Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-03-26
Arrangement of theSWeaker Sex for
Their 1mmodesty by Gertrude
AthertOn.
A Galaxy of Men and Women Whose
Nicely Belonged to a Prehis-
t0ric Race.
Some Interesting Facts in Regard tC
Woman's Dress and Appearance
in Public.
SaE Francisco Examiner.

| Iva NOhtdu dllO LIOSl men WOQIO an
swer the question in the negative without
hesitation. Look at the part that women
| have played In the history Of the world
excepting, in rare instances. a secondary
and supplementary one. The physical in
feriority which made them yield the first
place to man at the beginning of time. per-
hitting him to invent and enforce the r un-
equal moral code which has held its own SO
well on the surface of society, and which.
at the same time, made woman the wooed
instead of the wooer, naturally developed
| coyness, and. coetaneously, that quality
| which we call modestv, and which means
| anything from a high-necked gown to a
depreciation of ones superior endowments
1t is infrequently that a woman proposes
to man, and when she does the surprise
and disapproval she induces may be taken
as a demonstration of the natural reserve
OF her sex. And so has her reputation for
modesty grown thick and solid with the
crust of the earth; it were almost a crime
to suggest that, like the earth, it might
possess heart of plastic possibilities
most as cruel as when beautiful woman of
forty tells her age to an ardent admire.
But III this age of realism we have
few illusions left. Oh, blooless and
meager Jane Austen, Founder and High
| Priestess of Littlelsm! You have fur
nished a gallery with men and women
whose nicely of architecture belonged
not to the nineteenth century, but to
some prehistoric race of women too
narrow IN the head or too mishappen
(, to have learned the power of woman over
man.
For it is this power that makes woman
~ Ty-, IL. L
almost indifference, In the presence of
masculine genius, or even royal power
| that. If she be beautiful or fascinating wo-
man, so soon annuls that blushing, SIN ink
ing, maidenly respect for man as the
supreme animal. The first moment of a
woman's knowledge of her power over
men Is the supreme moment of her life,
the tons and gallons of sentiment over the
mother and first born to the country not
withdrawing. This knowledge naturally
develops coquetry, the woman becomes as
much the wooer as the man; he remains
only the outward and traditional semb-
ance of the knight, and conqueror; if he
has run she has beckoned. It is true that
men sometimes run when women do not
beckon, but passive power is often as strong
as active. Conversely women beckon and
|
their modesty knit about them even as a
garment.
And when woman has come into the
knowledge that her power over man is not
| through the channels of his mind, be he
ever so intellectual or as pincers to the
white flames of his spirit but is altogether
coloric and anthracite, then does the pur
pie flower of modesty fold its leaves. The
woman who technically preserves her vir-
tue, whatever and whereve~ her munal
rambliDgs, never wholly plucks this March
violet from its stem, no matter how much
she may torture it. The woman who mar
ries and is content IN the domestic or social
! field, or both, trains her violet to goodly
proportions, but the woman who joins the
ranks of the lower 10000 forgets its exist
ence more surely than the sex, for whose
pleasure, and that alone, she has acknowl-
edged she was created.
And so we have the problem of SibyI
tombstone. She cannot act she cannot
even suggest the polished, impulsive reck-
less wanton Of Dumass creation She
owes her notoriety, her success, to the fact
that she dares more, sexually, than any
actress has dared before her. In other
words, she has bitten the March violet
from the stem and flung it in the teeth of
her audience. And that she is proud of
herself, that she takes an impudent
pleasure in the vulg gar quality of her sue
cess. as well as in the censure of the wo-
men, young and old, respectable and COM
mercial, who crowded to see her. cannot
be doubted. Is she any worse than the
men who I'LL the managers pocket and her
own? Is the question | leave for these
| rlo0, 10, L. 1o
swer for themselves: far be it from me
to curtail time honored .prerogatlve. Be
sides, far more interesting one presents
itself. Could any man be found to make
a masculine LA of himself? Is there on
ly appealing to the sensuality of woman
it, and l can call more instances than |
entire footlight career has been play. in
glance and pose, upon the weakness of men.
And yet, where many men have owed more
| thusiasm or reciprocal magnetism of wo-
men, or to the idiocy of schoolgirls, I do
not believe there is case on record where
one has been censured for taking vulgar
! advantage of his attractions. Montague,
|
to be a gentleman and a modest man;
KyrIe Bellew, the greatest idiot of them
all, is not half so immodest as Mrs. Pot
| ter.
Why is it? Is it because women know
that the majority of them have but one
attraction for man, and that so potent a
one that they may as we'll make the most
of it? And that men, on the contrary,
frequently conquer by Indifference, to say
nothing of the money they are willing to
spend and of which they almost invariably
have more than women? Or, in the
case Of actors, is it the consciousness
of power that it is for them to seek and
choose, not to ogle merely for a vic
tim, the ogling prompted perhaps by an
uneasy consciousness of dressmakers
bills? Or is il because men, knowing
women better than women know them
selves, appreciate the value OF the unre-
vealed.
The reason lies deeper still, think; It's
roots are stuck fast in the old traditional
law of sex, against which women, ard the
third sex known as emancipated women,
have rebelled so long. Modesty cannot
live without self-respect. Women lose
self-respect IN jumping the grand army of
the deyirtuiZed, because tradition teaches
them that to ignore the priest and cleave
unto men is wrong. Nor do they ever
believe it to be anything but wrong until
the hour OF their death, when they are
usually comatose. Men, On the contrary
being equally the victims of tradition,
feel privileged to love oft and well, their
self-respect is too unviolated, the March
violet fiourishes apace. So strong is the
power of tradition, il fact, that even a
virtuous woman has no respect for a
virtuous man. And when women plaster