BEING A WOMAN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2003, 30 May 1885, Page 2

BEING A WOMAN.

A woman must always be in good order. Her hair must always be frizzed and banged as fashion demands, and she must powder if she has a shining skin; and she must manage to look sweet, no matter how sour she may feel; her dress must hang just so, and her boot-buttons be always in place, and her finger-nails always clean ; and then she mustn't whistle, nor climb fences, nor stone cats, nor scold when she's mad,

She can't go out alone, because ladies must be protected; she can't go anywhere when it rains, because her hair won't stay frizzed and she'll get mud on her petticoats and things; she can't be a Freemason because she would tell their secrets, and everybody would know all about the goat and gridiron; she can't smoke because it would be unfashionable; she can't go courting, .because that would not be womanly, She must get married before she is twenty.five, or everybody will be wronged. People will sigh over her, and wonder why it is that men "don't seem to take," and all the old maids and widows smile and keep quiet, Oh, these smiles and these significant looks! They are ten times worse than open slander, It is terrible to be an old maid, Everybody knows it, and tho women who are married to drunken husbands, and who mar ago to quarrel with thorn six days out of seven, will live in agony of spirit over the single woman, and call her the poor old maid.

A woman must many rich, or she don't many "well"; and to many "well" is the great end and aim of a woman's existance, judging from the view which people in general take of this matter. It is everybody's business whom a woman marries, Tlio whole neighbourhood put their heads together and talk over the pros and cons., and decide whether she is good enough for him. (There is nothing said about his being good enough for her.) And they criticise tlio shape of her nose, and relate anecdotes of how lazy her grandfather used to be, and how hor Aunt Sally used to sell beans and buttermilk. A woman must wear No. 2 boots on No. 3 feet, and she must manage to dress well on 75 cents a week ; and she musn't be vain, and she must be kind to the poor, and she must go regularly to the sewing society meetings, and be ready to dress dolls and make tidies and aprons for church fairs.' She must be a good cook, and she must be able to "do up" her husband's shirts so that tlio Chinese washerman wquld aruaii with, o»Yy> fti»4 gnash hj§ t,eetii with the s,ame unholy passion at the sight of tjioin, She must always have the masculine buttons of the family sewed on so as they will never come off while in use, and she must keep the family hosiery so that nobody would ever mistrust there were toes in the stockings while they were on, She must hold herself iii constant readiness tp fjni eyeryjliins; Ijer Inland has novel' knows wliorq to find anything. He will put his bqots carefully away on the parlor sofa, and when he has hunted for them half an hour, he will suddenly appear to his wife with a countenance like an avenging angel, and demand "whatin thunder she has done with his boots." She must §hut all the doors after her lord anjj ma'sjer, and. jjkewjse the bureau drawer, for it would be as unnaturaj for a hen to go in swimming fqr recreation as for him to do these things himself, She must go to bed first in cold weather, so as to get the bed warm. Her husband, if ho be a wise man, never asks her to do this. 0, no | but he sits "just to finish this piece in the paper," and waits till she has got the sheets to a comfortaje temperature. Ah, there are a groat many tricks in the trade of living together. A woman is expected to take care of the baby even after the first infantile wonder has multiplied into a round half-dozen. And if ho doubles up with the cholic, or' trials of cutting teeth, or the necessary evil of cutting mumps, and measels, and whoop-ing-cough, and scarlet fever, and rash, and throat distemper, and short sleeves, and bare legs, and pins sticking in him, and too much oandy, and a bad temper, her husband tolls her "he does wish she would try and quiet her baby," aud he says it as if he thought she alone was responsible for its existence, and wasresponsible for it, too. And when she lias the headache nobody thinks of minding it, a woman always having the headache. And if she is nervous ehoughto " fly,"nobodyshiits the door any quiter, and nobody tucks' her on the lounge, with a shawl over her, or coddles her to death, as a man has to be coddled under such circumstances. We might go on indefinitely with, "being a woman," and if there is a man who thinks a woman lias an easy time of it why, let him pjn on a pnund of false hair, and get inside a pair of corsets, and put on a pullbaok overskirt, and be a woman himself and see how he likes it.—'Toronto Globe.' :