GERMAN WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 235, 15 December 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

GERMAN WOMEN AFTER THE WAR.

WILL THE SHACKLES OF THE KITCHEN BE BROBEN?

By AUSTIN HARRISON. (Editor of the "English Review")

The metamorphosis of the German woman began long before the great war. She is therefore rather "difficult," for there are already two kinds cf German woman : the modern and the old Goethe type, the modern for more advanced than any woman we know here, the other still the Hausfrau of the Kaiser's three K's —Children. Kitchen and Church.

Here is a true scene of the old type. One Sunday I met a well-known German author and journalist at the Berlin Zoo, whither people go by the thousands to enjoy life and eat. I had a friend and he had a friend, and also ho had his wife. Of course, we sat and drank our beer and so long did we sit that dinner time drew near. It was 1'.30 p.m. The publicist's wife was simply "dying" to make an evening of it, to dine, in which proposal we naturally concurred. But her vast husband protested.

"I li.ivo,' - lie said. "a most important engagement at eight with tiie Chancellor; tlu thing is impossible.'' So we compromised. Cold linm was ordered, a mug of beer, even a "blood sausage." and about 7. p.m. tlie wife was admonished to go homeward. She loked so unhappy that even lie relented. lie actually hailed a cab. Poor tiling! She drove off as nearly h.iippy as I reckon .-lie ever had been in ner married st.-tte. As the cab turned the street corner our corpulent author waved his hand. •'Now, gentlemen, we will go to 'Astarte' nnd have a champagne busto" — and, by .love, we did. at his expense. Another true story now, the modern type. I met her at the seaside, on tlio island of Norderney; her ag\? was seventeen, sweet seventeen. Now don't imagijie I am going to give myself au-iy, or h t. I'm not. She -was deliciously freckled and browned to mahogany, and when 1 asked the inevitable KnglMi question: "Which of Heine's lyrics do you like best?"' she said she would only tell nu\ if I told her which of all the naughty authors I admire I the most. "Zola. Manpassant, Kabelais or Strindberg?" T said Mauj)as>r,ut: she said Strindberg; Bernard Shaw she found most amusing: Walter Stolt w is too prosaic: she admired tin* llussinns. she Fancied Oscar Wild. l , she adored Byron. She spoke English fluently, and French and Italian. At the time she was studying Nietzsche: next year she was to have si:c months in a hospital; her intention

was to marry young and have two I children, and then to enjoy herself. "Your Meredith gave marriage ten years," she reasoned, " but I only give it six."

A most awfully up-to-date flapper she was; in fact, out of Scandinavia I have never met a girl so educated, so wellinformed, so utteriy modern. She let "Papa" control the house-key, she explained. "It keeps him quiet, and gives me more liberty." I shall always remenil>er that Gretchen. That the war will change Germen women I have no doubt. It- is a great mi-take to assume that all German women arc down-trodden: they are not. They are excellently educated. They read widely. They are capable and industrious. I believe the German womna will "come out" after the war, and express herself protty forcibly. The mothers of Europe will have a word to say when the men return, and it won't be altogether home-madie. Once the German noman gets stalled, she will grow quickly. She has little delicacy ii her constitution.

In all probability German women will emancipate themselves, will demand rights, will assert themselves as a sex. Nothing will bo the same after the present upheaval, and least of all are the German women likely to re-assume servility.

For this reason the philosophy of fore? must give place to a philosophv based on other media than violence, which kept women in subjection.