, 1889-09-07
THE GERMAN WOMAN.
How She Lives from Maid to Wife, with
Incidents of CourtshIp.

How She Lives from Maid to Wife, with
incidents of Courtship.
The German woman is neither the ex-
cellent housewife which she processes to
be o the bluestocking she is often
thought. Gretchen" exists no longer,
except on the lids of the boxes of AN
died fruits, and she is quite a match for
Faust when she meets him. In fact, the
German girl of today, especially in Ber-
lin, is not so much like the Marguerite of
Goethe as the Loulou of ''Gyp."
German school life is a serious bust
ness. 1t begins at 7 years old, and the
two subjects of study which are special
ly in favor with all classes of people of
any pretensions are French and the
piano. 81 do not think it is an exag-
geration," says the writer, "to say that
in easy circumstances play the piano and
90 per cent. speak French"
As soon as a girl becomes confirmed
her education is generally concluded,
unless she goes in for special higher
branches of study. Her parents begin
to think of getting her married, and she
goes to her first ball. Courtship, the pre-
liminaries to which generally take place
on the floor of the ball room =, in the
winter, to the rhythm of tue same waltz
time played by the same military band
on the ice, is inaugurated thus: If the
young man means business he calls on
the young lady's parents one Sunday
and breaks the ice. He will then be
asked to dinner, and a c-eremonious
exchange of little sentimental presents
will take place between the pair, inter
larded with sentimental sentences-al-
ways in French.
When an engagement has been def
nitely h young people are
allowed quite an English amount of free
dom in their intercourse. Indeed, if we
may believe h writer, their
and customs are considerably more
frankly free han ours in this countrr.
for, she says, they do not scruple to
kiss each other in public as often as they
feel inclined, and there is nothing more
disagreeable at a soiree than the spec
tacle of one of these sentimental
couples" Before marriage the German
girl is a mighty reader of novels, her ca
pacity for sentimental stories being
simply ~inexhaustible. Rarely, however,
does marriage in German prove the real
ization of n of the dreams in which
her girlish fancy has taken delight.
The German married woman has never
occupied the same place as does the
French woman, by reason of the total
absence of any sentiment of chivalry or
romance in the treatment of women by
men in Germany. True, the sons, the
husbands, the brothers of the women of
Germany deserve our respect for their
Energy, their character-all that supplies
a nation with its force. But how disas-
trous is that force for the women. Force
is more fatal to grace than even to right.
What hardness in the dignity What
carelessness, what supreme indifference
on the part of those proud and selfish
heroes, who do not ask their companions
of the other sex to understand them and
appreciate them, but only to keep house
satisfactorily and to bear a number of
childrenl So far, indeed, does the Ger
man husband carry his want of gallantry
that he absolutely dislikes to see his wife
make use of any of those advantages of
the toilet the results of which are COM
prised in the epithet scornfully applied
to a well dressed neutrality-suspicious..
The state of intellectual, moral and
social subsection of the German woman
naturally does not tend to develop any
originality In her. She never starts a
new idea or a new fashion. Imitation,
not invention, is the utmost of which
she is capable, and even in initiating she
is slow. The German woman Is crushed
beneath the overwhelming superiority
of her lord and master. The famous
'deutches webb" who is the traditional
type of the German woman, is just the
German of Tacitus-the servant of man.
Cor. London Globe.