The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-02
woM4N'S LACK OF BACKBONE.

q, tbe New Orleans Picayune, Who said
,bat If he had been consulted at the
beginning of things that he could have
,.oved the Creator from making some
certifying blunders. Nevertheless 1
of+en wonder if we would not have
baan a good many million miles nearer
+he millennium if it had pleased the
Almighty to make Eve out of Adams
vertebrate instead of his rib.
That got the feminine sex on the
wrong foot, so to speak. 1t started us
out with a handicap, and ever since,
whenever a woman has shown any in
clination to brace up, and have enough
starch in her character to stand alone,
somebody has always been on hand to
throw cold water on her and reduce
her to the limp and helpless condition
of wet dish rag again.
Perhaps, considering that it is a con-
stitutional affection with her, we
shouldn't be too hard on woman for not
possessing a backbone, but there can
he no doubt that it has been at the
bottom Of most of the trouble in the
world ever since the first woman was
soft enough to yield to the first temp
tation that came her way. Strangely
enough however, instead of deprecat-
ing this weakness as it deserves, men
have localized it. Nay, more, in a
paroxysm of gallantry they even glori-
fy what is mere fiabbiness and spine
Iessness by calling it womanly tender
ness and gentlenesS, and sympathy
and as a general thing, the more ac-
omesCent, the more pliable and the
mushier a woman is, the better she
is liked by men. The popular mascu-
line model of feminine perfection IS
still a creature who is all heart and
rib and no brain or backbone-a be-
ing who is so full of the milk of hu-
man Kindness she is simply sloshing
over, and who is always ready to pity
and never to judge.
This is a pretty and a poetic thought,
and it might be a good working plat
form, if life were lived in hexameters
or set to rhymes. Unfortunately,
though, the world is cold, hard prose,
and robbed of all the chiffons of ro-
nance that novelsts and versifiers
have .draped about her, the naked fact
stands forth that the backbOneless
woman is the milestone about the neck
of humanity, for she is simply the load
that the balance of the world has to
pull along. She yearns for rights she
is too cowardly to take; she groans
under wrongs she is too weak to re
siSt; she bemoans social conditions she
lacks the grit to set right. 1 know
of nothing else so pathetic as that the
majority of the women of the civilized
world are banded together in church
societies, and temperance societies and
anti-vice societies, praying for a mir
aCIe to happen that they could work
themselves with one good, strong, unit
ed kick
The one thing that above all others
inspires me with an admiration that is
positive reverence for the mighty mas
culine intellect is that through all of
these centuries man has succeeded in
bulldoZing woman, and forcing her to
come up to his standard, while appar-
emily it has never dawned on her that
she had an equal right to force him to
comes up to hers. That is why women
are better than men. A man is par
ticular about the moral character of
the person he marries. A woman isn't.
A man puts on magnifying glasses
when he looks into the past of the
one he is about to marry. A woman
shuts her eyes.
We pretend that it does, but we know
that in reality sex makes no difference
in temperament, appetiteS or tastes.
There are probably just as MANY wom-
en- with a longing for liquor and ex-
element and rowdy4sm generally as
there are men, but women do not in
dulge their weaknesses because they
know that society doesn't kill the fat
ted calf for the prodigal daughter, no
matter how much veal it Stays for the
pr0digal son. No woman deceiYes her
self with the hope that if she should
come rolling home drunk in the early
hours of the morning a patient and
forgiving husband would receive her
with a sweet kiss. On the contrary,
she knows she would be hauled into the
divorce court, and that knowledge
keeps women, as a sex, sober and de-
cent. If the time ever comes when
L IL
and refuse to marry an immoral man
or to be seen in public with one, just
as a man refuses to give his name to
the woman with a STAINED past; if
wives ever gather together sufficient
strength to treat the drunken husband
as the husband would treat them if
they needed the Kelley cure, we shall
have some reforms inaugurated by
women that will reform. Until they
do-until women quit forgiving so
much, and fight a little more-all of
the oratory and "be it resolveds" and
whereas" and "whereforing'' INDUCED
in by the women's reform societies are
but a waste of hot air. You have got
to put some force behind anything to
make it succeed
The same thing may be said about
the species of domestic slavery under
winch SO many women groan Women
complain to me constantly that they
bands for every cent they have to
spend, and that their husbands fire.
quently wreak on them all the bad
temper and irritability and nerves that
they would not dare show the balance
Of the world. Again, l say, it is the
woman's own fault if she let's herself
be treated that way and she has no
one to blame but herself. Not only
your husband, but the whole world
VIII trample on you if you make a
door mat of yourself, but people will
not only not step on you, but they will
Keep off the corns of the woman who
bears herself with dignity and demands
respect by the attitude which she shows
10 others. Few men have the nerve to
insult a woman, even if she is their
own wife, unless she first starts the
ruction. If one does, if instead of weep
ing or making a hot retort, the wife
treats him as she would any other man
VINO had grossly affronted her, she can
bring him to his senses if he has a
particle of the feeling of a gentleman
IN him. AS for the money, most men
honestly think women enjoy being beg
CARS If a wife explains quietly and