The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-05
WOMAN's CRUELTY TO WOMAN.
The Man Is Alleged to BE RESPONSE
BILE for 1t.


with more and more liberation breaches
of moral and civil laws committed by
members of their own SEX" said Arch
bishop Ireland in a recent address.
1t is something novel to hear man
assert and object to woman's charity
for woman. Since the first male phi
losopher began to smile and sneer at
ways feminine it has been mans GUS
tom to lament the hashness of wo-
mans judgments in matters where wo-
men are the culprits. 1t has been
taken for granted, so potent a factor
is repetition in making lasting impress
sions, that the guiltless woman is not
only authorized by society to throw
the first stone at her SHINING sister, but
that she takes a rare delight in ston-
ing.
And the more uncontested is the proud
purity of the stoning one, the more
pitiless is she presumed to be to the
one who has fallen.
The literary man loves to preserve
and further to disseminate this idea
of the Goddess of woman's mercy to
woman. He delights in picturing an
innocent, spotless young matron, over
flowing with the milk of human kind
ness, tender hearted and sympathetic,
gentle and sweet-tempered, charitable,
pure-souled and high minded, with a
tenderness for every suffering creature
in the world, except for the woman
gone astray. The mere sight of the
transgressor freezes every kindly drop
in her veins, and she becomes, as it
were automatically, pitiless, narrow
minded executioner who cuts" her
victim with a joy that could be no more
savagely elate if the sin which she is
elected TO punish were a personal wrong
she must revenge.
None SO Cruel as "GOOd" Women.
This is woman's charity to woman
in books. On the stage she is bit
more merciful, for the reason that
sinner, being, unhappily, so much more
interesting than saint, the wicked
one is often the heroine, and the at
titude of her fellow-fictiOns on the
stage must be the reflection of the sem
timent in the audiences heart. And,
theatrically, it has come to be the fash
ion to love ones errlng sister as one
self.
But woman's charity to woman, as
viewed from the masculine standpoint,
in real life, follows closely upon the
line the old novelists, and the English
novelists particularly, have made
familiar 1t is half joke
as expositions of feminine
characteristics are apt to be to the SUI
perior sex-but it is wholly truth to
them that there is no woman so cruel
as good" woman; that the quality
of her mercy to her own sex is so
strained that very, very little drips
down upon the scarlet woman crouch
ing before her outraged purity, as
Goethe's devil crouches before the
cross.
Men not only promulgate this the
ory: they believe it. 1t is so old a fic-
ton that it has become venerable TO
conservative thinkers. If you were to
ask ten men of your acquaintance for
an adjective that should describe Wo-
mans attitude toward women sinners,
nine of them would call ours the un-
forgiving sex.
Archbishop Ireland would be the
tenth man.
But the word unforgiving would be
used in no .condemnatory sense.
This unforgiving spirit men consider
reprehensible, of course, theoretically.
Practically, though, and specifically,
they applaud, while they affect to
smile at it as another instance of the
illiberality of feminine human nature.
why Man Poses as Being Tender.
The reason of the gentleness of this
masculine Judgment is evident. Man
is tender with woman's suppositious
reputation for being unclwritable to
women, because the real sin IS his own;
and it is human nature ~ recognize
ones weaknesses in others and TO be
almost as merciful to foster failings
as to ones own.
AS a matter of fact, not of fiction or
hearsay, it is mans inhumanity to the
sinful woman. and not woman's, that
is the Joke, If joke there be in the
melancholy misunderstanding The
real Puritan, the narrow-h headed, CEN
serious hater of Vice-in women, of
course, the question is not of men sim
ners, but of men assuming the priv
ilege of sainthood-is not the matron,
but her husband.
If Jenny Jones has fallen by the way
side. and Mrs. Smith stoops to pick
her up and restore her to her place,
who is the first to object?
Who but Smith?
If there is but a whisper against
willful Jenny, who is the first to carry
it to Mrs. Smith and to recommend
a cessation of the old intimacy?
Who but Smith-Smith, who was
wont to rail. good-naturedly, at the
narrowness of good women; Smith,
who, in the goodness of his soul, has
so often found excuses for the tempted;
Smith. who has recognized long ago
the one fault of illiberality in his wife's
composition; recognized ii and been
reconciled to it. even before 1t appear
ed. so prone is man to attribute class
failing to the sex and TO judge each
member of It by this foreordained
characteristic which he himself has
bestowed upon her?
His objections. of course, were all
real and practical His reasons are be-
nefcent. so far as protecting the wo-
man he loves is concerned. and altruis-
tic as far as that secondary selfishness.
which family selhshness is, will permit
him TO go.
But he does object. That is the real
point And he objects in no half-heart-
ed way VIVA tever may be the duty of
women toward women. the particular
woman ne loves and rules shall not
rescue this particular Jenny Jones. nor
any other one
Why mott