WOMAN IN THE PAST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 2 December 1913, Page 2

WOMAN IN THE PAST.

Girla who oonsuScr .their advantages inferior to, those of their brothers have only to turn hack a, few pages of history in order .to,extract comfort from the contrast of a melancholy past with a brilliant present. There was a time, scarcely to be understood in these days, when woman ;yfts litde more than a ylave and an ornwweiital appendage. During the -Mid.iie Ages and a following period, no one would have dreamed 1 of doubting her inferiority. ' . . • In the seventeenth century "woman ,iwaa still regarded a.s the 'inferior of ajian ; in the lower classes as a drudge, in the higher as an .ornamerit.'' Montaigne was pne T oi' those "who. through false gallantry, would keep women in a state of ignorance, on the pretext that instaietoin would mar her natural charms.:" The'same author recommends po&tiy to women, because it is "a crafty 'sal,, ..disguised, all for pleasure, all for ; ssxow, just' as they iWlft." John .Stuart .Mill? in sarcastic reference to this time, thus characterises it: "Srane generations ago. when satires <t& ■w'osrrien were in vogue, the men thought it a clever thing to insult women tfor being what nina made them." Under sut-hstonditions it can wearce]y bo a. subject of wonder that women d : d not attain their 'highest development. . ■