mediately adopting European customs, Amer-
can women would persist in preserving their
own, and thus set good example TO the rest of
creation. Unmarried women in Europe are
suppressed to an intOlerable extent. To me
they and their dreadful maids are the most for
lorn as well as the absurdest of sights German
and English girls have often come to me COM
planning of their fate, saying that it was well
nigh maddening, and. that they envied me my
liberty. "But why not strike out for your
selyesp have asked. ut is all very well to say
strike out, but suppose your parents won't let
you? Or suppose, if they do, all your acquain-
lance talk about you and take away your char
acter? What is there lett but submission?
Thank your stars that you are Americana
What can one say in reply, Sally? ] feel sorry
than ordinary courage to brave public opinion,
however idiotc it may be, and from ordinary
persons you cannot expect extraordinary deeds
think should break chains, even were Eu-
ropean; still, might be too cOwardly
But the absurdity of the whole thing is, Sally
that the morals OF these people are so elastic as
to rather like in strangers what they condemn in
their own womenl 10 receive, to entertain,
seems to them CONNIE IL fdut in me- They
come--men and women-quickly enough when
oh oil aud laf nj,
say, "Why cannot there be the same freedom
and friendliness of intercourse between unmar-
ried Englishmen and women here as in
America? You cannot imagine how refreshing
it is to enjoy woman's acquaintance without
fear and without reproach. The repression
system renders English girls if not stupid at
least sell-conscious and undressing, and they
are simply intoleraOle as companions until after
marriage, when, if there be anything clever in
them, an assured position and contact with the
world brings it out" This is what liberal Eng
lishmen say, because they are Anglo-SaXon and
believe in women. OF course continental men
think the freedom of American women either
immoral or indicate. and assert that if
no evil arises it is because of the alb
sence Of passion in the American race
that such condition of society is
absolutely impossible in France, all of which is
sheer nonsense. | know of no more hot-blooded
people than the southerners of our own coun-
try. deny that Americans, north or SOUTH are
cold. The great difference is not one of race,
but of custom aud education. ! do not think
that American men are naturally better than
other men; heaven knows the majority of those
who visit Paris are not. They happen to be
born in a more enlightened hemisphere and are
surrounded by purer influences, that is all.
While the learned professors of Harvard uni
yersity are shaking their wise heads aud deny.
ing the possibility of admitting girls to their
classes, predicting all sorts Of horrible results
from the association Of the sexes, 0berlin and
Antioch colleges in Ohio and Michigan uniyer-
sity demonstrate by practical experience how
utterly foolish are these medieval Nightmares
What Cambridge is to the west, Europe is to
Cambridge. The east seems to be a synonym
for whatever is retrograde. Wyoming territory
sets an example to states founded before it was
dreamed Of
So, Sally, education being what IL is, | am
not attracted TO English women, married or un.
married, as | am to the men. English women
generally will not compare iavorably with
American, but there are exceptions greatly to
the advantage Of England. We have had no
poet equal TO Mrs Browning, no novelist APP
ptoacng George Eliot, no scientist the peer Of
Mrs. S0meYille, no actress like Mrs. Slddons.
| There are few women IN society far more cul.
| tiyated than any leading woman of fashion In