St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-11-25
THE FEMININE WOMAN.

AND sees Within my eyes the tears CI TWO.
! Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
THE FEMININE WOMAN.
What volumes it speaks Of the tend
ency of femininity that we already
need some qualifying term to designate
clearly what order OF woman is meant
when we refer to the sex. Gradually
such an essential change has come
about that whereas once the word
woman suggested yielding, sweet,
submissive, patient. passive body-the
complement of mans eXistence-it now
calls to mind rather self-sufficlenI be-
ing, neither sweet nor sour, self-assert-
i've rather than submissive, patient
so far as it is polite, no more
passive, but full of unrest and
activity. Even the masculine woman
has SO far given place to different
creature as to almost persuade us the
coming woman has arrived and gone
into business without having sent up
her card in advance. Representative
women-those who compose clubs, make
motions, present memorials, bully the
government, instigate reforms, stir
up the conservative old world gener-
ally-no longer feel the necessity of
trademarking superficial differences
from others of their sex with outlandish
dress and manners. The difference has
become so deep-seated as to need no
surface label. Everybody recognizes
it. and never as to-day were women
with ideas so little and so much like wo-
men and solittle and so much like men--
in a word so entirely class by them
selves. Are we hybridizing? is bound
soon to be the question about which the
minds of thinking women will most
actively reyolve. The outward SEM
blances of their sex were never as care
fully observed by strong-minded women
as at present. The brainy woman who
comes short of being an actual genius
and cannot, ON the score of eccentricity,
indulge in old clothes and freaks. gives
such close attention to her wardrobe
that the lady of fashion in crowd
might claim her as sister. Anything
that savors of manniShneSS in dress or
manner she shunS as the devil does
his own while masquerading as
saint. Yet daily she grows more
manlike in thought and expression.
Her ideas and sentiments are fast losing
sex. as are also her needs. A woman
physician in this city said not long ago.
questioned as to whether she would ever
marry: Marry? good gracious. what
do you suppose | would do with a man?
| undertook to have my brother live
!, los
misery. He came home at night tired.
so did [; he rather expected me to make
his tea. get his slippers and dressing
gown and | rather expected him to per-
form these tasks for me; he wanted
to be amused, SO did |, he wanted
to talk his shop and | wanted to talk
mine; the consequence OF our cOnjunc-
ton was, as said, mutual misery. He
would sit one side the CRATE. glare
into the fire and feel neglected; would
sit the other side, glaring and neglect
ed, too, until finally he would go down
town and / would find happiness in a
case of hydrophobia or ASiatic cholera.
Instead of adding man to my bur-
denS, need more to secure the care
and sympathy Of woman myself"
The c0mpanionShip of husband, the
delights of home and family are daily
decreasing attractions to the hybrid
creation that is the outcome of intel
lectual development among women. A
Chicago ''glorified SpinSter" says on the
subject, 'sAs to home, | can make one
for myself. | love children, and when
am able to care for them shall adopt
several. There are too many homeless
little ones now. AS to husbands love.
it is too great risk to take; the records
of the divorce courts and the private
lives of many of my friends are a sad
warning to me-" This ssglorified
spinster'' omits from her dream of the
future one feature that the majority of
others add, j. e.. feminine woman.
The independent woman who labors
ten or twelve hours of the day among
men. finds enjoyment in the dainty
charms, the soft ways, the very
weakness and friyolity Of a
woman unspoiled by brain. that
nothing else can compensate. The in
finite graces at the command of
refined woman spared the coarsenlng in
living" are as great a source of delight
to the masculine woman as to the mas
culine man, and the masculine woman
has just as great horror as a man
of the old-fashioned strong-minded
woman-the literary female, briStling
with opinions like disturbed porcu-
pine, who talks always IN nothing less
dignified than blank verse and never
opens her mouth without prefacng her
remarks with some reference to the de-
cline of the Roman empire or
the fall of Nineveh, OF some quotation
from the classics, rendered in very
faulty original, or equally murderous
original translation. The masculine
woman would hundred times rather
talk dolls with child, or the latest
scandal or newest fashion with apretty,
unintellectual woman, than discuss
metaphysics with a Chautauqua gradu-
ate, or the tariff question with a man.
The distinctly feminine woman is at
big premium even now, and in accord
ance with the law of supply and de-
mand, her value is bound to increase as
feminine progression reduces her num-
bers. Heaven hinder the day of her
total disappearance, it advancing civil
cation must suffer commissions and
double on its track to preserve her in
our midst!
At the last club dinner given by the
Chicago Congregational club, Mrs.
Emily Huntington Miller read a paper
on 'srhe Financial Question in the
Home From a Woman's Standpoint"
She held that the man who earns and
brings in the money has done no more