The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-07-30
THE WOMEN OF TILE PAST
il. AND THE, PRESENT.

,s. AND IHE, PRESENT. Isl
To the Editor OF I he Chicago Evening Journal:
While one cf the Sunday morning
papers deprecates the fact that the
women Of the present generation are,
or at least seen, fast becoming such
useless and expensive toys, CORE
spondent offers a very palpable ex-
cuse for their being such, and sum
marily sweeps away the arguments
in favor of their returning to the
primitive habits of their grandmoth-
ers. The argument produced, if not
illogical, seems at least an impollte
congestion on the part OF women.
Is the statement that women live
and dress wholly to please the other
sex altogether true !? and, if true, is
it really best to acknowledge it? ua
Man, with all his faults, which
are not a few, has not greater
weakness than vanity, and is it ad-
yisaole to waste our breath In IN
creasing an initiation already more
perllous to our best interest than
that of the currency
Do not women dress principally to
please themselves. and secondarily
10 please flIo fasGfdfous tastes OF their
lady friends =? The outward adjoining
is but an exponent of the inner life
that fashions it. IF every sentiment
and feeling be refined and cultivated,
a coase and repulsive dress would be
violence to sucn life, and there is
no more use of expecting that won
an will be false to these better in
stlncts, than there is looking for
brambles where art and civilization
have planted the fir tree.
Then, again, do not those women
who have no innate refinement in
their own nature to satisfy, and ac-
cordingly have little regard for the
refined tastes of their friends, dress
to please that society despot, Mrs.
Grundy 3? Is it a logical conclusion
to arrive at, that we devote our lives
to the vain pursuit Of pleasing the
men, when everything we do, or say,
or wear is Numerically opposed to
what they wonld dictate for us ? For
instance, it is an incontroverfable fact
that the season we decide upon for
small bonnets: men as irreconcilabIv
decide for us that we ought to wear
larger ones orreverse the statement.
and the argumentholds equally good.
Now if we were so determined on
pleasing them would we not straight
way put aside the little treasures
over which heart and eyes are wont
to hold sweet counsel, and would we
not at once form for ourselves a COW,
ering fashioned to suit the masculine
crauiums, whether our own heads
were suitably adorned or not /? But
is that what we do? By no means.
We follow the fashions set for us
across the sea with an obstinacy as
blind and sometimes as st,,n;d !.
though there was not q man ! in the
world; and after they have pointed
to their hearts content, and ridiculed
us all to no purpose, they at length
acknowledge themselves vanouished
and return to their former allegiance,
accepting us, little bonnets and 4 all.
as generously and magnanimously
as though we had never run counter
to their opinions in our lives. f' oI
Again, to look at the subject ra-
.ticnally, I was about to say, when /
remembered that man, though IN!
.cllned toreason on other things. il
equally certain to be irrational wher-
ever woman is concerned, and would
have asked is it desirable to have
woman at the present day devote her
time to the wheel and the loom while
there are thousands ofspindles all
over the country drawing out their
ten thousand threads rer second