Grand Rapids herald. [volume] (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 1892-1959, 1893-01-20
NOT ALL ONE WAY
The Charms OF Youth Does Net
Always Excel
The GRAcfs OF MATURITY
A New Type Of Fsnssninisy Has Ar.ssn
and ths Combination OF Angel and
Idiot i1s-lzss in Poetry.

4 ] J.
lie old time superstitions
IN regard 10 woman arc
year by year growing fewer in number.
and il Is safe To predict that In the not
distant future her social and intellectual
rights viii be everywhere as freely ac-
knowledged AS are her brothers.
Ia all ages and countries where wom-
en- have been regarded ~ intellectually
inferior 10 men and relocated TO the ami
NAL plane their chala has been coasid-
cred as a thing exclusively of youth. In
eastern lands girls are mothers at
twelve. fourteen and sixteen years OF
age. grandmothers often at thirty or
younger and old and passee ut thirty-five.
That woman could possess any per-
sonal attractiveness after she had passed
her teens would DO beyond the compre-
hension of the oriental mind. and until
the last quarter Of century the west
ern world has been hardly less material
in its estimate Of feminine character.
The heroine of the original novel was the
fourteen-y ear-old. Sweet sixteen" and
blooming eighteen" were the favorite
ages less than half century ago, and it
was not until the multiplication Of col
leges for woman kept her from society
until past twenty that the world of fic-
tion-usually fair reflection of world
of reahties-discovered the possibilities
of sweetness in the early twenties
The increase in the longevity of girl
hood is the result Of woman's broader
life and wider recognition of her ca
liabilities and possibilities. Among the
better classes the girls need of education
and right to it are as readily conceded to
her as are the boys privileges to him.
The old time fallacy that girls mature
more rapidly than boys no longer serves
as reason for thrusting upon the unde-
veloped maiden Of sixteen cares for
which she is no moro ready than is the av-
erage boy of that age. Up to twenty-one
and later the young woman Of the period
is busy with her books and educational
interests. and instead of being mother
at eighteen, as her grandmother was be-
fore her. she is now what she should be
at that age-a happy, unfettered girl.
Nor is the tag, ''old maid," affixed to
the unmarried woman at as early an age
as formerly, when twenty-five was de-
nominated the second corner" and thir-
ty marked the age of forlorn. spinster-
hood. a study of marriage statistics
in fashionable society will show that
more girls marry after twenty five than
younger, and further study of modern
society will reveal the fact that its bellies
are quite as often women in the thirties
as in the twenties
The girl of eighteen has the charm OF
youth. and the world will always pay
tribute to her innocence and freshness,
but she no longer poses, as in the earlier
century, as the divine creature who can
compel all knees to bow before her. In
deed the debutantes of modern society
often complain that the alteration which
should be theirs is borne off by the young
matrons and bewitching widows, and IL
this is so it only com liments the good
sense of society.
Men demand more of women than they
once did. and this the woman of the
world soon learns. If she is more inter
esting at thirty than she was at twenty
1t Is because she has learned the impor-
tance of being as we'll as looking attract
i've. Indeed it may be argued that the
wise woman of modern times is learning
the lesson of history. which is that the
secret Of lasting charm is found in the
culture of something more than youth
full grace.
Cleopatra was no longer a girl when
she subju.ated the heart of Marc An
tony and it Is difficult TO believe that
the secret Of her inexhaustible attract
iveness. whose infinite variety age could
not wither nor custom STALE" was found
IN the play of shapely limbs or the flash
of beautiful eyes. Josephine had passed
the boundaries Of girlhood when she won
the heart of Napoleon. and the leaders
OF the French salon were women OF years
as we'll as of intellect
Who remembers 10 inquire how old
Lady Mary Wortiey Montagu was when
reading of her triumphs IS the most bril-
liant woman Of the reign of George III
Who ever thinks OF the beautiful
Mime. dc kecainer as Il woman well on
IN year,. or associates a thought OF age
with Nine d. staelg
And ~ oar Own country and day are
not the women raost honored ia society.
N literature. ia the world women who
have studied hfe. ana whose faces oftcner
showed lines OF Thought than cheeks
tblooln with DE Rlow IF YOUTH
The Clarifaas aud ths i.acys and the
Mauanas haze had their day A new
type ~ femininity ha- arisen, aud the
combination ~ angel aa,l IDIOT formerly
ldeiizsd IN paaffy ard fiction No longer
ezIsis. Tho artificial, hosliaase sgeehuen
Of giFlh08d ~ whose nature all sponta-
neity was repreased, Is uow rarely met
with
Girls afe encouraged to be- natural and
um,t a9 a.ii educated less In stiitat
idsas ~ pfoHiety than they were when
the lnno ence Of youth was married by
enforced teaelins upon the Necessity II
securing a home and providing ones self
with husband The instincts aud de-
slfes 4 3epth ara not crushed ont as they
veus ma'ief Tie ald regime and the life.