WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 199, 11 August 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

Tho call which the war has made on tho services of women to carry on the work of millions of men who have been taken for military duties naturally invites speculation as to the extent towhich women's place in the world wil? bo changed by the war. Mr. H. G. Wells is among those who have been attracted by this problem. In the course of an article en 'Marriage After theWaT', ho expresses the view that "tho present invasion by women of a hundred employments hitherto closed t> them is not a temporary arrangement that will bo reversed after the war.' v He contends that with regard to thegreat extension of the employment :-£ women, "the war has merely brought about, with the rapidity of a landslide, a state of affairs for which the world was ripe. The world after th« war will have to adjust itself to thi» extension of women's employment, ami to this increase : n the proportion of self - respecting and self - supportingwomen." Owing to the shortage of marriageable men caused by the casualties " the women of the next decade will not only be able to get along economically without marriage, but th-?y will find it much more difficult iomarry. 1 ' There will be a short conflict between two types of women "the woman loveliness ideal, which carri.essex like a banner, and the new fre?» woman who will be a grave, capablebeing, soberly dressed, and imposing, her own decency and neutrality upon the men she meets." According to Mr, Wells, the latter type will win. "Inevery way tiro war is emancipating women from sexual specialisation," he states. "It is facilitating their economic emancipation. It is liberating type - that will inevitably destroy both the 'atmosphere of gallantry,' which is such a bar to friendliness betweeapeople of opposite sexes, and that atmosphere of hostile distrust winch isits counterpart in the minds of oversexu 1 suffragettes. Winsome, weak, womanhood will be told bluntly by men and women alike that it is a bore, l'he-frou-frou of skirts, the delicate mysteries of the toilet, will cea.se to thrilt any but the very young men. Marriage, deprived of its bonds of material necessity, will demand a closer and closer companionship as its justificationand excuse. A marriage that does not npen into a close personal friendship between two equals will be regarded, with inereaung defiwteness as.an unsatisfactory marriage." And so Mr. Wells comes to the belief that "marriage is likely to count for less anl less as a state, and tor more and mora as a personal relationship. People who marry are likely to remain more detached and separable. The essential linJi will bo the love and affection, and not. tho home. And a type of marriage where personal compataoilf.ty has come to be esteemed the fundamental thing will be altogether more amenable to divorce than the old union, which »va?based upon the kitchen and the nursery, and the absence of any care, education or security tor children, beyonl tho range of the parental household. Marriage wi'l not oniy be lighter but more dissoluble." He concludes with the summary that tue war is "accelerating rather than deflecting the stream of tendency and is bringing us rapidly to a state of affairs in which women will be more definitely independent of their sexual status, much less hampered in their self-development, and much moro nearly equal to men, than has ever been known before in the whole history of mankind.'' In Americi, where the effect of the war on woman -,- position is being even more eagerly discussed than it is in England, there is an interesting conflict of opin : ou between two schools of thought. One section contends that the main effect of the call on women to take the place of men in industrial and commercial life will be tho economic emancipation of thesex and the development of a spirit <» se'f-reliance. The opposing section tie* dares that the women in the countries at war are already weary of their economic freedom because it is not anything like a.s attractive as they thought it would be. Doing men's work, it is said, is not really palatable to women. They have taken the place of men not because of the opportunity of securing economic emancipation, but because <f the pressure exerted on them by innormal conditions. When normal con

ditions return, women, it is asserted, will return to the home, having developed as a resu't of their experience of the practical v.ork of tlio world nof a passion for econonrc freedom, hut .i "more contented womanliness."' I'La women who have l*vn doing men ? work during the war wil fee! with new lorce the old attractions of the ho r m> alter tlu> war ; s over. Som? idealists assert that women, having obtained a personal knowledge of the many exasperations to which men are exposed in the course of then- day's work, will exlnljit a tender sympathy when tha head of tho house comes home in arc irritable mood, iinds fault with the diiner and kicks the cat, because he ha* been worried at the office. As one writ, er says j a war that accomplishes so much for domestic life will not have been waged in vain.