THE NEW CHIVALRY
Brave women and fair men!
This seems to be a good time for us to jar ourselves loose from some of
the prejudices and beliefs which we have outgrown. It is time for
readjustment surely, a time for spiritual and mental house-cleaning,
when we are justified in looking things over very carefully and
deciding whether or not we shall ever need them again.
Some of us have suspected for a long time that a good deal of the
teaching of the world regarding women has come under the general
heading of "dope." Now "dope" is not a slang word, as you may be
thinking, gentle reader. It is a good Anglo-Saxon word (or will be),
for it fills a real need, and there is none other to take its place.
"Dope" means anything that is calculated to soothe, or hush, or put to
sleep. "Sedative" is a synonym, but it lacks the oily softness of
"dope."
One of the commonest forms of dope given to women to keep them quiet is
the one referred to in a previous chapter: "The hand that rocks the
cradle rules the World." It is a great favorite with politicians and
not being original with them it does contain a small element of truth.
They use it in their pre-election speeches, which they begin with the
honeyed words: "We are glad to see we have with us this evening so many
members of the fair sex; we are delighted to see that so many have come
to grace our gathering on this occasion; we realize that a woman's
intuition is ofttimes truer than a man's reasoning, and although women
have no actual voice in politics, they have something far more strong
and potent--they have the wonder power of indirect influence." Just
about here comes in "the hand that rocks!"
Having thus administered the dope, in this pleasing mixture of molasses
and soft soap, which is supposed to keep the "fair sex" quiet and happy
for the balance of the evening, the aspirant for public honors passes
on to the serious business of the hour, and discusses the affairs of
state with the electorate. Right here, let us sound a small note of
warning. Keep your eye on the man who refers to women as the "fair
sex"--he is a dealer in dope!
One of the oldest and falsest of our beliefs regarding women is that
they are protected--that some way in the battle of life they get the
best of it. People talk of men's chivalry, that vague, indefinite
quality which is supposed to transmute the common clay of life into
gold.
Chivalry is a magic word. It seems to breathe of foreign strands and
moonlight groves and silver sands and knights and earls and kings; it
seems to tell of glorious deeds and waving plumes and prancing steeds
and belted earls--and things!
People tell us of the good old days of chivalry when womanhood was
really respected and reverenced--when brave knight rode gaily forth to
die for his lady love. But in order to be really loved and respected
there was one hard and fast condition laid down, to which all women
must conform--they must be beautiful, no getting out of that. They
simply had to have starry eyes and golden hair, or else black as a
raven's wing; they had to have pale, white, and haughty brow, and a
laugh like a ripple of magic. Then they were all right and armored
knights would die for them quick as wink!
The homely women were all witches, dreadful witches, and they drowned
them, on public holidays, in the mill pond!
People tell us now that chivalry is dead, and women have killed it,
bold women who instead of staying at home, broidering pearls on a red
velvet sleeve, have gone out to work--have gone to college side by side
with men and have been so unwomanly sometimes as to take the prizes
away from men. Chivalry cannot live in such an atmosphere. Certainly
not!
Of course women can hardly be blamed for going out and working when one
remembers that they must either work or starve. Broidering pearls will
not boil the kettle worth a cent! There are now thirty per cent of the
women of the U. S. A. and Canada, who are wage-earners, and we will
readily grant that necessity has driven most of them out of their
homes. Similarly, in England alone, there are a million and a half
more women than men. It would seem that all women cannot have homes of
their own--there does not seem to be enough men to go around. But
still there are people who tell us these women should all have homes of
their own--it is their own fault if they haven't; and once I heard of a
woman saying the hardest thing about men I ever heard--and she was an
ardent anti-suffragist too. She said that what was wrong with the
women in England was that they were too particular--that's why they
were not married, "and," she went on, "any person can tell, when they
look around at men in general, that God never intended women to be very
particular." I am glad I never said anything as hard as that about men.
There are still with us some of the conventions of the old days of
chivalry. The pretty woman still has the advantage over her plainer
sister--and the opinion of the world is that women must be beautiful at
all costs. When a newspaper wishes to disprove a woman's contention,
or demolish her theories, it draws ugly pictures of her. If it can
show that she has big feet or red hands, or wears unbecoming clothes,
that certainly settles the case--and puts her where she belongs.
This cruel convention that women must be beautiful accounts for the
popularity of face-washes, and beauty parlors, and the languor of
university extension lectures. Women cannot be blamed for this. All
our civilization has been to the end that women make themselves
attractive to men. The attractive woman has hitherto been the
successful woman. The pretty girl marries a millionaire, travels in
Europe, and is presented at court; her plainer sister, equally
intelligent, marries a boy from home, and does her own washing. I am
not comparing the two destinies as to which offers the greater
opportunities for happiness or usefulness, but rather to show how
widely divergent two lives may be. What caused the difference was a
wavy strand of hair, a rounder curve on a cheek. Is it any wonder that
women capitalize their good looks, even at the expense of their
intelligence? The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest
injustice that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury
to the race.
Men are not entirely blameless in respect to the frivolity of women.
It is easy to blame women for dressing foolishly, extravagantly, but to
what end do they do it? To be attractive to men; and the reason they
continue to do it is that it is successful. Many a woman has found
that it pays to be foolish. Men like frivolity--before marriage; but
they demand all the sterner virtues afterwards. The little dainty,
fuzzy-haired, simpering dolly who chatters and wears toe-slippers has a
better chance in the matrimonial market than the clear-headed, plainer
girl, who dresses sensibly. A little boy once gave his mother
directions as to his birthday present--he said he wanted "something
foolish" and therein he expressed a purely masculine wish.
A man's ideal at seventeen
Must be a sprite--
A dainty, fairy, elfish queen
Of pure delight;
But later on he sort of feels
He'd like a girl who could cook meals.
Life is full of anomalies, and in the mating and pairing of men and
women there are many.
Why is the careless, easy-going, irresponsible way of the young girl so
attractive to men? It does not make for domestic happiness; and why,
Oh why, do some of our best men marry such odd little sticks of
pin-head women, with a brain similar in caliber to a second-rate
butterfly, while the most intelligent, unselfish, and womanly women are
left unmated? I am going to ask about this the first morning I am in
heaven, if so be we are allowed to ask about the things which troubled
us while on our mortal journey. I have never been able to find out
about it here.
Now this old belief that women are protected is of sturdy growth and
returns to life with great persistence. Theoretically women are
protected--on paper--traditionally--just like Belgium was, and with
just as disastrous results.
A member of the English Parliament declared with great emphasis that
the women now have everything the heart could desire--they reign like
queens and can have their smallest wish gratified. ("Smallest" is
right.) And we very readily grant that there are many women living in
idleness and luxury on the bounty of their male relatives, and we say
it with sorrow and shame that these are estimated the successful women
in the opinion of the world. But while some feast in idleness, many
others slave in poverty. The great army of women workers are ill-paid,
badly housed, and their work is not honored or respected or paid for.
What share have they in man's chivalry? Chivalry is like a line of
credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it. When you
are prospering financially and your bank account is growing and you are
rated A1, you can get plenty of credit--it is offered to you; but when
the dark days of financial depression overtake you, and the people you
are depending upon do not "come through," and you must have
credit--must have it!--the very people who once urged it upon you will
now tell you that "money is tight!"
The young and pretty woman, well dressed and attractive, can get all
the chivalry she wants. She will have seats offered her on street
cars, men will hasten to carry her parcels, or open doors for her; but
the poor old woman, beaten in the battle of life, sick of life's
struggles, and grown gray and weather-beaten facing life's storms--what
chivalry is shown her? She can go her weary way uncomforted and
unattended. People who need it do not get it.
Anyway, chivalry is a poor substitute for justice, if one cannot have
both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not
nourishing. It is like the paper lace around the bonbon box--we could
get along without it.
There are countless thousands of truly chivalrous men, who have the
true chivalry whose foundation is justice--who would protect all women
from injury or insult or injustice, but who know that they cannot do
it--who know that in spite of all they can do, women are often
outraged, insulted, ill-treated. The truly chivalrous man, who does
reverence all womankind, realizing this, says: "Let us give women every
weapon whereby they can defend themselves; let us remove the stigma of
political nonentity under which women have been placed. Let us give
women a fair deal!"
This is the new chivalry--and on it we build our hope.