The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-19
a FEMININE COMPLAINT.


nouse Eve was bored that she exper-
,mented with the apple, and from her
dav down to the present time it has
haen popularly charged that idle and
disoontented women have stirred up
most of the trouble in the world.
There seems lobe something in wom-
ans finely organized nervous tempera-
,,a14 that makes live interest abso-
lutelv necessary to her. for not only
can she be bored into the mad house,
hut she ages and breaks down under
mechanical work, while the labor that
brings into play all the resources of
her being-that absorbs her soul and
and mind, as we'll as body-seems to
afford her a fountain of perpetual
youth and unending vitality, on which
she can draw increasingly. This is
abundantly proven by contrasting the
average domestic woman with her sis
fer who follows any business or career.
The woman who is engaged in a pro-
fession works far harder than a woman
who is merely a housekeper, yet nine
ty-nfne times out of a hundred it is
the domestic woman who is worn, and
old. and lifeless, while the other wom-
an keeps the bloom of youth and the
ioy and enthusiasm of living. No
other women in the world have such
calls made upon their strength and
health and nerves as actresses, yet it
is a truism that they keep their youth
far beyond any other class of women,
and this is because they are never
bored They are always thrilling 10
some new experience or emotion.
Mentally the effect of ennui on a
woman is no less disastrous. 1t is the
women who have nothing to think
about who have always been the gos-
ahR mongers and the mischief-makers
in every community. OF one thing we
may be sure, and that is that the
woman who has no worthy subject of
interest, is going to find an unworthy
one. This was what gave rise to the
tradition, unhappily once true, that old
maids, and women with no home or
families of their own, were vituperative
old cats that went about from house
to house making trouble, and putting
a meddling finger in eVerybody's pie.
woman who has no particular inter
ests of her own, instead of deVoting
herself to interfering with her neigh
bors, finds active employment in or
ganizing the great reforms of the world
and doing the work that the busy house
mother has no time to do. Being no
longer bored, she does not feel that
life is cinders between her teeth, and
she has been converted, by the simple
process of finding an interest, from
a menace to society to it's greatest
protector and benefactor.
The moral effects of boredom on a
woman are simply those of dope, un-
der which she loses all perception of
right and wrong, and goes utterly to
pieces. Who can doubt for a moment
that the appalling scandals that are so
frequent in fashionable society are the
direct result of idleness and self-wear-
iness Nor do we have to look as far
as the smart set of New York or the
palaces of Newport to see illustra-
tions of this. In every boarding house
in the land, where a lot of lazy, un-
employed women are gathered togeth-
er, the same crimes are being enacted,
the same deterioration of character
is going on. First, the bodily health
suffers from nothing to do; then the
mental disintegration begins in the un-
employed mind, busying itself with
other peoples affairs; then comes the
moral laXness-the little fiirtations en-
tered into just for fun and excitement
just anything to break the dead level
of monotonous and idle days, and the
final end in estrangement of husband
and wife, even when it does not reach
the catastrophe of an open rupture in
the divorce court.
What is the remedy for this? There
Is only one infallible cure for being
bored, and that is congenial occupa-
ton, and every woman should seek
that as she values her happiness here
and hereafter. To a degree, the open
ing of new avenues of employment to
women settles this question and gives
vent for the uneasy talents and am
bltions that suppressed have made so
many women sources of misery to
themselves and others. 1 have known
more than one restless, dissatisfied,
sharp-tongued woman turned into a
broad-minded, calm and reasonable
philosopher, just by getting into doing
the thing she could do and wanted to
do.
Talleyrand advised everybody to
learn to play whist in their youth in
order that they might not pass a mis-
cradle old age, and to the well-to-do,
unemployed women no better coun-
sci could be given than to interest
themselves in some of the great move
ment sof the day-literary, philanthropy
ic, artistic, whatever it is that ap-
peals to them. There is no better am
tldote for that bored feeling than a
genuine partisan interest in a real live
cause.
This advice also applies to the do
mestic woman. for while there are few
more interesting occupations than
looking after a house, and no more
exciting sport than trying to keep a
cook still domesticity is bound at
times to pail from its very inevitable
necessity of going over and over the
same round of duties. and an outside
interest will do much to keep one from
getting bored with darning stockings
ana ordering dinners.
Men have been in the way of in
Weighing at woman's rights, and wom-
ems clubs, and women's reform move
nents, but they make the mistake of
thelr lives in doing so. Aside from
thelr practical results, these move
ments are all safety values in which
women work off their boredom, and
mat prevent many a home from being
oiown up. A wise husband encourages
ms Wife to have all the interests in
ne she can, and thus keeps her sweet,
sane and reasonable.