Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-06-22
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THE TROUBLES OF BEING A WOMAN.

Upon the whole, it is dreadful thing to be
woman, and do the business up in good
shape.
In the first place. you've got to look well, or
else you're nobody. A man may be hOmely
and still be popular. Whiskers cover up the
most of his face, and if he has got large
mouth, nobody mistrusts it and, if he wrin-
kles bad on his forehead, his friends speak of
his many cares, and of his thoughtful disposi-
tion, and tell each other that his wrinkles are
lines of thought. Lines of thought, indeed !!
when, in all probability, his forehead is wrin-
kled by the habit he has got of scowling at his
wife when the coffee isn't strong enough.
| A woman must always be in good order
throughout. Her hair must be friZzed and
banged as fashion demands and she must pow
der if she has shining skin and she must
manage to look sweet no matter how sour she
may feel, and she must hang just so, and her
laces must be always spOtless, and her boot
buttons all in place, and finger nails clean, and
she mustn't whistle nor climb fences, nor stone
cats, nor swear when she is mad.
| She can't 60 out alone because ladies must
be protected. She can't 60 anywhere when it
rains because her hair won't stay crimped, and
she'll get mud on her petticoats, and things.
She can't be a FreemaSOn, because she would
tell their secrets, and everybody would know
/
can't smoke because it wouldn't be feminine.
She can't 90 counting because it is unwoman-
ly But she must get married before she is
twenty-five, or everybody will feel wrOnged.
People will sigh over her, and wonder why it
is that men ''don't seem to take" and all the
old maids and widows will smile significantly
and keep quiet. .. ......
On, these smiles, and these significant looks !!
They are ten times worse than open slanders /!
1t is a terrible thing to be an old maid-ter-
rible Everybody knows it is, and the women
who are married to drunken husbands, and
who manage to quarrel with them six days out
of the seven, will groan in agony of spirit over
the single woman, and call her that poor old
maid , 80 ETEE ~ "a.
A woman must marry rich, or she doesn't
marry "well." To marry well is the end of a
woman's existence, judging from the view
which people in general take of this matter
It is everybody's business who a woman
marries. The whole neighborhood put their
heads together and talk over the pros and cons,
and decide whether she is good enough for
him. And they criticise the shape of her nose,
and the way she does up her hair, and relate
anecdotes of how lazy her grandfather was,
and how her Aunt Sally used to sell beans and
buttermilk.
A woman must wear No. 2. boots on No. 8
feet, and she must manage to dress we'll on
seventy five cents week ; and she mustn't be
vain, and she must be kind to the poor, and
90 regularly to the sewing-society meetings,
and be ready to dress dolls, and make aprons
and tides for church fairs.
She must he a good cook, and she must be
able to s'do up'' her husbands shirts so that
the heather Chinese washerman would groan
with envy and gnash his teeth with the same
unholy passion, at sight of them.
She must always have the masculine buttons
in the family sewed on so that they never will
come off while in use and she must keep the
family hosiery so that nobody would mistrust
that there were toes inside of the stockings
when they are on.
She must hold herself in continual readiness
to find everything her husband has lOst-and a
man never knows where anything is. He will
put his boots carefully away Oh the parlOr so.
ia, and when he has hunted after them half
All hour, he will appear to his wife with cOun-
tenance like that of the ayengng angel, and
demand to know ssWhat in the thunder she has
done with his boots 20
She must shut all the doors after her lord
and master, and likewise the bureau drawers,
for married man never was known to shut a
drawer. 1t would be rs unnatural as for hen
to 90 swimming for recreation.
She must 90 to bed first in cold weather, SO
as to get the bed warmed. Her husband, ifhe
be wise man, never asks her to do this, but
he sits up ''to finish piece in the paper" and
waits while she gets the sheets to comforta'
BILE temperature. -..-. -.
All, there are are good many tricks in the
trade of what is called living together ~
A woman is expected to take care of the ba-
by, even after the first infantile wonder mul'
tiplies into round dozen. And if he doubles
up with the colic or the trials of cutting
teeth, necessary evils of the mumps, and meas
les, and whooping cough, and scarlet fever,
and rash, and throat distemper, and short
sleeves, and bare legs, and pins sticking into
him, and too much candy and bad temper,
why her husband tells her that she does wish
she'd try and quiet the baby 20 And he says it
just as if he fully believed that she alone was
responsible for it's being in existence and as
if he thought she was considerably to blame
for it, too.
And when she has the headache, nobody
thinks of minding it !! A woman is always
having the headache And if she is nervous
enough to fly, ,"nobody shuts the doors any cas-
ier on account Of it, or tucks her upon the
| lounge with shawl over her, or cOddleS her
to death, like man has to be coddled in such
circumstances
We might go on indefinitely with the trou-
bles woman brings ; and if there is a man in
the world who thinks a woman has an easy
time of it why just let him pin on a pound of
false hair, and get inside a new pair Of corsets,
and put on pullback overSkirt, and be a wO-
man himself, and see now he likes it.
THE SOUTH AND GARFIELD.-The New
York Times contains the following editorial,
which suggests the inquiry, Would the mur-
dered President have proved himself afriend to
the South p
There is something curious in the feeling
attributed to the Southern people in relation
to the Administration of General Garfield
and that of his successor. The hopes which
are said to have centered upon the former
seem rather to have been born Of the sympa-
thies awakened by it's tragic ending than to
have been founded on rational expectations at
it's beginning Exactly what was expected of
General Garfield by the South it would be
hard to say or to surmise. Perhaps it simply
hoped to be let alone, but we imagine that it
was the succession of Arthur, whose purposes
the Southern people distrusted, that gave
birth to the idea that Garfield would have
been in any peculiar sense their benefactOr.
Whatever foundation there may be for the
Southern sentiment on this subject, it is evi-
dent that the change of Administration had
depressing effect OH the liberal tendency in the
South, if that tendency really existed a year
ago. The people there do not seem to have
greeted the new President with much conf
dence, and his course has not increased it..
One thing is quite clear. The method of
winning support by endeavoring to make the
patronage of the Government a constructive
force in politics is not successful in promOt-
ing National feeling and overcoming local or
sectional preiudices. 1t rather drives people
back to their old lines and strengthens the