WAR MORALITY
» : A JUDGE'S VIEW. CRITICISED. Other times other morals. . . . Mr. Justice Darling recently said: "In nothing has the war done more harm than in the relaxation on the part of women. This has now reached a point that can be seen., in a walk nl"" 1 -' the street. Women differ by the width of Heaven from what their motr.'ii wtre."
Mr. Justice Darling's views have biv'ii widely discussed. "We must never again expect to have Victorian lespectabiiuy," said Dr. Mary Seharlieb. '"file daughter lives to-day iu a very different world from that' in which her .mother existed. She is surrounded by far more temptations. The telephone, the motor-car, the general speeding up of life, all tend in the one-direction morally.
"1\ do not see any immediate prospect of the present, let us call it, lightness passing' off. Fundamentally it is the logical outcome of women becoming independent economically and,- in n lesser degree, politically. A girl is meeting men more on. an equality, and that is ielling both ways. But I would not say that she compares badly with her mother. "It is no use ever expecting a revival of parental control among the mns.'o.v The girl will henceforth control herself. I would say further that Mr. Justice .Darling lias probably uttered his dictum as the result of a walk down the Strand. But let u,s ccase to compare ourselves with tlio Victorians, We are worse—and better."
"Why," asked Lady Jfuir-Ha-kenzie, "doesn't Mr. Justice Darling confine his remarks to men ? I nni tired of men laying down "the law for women. The open, unrestrained pleasure quest of to-day is far less harmful morally than the hidden, secret quest of yesterday of the Victorians. You cannot judge life by what you seo on the surface. In any . case, i always look on the views of a judge as warped." "I think," said Mme. Clara Bull, "we are getting away from that awful prudery—false, half the time—by getting used, to* seeing heauly for beauty's sake—not for any other motive."
"What Mr. Justice Darling fays is only too true," wns the view 'expressed at a famous women's association. "The war has entirely changed the former reserved attitude of vi'ini w«n ,a n toward* the opposite sex. Much of the present laxity is i>,'i(|iicstionnl>ly due to yyun:; girls tnliinq drink Kvryon" is ii'" Inn over-excited nowadays for, any decent moral tone u> win throii;;li. If thing'--go 011 as tlie.v lire at pre-.onl—well, the width of another place thin Heaven will separate the women of to-day, had as they are as a whole, from the daughters of to-morrow."
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 259, 29 July 1919, Page 6
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434WAR MORALITY Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 259, 29 July 1919, Page 6
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