The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-02-12
SHOULD WOMEN PROPOSE"

MIR. EDITOR:-I was somewhat sur
prised to see in SO bright and fI,-tIe-
steele a paper as the REGISTER a
proposition that the question "Should
Women Propose be discussed in its
columns, evidently written in the
honest belief that women are not at
present in the habit of proposing.
Making due allowance for the fact
that you are young and Inexperienced
1 had yet supposed you sufficiently
keen to see through this flimsy worm
out Medieval tradition. | would not
accuse you of pretending to believe in
tradition merely because it is pOpu-
lar, so l am forced to the conclusion
that you have never discovered the
hollow mOcllery of this particular
society fiction. what" you say,
can woman so forget wOmanly mod
esty and dignity as to ask man to
marry her?p Nssuredly nOt-that is
not in that brutal, OutspOken, mascu-
line way. But there are proposals
and proposals. \ man in love never
has his head about him. He is al
ways at disadvantage. He can only
blurt out the whole matter i'm the first
words that come to him. But wom-
an is cool. She can manage the mat
ter so ingeniously that man is safely
caught in the net, still under the de-
fusion that he is doing the fishing.
Don't think me an old cynic soured
by marriage. On the contrary, am
a cordial admirer of these feminine
manOeuvers. and as far as detract-
ing from wOma2ly modesty and grace
is concerned, that is mere nonsense.
Why, bless you, the women most sue
cessful at this sort of thing, are ex-
actly of the retiring-viOlet, clinging-
vine, kisS-me-quick-Or-Tl vari-
ETY., the very type of modest shrink
ing femininity.
If / were well versed in history l
could doubtless quote authentic cases
TO sustain my statement. / can at
least quote fiction, and, as some one
has pertinently remarked, i'm history
nothing is true except names and
places; in fiction everything is true
except names and places.
Take for instance "the gentle Des-
demona.n You will grant that if
ever a man drew a women true. .
Shakespeare did. You will grant too
that there was nothing masculine or
immOdest about the "super-subtile .
Venetian" Yet when Othello told
her the story of his pilgrimage:
she swore in faith, twas strange twas pass
ing strange;
Twas pitiful. twas WOndrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard il, yet she wished
That Heaven had made her such man; yet she .
thanked me,
And babe me if had a friend that loved her
/ should but teach him how 20 tell my story
And that would WOO her"
(Some stupid commentators have
tried to settle the meaning of the am
biguOus phrase "she wished that
Heaven had made her such man."
AS if Desdemona did not mean it to
be ambiguOusD
You will agree that Desdemona did
her share in that proposal. And for
modern instance, take the Quaker
maiden, Priscilla. with her coy "why I
don't thee speak for thyself John?r !
That was pointed enough surely, yet
no one ever called Priscilla unwOm-
anly. ,
But it is unnecessary to multiply /
instances. have not attempted to {
discuss very deeply the question
"Should women propOse?" 1 simply :
wished to call your attention TO the 9
fact, Mr.. Editor, that whether she