Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-02-17
MGrrGG6e IN
England
After the War
ny A HOPEFUL BRITISH
HUSBAND.

great war is that It will entirely reform
the status and labor bondage Of hus-
bands
Pessimists often ask what scrap OF ulti-
mate good will come out Of this upheaval
SocIologists and stat sticians picture a
tradedy of perhaps two womel, of mar
riagesble age to one man OF marriageable
age. Opt'mists. of whom I am one, look
impatiently into the husbands golden
CA.
The war has finally unmasked the
greatest of woman's agc-long deceptions
of man. Ever since the first cave woman
sent the first caveman out into the cold
wind to hunt the woolly rhinoceros while
she snuggled by the fire woman has de-
ceived man that she is his inferior in
strength courage, endurance and achieve
ment For her own ease she has flattered
him that his lie the dominating sex (nock-
cry OF the manacled wretch and the
directing sex Cmockery OF the laden
BEAST Her cave ancestress said, Go
out and hunt the skin. and I'll wear 1t,
and woman has said 1t ever since.
And then came this mighty upheaval
Woman, forgetting in its stress all the
ecret she Is giving away, has buckled
Tup in her millions and shown that there
is hardly any work of man that she
cannot do. She is driving motor-lorries,
she is twirling milk-cans into guards
vans while ancient porters mop their
faces in amazement at new records in
bang and speed, she is doing the post
mans round, the liftman's gate changing,
the plougman's furrow. the lamp lighters
circuit, the sweeps chimney, the window
cleaners mountaineering, the carman's
deliveries, the bank clerks lightning
arithmetic. She is standing long hours
at the mechanics lathe.
The women insurance agent trips In
all weather down miles of mean streets
the woman dentist is following the
woman doctor, the Janitors OF all the
learned and lucrative professions are
trembling at her nearing footsteps She
il perhaps nearer the House OF Commons
than ever Mrs. Pankhurst could have
brought her I can envisage even the wool
sack in her future-albeit that she will
want it recovered daily to match her
change of robes.
Shall man, then, looking forward to the
new world after the war, be anxious
and pessimistical7 Not he. Shall he be
fearful that woman, the worker. Will |
henceforth take the bread out OF his
mouth, when woman the worker will 60
forth to earn the loaves while he, the
priceless and rare one, sits at home?
Woman has given away her secret and
sold her ancient brithright OF ease. II
Is for us, the real tender sex, to see
now that she does not regain II.
At last there is promise OF man COM
ing into his real kingdom. The curtains
Aare drawing aside of that repose which
Is his by right but has always been
usurped by woman. Woman has always
been credited with being the tender sex,
the imaginative sex, the romantic sex.
Woman has been shielded from the world
because of her sensitive delicacy. Woman
has not gone out into the hurlyburiy be-
cause the dust and clamor of the market
were thought untitled to her. But she
has disproved all that IN these days. She
is as good as the best of US. It is my
own belief that she is far more COM
petent than most Of us. She has more
determination. less sentiment. more en-
ergy, more truth.
Man is the romantic sex, the sensitive
sex. the imaginative. There is no woman
in whose body there is as much romance
as in mans little finger. Woman is the
directing sex. the hard. practical sex, the
sex that cannot be 'blarneyed" or de-
more about woman than any man who
ever wrote on that difficult and thorny
problem), and that the friendship OF
most men is purchasabIe with an air of
good-fellowship and cigar"
But woman Is immovable, for hers is
the practical sex, the sex with tenacute
common senses that we weak men pos
sess not. It Is the strongest Of para
doxes that man has always ridiculously
attributed to her ali those softnesses
and senAibilities to his beloved that, in
truth. his beloved would scorn TO pos
sess.
What married woman would not con-
tend that her husband is less worldly
wise than herself? What husband has
not suffered this intolerable wrong of
being treated like an infant by his wife
and yet compelled to go forth and work
for her?
A topsy-turvy creed, this belief in wo-
mans soulfuiness and tenderness. There
have been millions Of love-sick Romeos
and never a love-sick Juliet; and in all
history there has never been one woman
las we. the soulful sex. so often do).
when no one is watching her.
But now comes mans emancipation.
his halcyon era. He can settle down
now to his romances. his visions, his
arts. He can cultivate his tender emo
lions, sheltered from the rough world
and unspotted from its traffic. He can
dream dreams-A futility that has ever
been repugnant 10 the common sense Of
woman.