The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-09

Stripped of all the chiffons with
which we have surrounded the subject,
the real object of life is to achieve
happiness-to have a good time.
People who have no digestions, and
who cannot enjoy themselves anyway,
may deny this, and assert that the
purposes of existence ought to be to
forward some high moral aim.
But the fact remains that the great
desire of most of us, and the great
struggle, is for pleasure.
This brings up an interesting prob
lem as to whether men or women
have the better time.
To me there seems but one answer
to the question-men have most of
the fun of the world.
Next to being born an idiot or q
criminal-with whom the law CLASH
fies her-the heaviest handicap that
is ever laid on a human being is the
handicap of being born woman.
Except for bearing children there
is nothing that a woman is ever call
ed on to do that her sex doesn't make
harder. This is the case even in the
kitchen for man can cook bet
ter than a woman because he is phySi-
cally better able to Wrestle with the
pots and pans.
He is more suited for housework
because it doesn't break his back as
il does a woman'S to reach up with
the busting brush after cobwebs and
get down on his knees and scrub for
dirt, and he would make an ideal
nurse because he wouldn't be him
dered by petticoats.
If you watch a woman going up the
steps with q baby in one arm and
lighted lamp in her hand, and trying
10 hold up her skirt, you will realize
how many difficulties even q mother
laborS under in being a woman.
If woman wants to work outside
of her home, and work is, after all,
the only amusement that never pals,
the disadvantages of sex are increas
ed hundredfold.
There is not a care or anxiety that
tears mans heart; there is no be-
reavements, no loss from which he
suffers from which a woman is ex-
empt. He sips from the cup of SCR.
row She drains it to the bitter
dregs.
Women do not have as good q time
as men do enjoying the ordinary,
legitimate pleasures of lie, and when
it comes to participating in the hilar-
tiles of existence they are simply
barred out. The price is too high.
1t may be that for their designations
men. in the end, have to pay the
piper, but women who are gay and
giddy have to pay for a whole orches-
ira.
That women are less happy than
men we unconsciously recognize III
our attitude toward them. We are
surprised when a woman even shows
sense of humor. We are amazed
when she jokes, and we look with
suspicion upon her if she is merry
and is given to laughter.
Indeed we are SO accustomed to
women taking a serious, if not melan-
choly view of things. that cheerful
woman, and one who sees things
cheerfully, is sure to be spoken of as
frivolous and light-minded.
You never heard these adjectives
applied to man, no matter how big
clown he is.
Men begin having better time
than women almost in their cradles
Boys, except the few unfortunates
who have little Lord Fauntleroy
mothers, escape the awful torture of
having their stingy locks pulled, and
hauled, and twisted, and contorted
into long, flowing curls, such as poor,
prosecuted little girl martyrs are forced
to wear.
Neither are little boys required to
refrain from everything they want to
do in order to keep from mussing their
lace trimmed and embroidered white
frocks as is expected of little girls.
Every child's birthright is freedom
and dirt, but the unhappy little girl of
respectable parents never comes into
her Inheritance.
As they grow up the depressing con-
ditions of sex become more and more
apparent. They must sit quietly and
Sedately down and play dolls, instead
of engaging in the sports that send
the rich red blood racing through the
veins and give the health which is
after all, the source of all happiness.
Worst of all, they miss the freedom
of childhood, which is the only free
dom that we ever really know in life,
for after we are grown we are all
bond-slaVes to fashion, dutv neces-
sity and a thousand other tyrants.
OF course, it may be said that each
sex knows its trials and tribulations,
and that, while women envy men.
men feel that they have troubles be-
side which woman's worries are but
pin pricks compared to a dagger
thrust.
To this women will triumphantly
reply that almost every woman in the
world would be willing to die If she
knew she would be reborn a man,
whereas the most unfortunate man
alive wouldn't be willing to change
places with the luckiest woman. Hap
py Hooligan wouldn't be Queen Will
helmina for pay.
Though men undoubtedly have a
better time than women, they have
not by a. means cornered the whole
visible supply of fun.
indeed, there are number of counts
IN which the advantage is altogeth
err with the women.
In the first place, if women miss
much hilarity and gayety, they also
miss a largo number of regrets. The
morning-after head is distinctly
masculine possession, and escaping
that alone is fair equivalent for
much of the dizziness of women's lives
In the next place. in America at
least, women as a class get far more
enjoyment of the finer pleasures of
life than men do. Women read more,
they care more for art and beautiful
surroundings, they prefer better
plays and better music than men do
OF course. there are many excep-
tions to this rule, but it is a fact
that the average man reads nothing
but the newspapers, while his wife
is reading Browning; that it is her
taste in household decorations that
uplifts the home, and that if left to
himself he will patronize comedies
and rag-time instead of intellectual
drama and Wagner.