SHOULD WOMEN WEAR BREECHES?

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 8, 4 October 1919, Page 9

SHOULD WOMEN WEAR BREECHES?

An eminent, medical man (says a writer' in the "Daily Telegraph';) was complaining (ho other day, more in sorrow than in anger, that for years he had been urging women, for reasons of .hygiene, to tako an inch off their skirts' and now Ihev .had taken an ell. For sanitary reasons the change could be approved,, but lie ws not, sure about the matter of. modesty. If-modesty means hiding vour legs, there w plainly not much lelt of it in England, \llut this interpretation'seems arbitrary. ' In Oriental countries it means hiding your-face, and various denominations of the heathen have other interpretations. .Modesty would still'stirvivo if wo all woro breeches, for even among men it can si ill be discovered by the thorough investigator. Hut that fashion is si ill .to come, and I fear (bat those who expect every woman lo emulate the land girt and the window cleaner have lone (o waif.

There is, let us realise, no reason in the nature of things why.women should wear skirts and then tr<»isors. The old civilisations.- whi'ih . knew a . good deal about comfort, rind did.some enduring work, kept boll) men and women in (lowing robes or in short petticoats. The Roman despised Ihe Gaul's trousers. In the Near East women have worn tronsers for many a long year.- But it is not generally believed that the Turkish woman has found in. breeches the royal road to the emancipation of her sex. ; Somo ofus saw many years before wo'had land "girls'women woiking in Swiss fields in trousers. ,But the rest of Switzerland, a sufficiently acute, and energetic, country, has not adopted the fashion. '• Tt is pYobnble if women'.■•omaib in possession of the in ore laborious occupations ■- which Hi'cy'iiave followed diirinir tho war (which does not yet seem likely), that some -portion of the sex may have a working dress of breeches. It is possible that the extension of women's emnloyment in lighter-tasks may assimilate their dress to the grimmer style of men. But there-is little sign yet of the change. If it does come, wo may be. confident that no one will be -a penny the worse or the better. . Not by breeches or petticoats is the mind of woman mado manifest or her heartchnnged.