The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1885-07-26
BOTHER OF BEING A WOMAN


tt is a dreadful bother to be woman
and do the business up in good shape. In
the first place you've got to look well, or
you're nobody. A man may be ever SO
homely and yet be popular. Whiskers
cover up most of his face, and if he has a
big mouth nobody mistrusts it, and if he
does wrinkle bad on his forehead his
friends speak of his many cares and of his
thoughtful disposition, and tell each other
that his wrinkles are lines of thought
Lines of thought. indeed, when in all
probability his forehead is wrinkled by the
bad habit he has got of scowling at his
wife when the coffee isn't strong enough!
A woman must always be in good order.
Her hair must always be frizzed and
banged, as fashion demands, and she must
powder if she has shining skin, and she
must manage to look sweet, no matter how
sour she may feel; her dress must hang
Just SO, and her lace must always be spot
less, and her boot buttons always in place,
and her finger nails always clean; and then
she mustn't whistle, nor climb fences, nor
stone cats, nor scold when she's mad
She can't go out alone, because ladies
must be protected she can't go anywhere
when it rains, because her hair won't stay
frizzed, and she'll get mud on her petticoat
and things she can't be Free Mason,
because she would tell their secrets, and
everybody would know all about the goat
and gridiron she can't smoke, because
that would be unfeminine she can't go
counting, because that would not be
womanly. But she must get married before
she is rs, 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 smile and keep
quiet. Oh, these smiles and these signif-
cant looks They are more than ten times
open SANDERS It is terrible thing to be
an old maid. Everybody knows it is, and
the women who are married to drunken
husbands, and who manage to quarrel with
them six days out of seven, will live in an
agony of spirit over the single woman, and
call her that "poor old maid"
A woman must marry rich or she doesn't
marry sswelp which is the end and aim of
woman's existence, judging from the view
which people in general take of this matter.
1t Is everybody's business when 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. (There is nothing said
about his being good enough for herr. And
they criticise the shape of her nose, and re-
late 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 well on seventy-fve
cents week, and she mustn't be vain and
she must go regularly to the sewing society
meetings, and be ready to dress dolls and
make tides and aprons for church fairs.
81 ha q rood aOoR and uha no
able to edo up her husbands shirt so that
the 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 but
tons of the family sewed on SO they will
never come off while in use, and she must
keep the family hosiery so that nobody
would ever mistrust that there were toes in
the stockings while they were on. She
must hold herself in constant readiness to
find everything her husband has lost-and
a man never knows where to find anything
He will put his boots carefully away on the
parlor sofa, and when he has hunted for
them half an hour he will suddenly appear
to his wife with countenanee like an
avenging angel and demand "What in
thunder has she done with my boots" She
must shut all the doors after her lord and
master, and likewise the bureau drawers,
for a married man was never known to
shut q drawer. 1t would be as unnatural
for hen to go in swimming for recreation.
She must go to bed first in cold weather
SO as to get the bed warm. Her husband,
if he be wise man, never asks her to do
this. Oh, no but he sits to "just finish
this piece in the paper" and waits till she
has got the sheets to comfortable tenn
perature. All, there are a great many
tricks in the trade of living together.
A woman is expected to take care of
the baby even after the first infantile
wonder has multiplied into round
half dozen. And if he doubles up with the
collie or trials of cutting teeth, or necessary
evils Of humps, and measles, and wheop-
ing-cough, and scarlet fever, and rash, and
throat distemper, and snort sleeves and
bare legs, and pins sticking into him, and
too much candy, and a bad temper, why
her husband tells her that he "does wish
she would try and quiet her baby" and he
says it, too, as if he thought she alone
was responsible for its being in existence,
and as if she was considerably to blame for
it, too.
And when she has the headache, nobody
thinks of minding it-a woman's always
having the headache. And If she is "nery-
GUS enough to fly" nobody shuts the door
any quieter, and nobody tucks her on the
lounge with shawl over her, or coddles
her to death as a man has to be coddled
under such circumstances. We might go
on indefinitely with the troubles of being a
woman, and if there is man who thinks
q woman has an easy time of it, why, just
let him pin on a pound of false hair and
get inside pair Of corsets, and put on a
pullback overskirt, and be q woman HIM
self, and see how he likes it.-Loioeu Times.