Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-08-06

ARNOLD BENNETT
solutely declines 10 recognize that wo-
' men may have a separate income.
American Women Most Progressive.
And things are moving. Gone is
the good old epoch when women had
no political or social opinions of their
own, when the wife said: Harry
thinks" implying that naturally
what Harry thought she must think,
and when wives who did venture to
contradict their husbands on any
question more important than the
proper number of minutes for boiling
an egg were regarded as in danger
of being unsexed,
Wives are acquiring intellectual in
dependence. happily for themselves
and happily also for their husbands,
for TO live permanently with an echo
is exceedingly bad for even the most
saint-like husband.
British wives have not, however. as
yet got very far in the process OF
acquiring intellectual independence. 1t
is different in the United States. where
the wife's intellectual independence is
absolute and is everywhere taken for
granted. and you never perceive on
the wifes face that apologetic express
sion so often remarked on the faces of
wives in England, signifying:
Please 10 not think i'll of me be-
cause l do not happen 10 see eye to
eye with my husband on all the inn
portant topics OF the day.
But then the intellectual indepen-
&c -fssav N x.-fxrs hau hnnn
quickened by the habit which Ameri-
can husbands have of locking on their
wives as their official representatives
in society. and indeed of expecting
their wives regularly to act as such.
If an American husband gets home
at ten O'Clock after day spent in
the ardyous pursuit of money and
finds his wife out of the house at
lecture, concert. or dance, he does
not blanche applauds her.
She is representing him in the social
world. and he will cheerfully carry
on without wifely companionship until
she returns. We are not like this in
Britain, at any rate to the same ex-
tent. and probably never shah be and
dent want TO be; but we are NOV
ing along at our usual jog-trot.
Meanwhile, despite progress
achieved in the great new rivalry. il
cannot be contested that the majority
OF foreigners visiting Britain and
studing it's social conditions are simp-
" amazed at the 'submissiveness' Of
British. wives. No doubt it IS like
their inpudence TO be amazed al the
sdbnlissiveness of British wives, and
British wives may resent the imputa-
ton, and British husbands may OBJ
ject to the foreigner making trouble in
Hritish household by his ill-timed crit
icisTn. But there you are! That is
what foreigners think: and YOU may
take it as a maxim that what for
eigners think of us, whether pleasant
or unplea SAINT. has some basis of
truth in it.
You may also take it as a maxim
that merely 10 claim and pretend to
exercise intellectual independence is
not enough. intellectual indepen-
dence involves individual ideas about
things. and individual ideas cannot be
without study and reflection.
Further. study and reflection arc
bound 70 result in intellectual indie
pendence.
If wives feel a genuine interest in
matters outside the narrow sphere of
the home, and give themselves the
pains of examining them for them
selves, they will reach intellectual in
and if each of them had
forty husbands instead Of one forty
husbands could not stop them from
reaching it.
If however, they banker after intel |
lectual independence just for the sake
Of asserting themselves, they will pro- |
duce a lot Of friction and naught else. |
Everything has its price. and the price
must be paid; the price of intellectual |
is intellectual activity.
The wife who only reads the news |
paper Gas distinguished from glanc-
ing at the newspaper when she
can't find anything else to do, and
still insists on her opinions, is asking
for humiliation.