The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-05-28


each civilization have had their Woman
" Ideals-which never agree the one
with the other, and whereof the one kind
never wearies of yilifying the other. In
the old Homeric times the Grecian wom-
| en-, though in some sense "disparted'
from the men, were yet freer and more
-companionable than they became in pure
" historic times. Long robed Helen"
moved freely among her guests-and by
the same token bore the burden of her
guilt and shame with the curious equan-
unity of pretty sinners in general
white armed Arete," the wife Of God
like Alcinous" and the mother of Nausicaa
that sweetest maiden Of them al-was
a power in her lordly home, equal in dig
nifty with that fine figure by whose side
she sat. Cassandra and Clytemnestra,
Electra and Antigone. Andromache and
that grey haired aged mother, the desolate
and heart broken H~ecuba-they We're all
women in their own right, and swayed
their respective worlds with their unchal-
lenged sceptres.
In the old chivalric days the Ideal was
| that of the noble lady, fair in bower,
gracious in hall, able to defend the castle
in the absence of her lord and to heal his
| wounds when he returned. She, too, was
| bound to spin and weave, to sew and en-
| broider sitting in the midst of her maids,
| while haply some learned clerk read to
them aloud, or some wandering minstrel
| sang his roundelays to the accompaniment
| of his harp. From these more purely
| domestic duties, she might be called to
| preside at some tournament held in the
fitting ground of the castle; or to go to
the kings court, attiredsin all her BRAY
| cry, and watching with interest the do
| ings of the knight who wore her favor
floating from his helmet or bound scarf
wise on his arm. Or she might be one of
| the ladies Who decisions in the Court of
| Love were final, and whose anxiom as to
| the duties of lovers and ladies hold good
| to this day. But even the Ideal here too
| was one of Beauty and Reserve, says
| Mrs. Lynn Linton.
Now the Ideal has shifted from Shynes
and Reserve to Candor and Good Fellow
ship. Chaperonage is a thing of the past,
and all girls are held capable of protecting
themselves. while all men are supposed
incapable of over-stepping those airy and
imaginary boundaries which separate ia
miliarity from freedom. and prevent in
timacy from becoming license. The Ideal
now is a strong, athletic, breezy woman-
hood which has no tenderness and no re-
servewhich talks slang and smokes
which is out in all weathers and all day
long-which hunts, fishes. shoots, cycles,
goes to its club, gives dinners to its male
friends, makes up pienics with never a
matron older han the youngest girl, has
&c ssbox-ct, in nrnfrStou and ia something
of a boy itself with its comrades. It has
no fear, no sense of shyness, and none OF
limitation Of sex or impropriety OF action,
and man and woman are 70 y inter-
changeable terms; and for the lie OF II u
cannot see that, VIVA the one may W ~
other may not. 1t mas modernlzed the
oio ioeal OF the Ahazons' anu
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