THE GIRL’S DREAM

Hokitika Guardian, 12 April 1921, Page 3

THE GIRL’S DREAM

(By January Mortimer). Several women have taken me to task for “insisting that the average young girl thinks of nothing else but love.” I have not made such, a statement. What I have written, and now repeat, is that the average adolescent girl, like her brother of the same age, is frequently much occupied with thoughts of love. From the tone of one or two of my critics it would seem that this interest is of an abnormal or morbid character, and that there is “something wrong” about the maiden who dreams of a Galahad and weaves fancies concerning a not impossible suitor. On tlie contrary, such speculation is entirely normal. We are assured by mental physicians that this fully conscious yearning for love is a perfectly healthy sign. The girl in her ’teens who “shuts in T ’ every fantasy and idea about love and shows resistance to a natural impulse is often preparing herself for hysteria, or, at the least, an emotional conflict in marriage. • » * « • The other evening in a women’s club where I was a guest discussion arose upon this topic. One mother asserted that she was “perfectly certain” that her daughter thought chiefly of “sohool examinations, hockey, and dress.” Another stated that her daughter of seventeen had a pronounced contempt for “sloppy sentimentality,” and regarded love as “ridiculous.” A third mother, who had remained silent at the outset of the conversation, spoke thus : “Do you suppose that your daughters are so very different from what you were at. their age? “Did you wear your hearts on your sleeves and confide in your mothers whenever you were alone with them ? Looking back on my .own girlhood, I remember two engrossing and constant longings, a tremendous hunger and a yearning for a sweetheart. “How can it be otherwise with a normal girl? Youth is the age of rapid bodily growth, and growth is dependent on the satisfaction of a powerful hunger. At this stage of development is also an awakening of the emotion of love, and an intense curiosity about this emotion is inevitable. I have no hesitation in saying that scarcely a day passed in my girlhood without dreams of love.” ***** A slight understanding of the mental state during the dawn of womanhood is sufficient to prove that Nature is rarely thwarted in her supreme design —flic arousing of the love emotion. The paradoxical attitude of the maiden who avers that “love is ridiculous” is quite eomprehensible. Such statements are common reactions against a strange, powerful instinct, which has always incited fear among mankind. Many amorous persons of the adult age over-compensate for their emotionality by affecting disdain for love. This resistance may he so strong that the conflict culminates in hysteria. Why should a young girl be encouraged to conceal her profoundest yearnings? Why should she not be able to discuss the newly discovered emotions with her mother? It is ludicrous to tell a girl of sixteen that she is “too young to think about love” when Dame Nature is prompting her daily to speculation on 'the most fascinating of all themes.