THE VICTORIAN WOMAN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1447, 23 May 1912, Page 11

THE VICTORIAN WOMAN.

WAS SHE HAPPIER? If is somewhat interesting, in view of a debate which was held in the Pioneer Club rooms recently by the members of "Our Girls'" branch' of the Victoria League upon the question as to whether the women of fifty years ago were happier than those of to-day, to read the views expressed by Cicely Hamilton in the "Daily Mail" upon the subject:-—

"It you come to think of it," she says, "there was a good deal of the negative • principle about the existence of the lady who charmed in a crinoline and ringletshemmed in as it was by unnecessary artificial impossibilities. It may seem but n small thing that, in our grandmothers' days, it was forbidden to a well-bred woman to be seen alone in a cab, that it was forbidden to a well-bred woman to go to a place of entertainment without the protection of a male escort. These things, it may be said, are the details and pettiness of life. True; but it is tho details of life that are with us from morning till night, that mould our habits of thought and colour our outlook on the world. There are so many things that we, who are human, really cannot do; so many hard, tangible, and physical impossibilities against which we hurl ourselves and hurl ourselves in vain. Why, (hen. add to their hopeless and irritating number a scries of artificial barriers? Why waste our reserve of submission in bending to an inevitable that is not really so? It may bo urged that whatever her shortcomings, the A'ictorian lady at least ivas incapable of violence cr rowdyism. Quite so—but was the Victorian lady any the better for that? Is anyone ever the better.for being "incapable" of anything? There is. when you come to think of it. very little merit in a purely negative virtue, very lit Ho merit indeed in beiiifr good because it is quite impossible for you to be wicket. . . . Disapprove if you will of the practice of policeman-push-ing—which is obviously open to criticism. But realise (hat if you merely refrain from policeman-pushing because you, like your grandmother, look upon it as an utterly impossible undertaking for n female, you have no right to pride yourself upon your virtuous abstention from the pastime. You ore only virtuous when you abstain from crimes that are possibilities to you—that .you feel it is in your power to commit. Freedom of choice means—freedom or choice, tlie liberty to decide for yourself whether your ways shall bo evii or whether your ways shall be good. It has its drawbacks, of course; it creates a new list of temptations for ..the free man or woman to resist or succumb to: but, in spite of its manifold drawbacks, the position of a free woman being exposed to temptation has always been considered more worthy and more enviable than that of the human being deprived by law or by custom of tho possibility of straying .from (he narrow path of virtue. ' In so far, therefore, as wo of the days of King George are freer than our grandmothers to produce our own virtues and, make our own blunders, wo of the days of King Georgo have a distinct advantage over them. Our grandmothers may have been more amiable, more charming! but, of a oertainty, their lives were not more enviable. Their existence may have been letter regulated; but far more than ours it was regulated for them—regulated from the outside. So that we—even when we realise, as we occasionally do, (hat we have' used our wider freedom to make fools of ourselves—may not envy (hem, cannot if wc would; since deep down in our hearts, even in (he hearts o* our brothers, is the human instinct of growth. AVe have to grow—and take the conscf|iiences , , , and usually wo find tliem bearable.