The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-08-05
WOMEN AND CONVENTIONS
The American and Continental
Ideas Far Apart
SOME GERMAN VIEWS
Breaking Away From Accepted
Boundaries Always Regarded Ask
ance on Both Sides of the Ocean
Thoughts Suggested by New Years
Occurrences i'm New York.

ne city at large and women in par
ocular viewed with widely varying
ceilings For 1t was on New Years
eve that for the first time certain
restaurants permitted women to
smoke in public.
For n long while We have been told
that, little by little, as our women
travelled more extensively, or re-
turnet from residence abroad, we
should find ways and manners of
freer foreign social life creeping in
to ever conservative American cir
cles. Wiseacres shook their heads.
Puritan consciences were stirred and
uttered timely warning. The up
lifted finger spoke of disapproval
It is an interesting question, this
matter of the tendency toward the
breaking down of inherited tradi-
tions and long honored conventions.
Who is ready TO say that they are
conventions more honored in the
breach than the observance? On
the whole 1t is possible to affirm
definitely what attitude the women
who stand for common sense and
high ideals. are taking to-day toward
manv new ideas imported from for
eign shores?
Whatever ! say and whatever 10
Aunt Tabithall say that she never
did So
And so one is forced to conclude.
like the same perplexed girl, What
a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must
have been, and her great-aunt!" Un-
qualified disapproval of everything
novel was the dictum of generations
gone. I'VE never did So" settled
any vexed question, and effectually
blocked the way TO changes in So
cial forms.
Impossible as it is, to arrive at re-
suits that can be tabulated after the
fashion of modern psychology charts,
1t is interesting 10 watch, the Amer
lean woman in any situation which
involves the breaking down of bar
riers.
Two women, after six weeks of
agland-cathedra towns and the
aI district principally-found
nselves the guest of an artist and
wife, themselves Americans, at
outdoor cafe on the Boulevard
ntparnasse. Interesting looking
.sts, students from all quarters of
the globe, bearded Russians, swarthy
Poles, slim japanese, and globe-trot-
ting Americans were the patrons.
There was an absence of restraint,
freedom of camaraderie, the manners
and tone OF the Latin quarter in evil
dence IN every hand.
There would have been time
when the same type Of American
woman would hare left, hastily, for
these two represented the conserva-
tive element of modern femeninity.
The women of the present, however,
watched with a critical interest, lis
tened as certain stories relative to
those at the tables were told by their
host and hostess. and left after three
hours of observation with another pic
ture to ado to their rapidly growing
gallery of European scenes. The
main feature evident in their pres
ence, was willingness to observe. an
in elligent appreciation of differ
ences or conc uct, but no yielding of
their own ideas of propriety.
One comment, made after two years
residence in Germany. by a keen
w'tted American girl, was: THE
majority of German women / knew
were of the l-usfrau type. They
ranged socially from professors
wives to the daughters of lesser Of
flcialc. or girls of the army circle. To
those girls l was the unconventional
American of whom they had read. /
attended theatres and dances unchap-
eroned; / walked on the streets or
lunched at the restaurants with men
to concerts.
Between the girls and women,
with all their attention devoted to
the Kaiser's four ks, and the women
VINO -ere not admitted to desirable
circles there seemed TO be no mean.
You were one or the other. The ex-
iytence of well defined class of wom-
en, who were not primarily house,
wives, nor the antithesis of these,
was not even recognized"
Left to their own devices, the av-
srage woman does not find conven-
lions really irksome. Freedom to
follow her own sweet will in matters
social is not the most sought-after
thing. In the main, woman is a
convention being. She loves to do
the correct thing, the thing counte-
nAnced by the majority, the thing to
be defended on the score of respecta-
BILE ancestry, When oli-time ideas
are laid aside, there has been some
influence at work, to the will Of
which she bows.