Secondly, with that wasp waist, your lungs, stomach, liver, and
other organs squeezed down out of their place, and into one half
their natural size, and with that long trail dragging on the ground,
how can any man of sense, who knows that life is made up of use, of
service, of work; how can he take such partner? He must be desperate
to unite himself for life with such a deformed, fettered, half
breathing ornament.
If I were in the matrimonial market, I might marry a woman that had
but one arm, or one eye, or no eyes at all, if she suited me
otherwise; but so long as God permitted me to retain my senses, I
could never join my fortunes with those of a woman with a small
waist.
A small waist! I am a physiologist, and know what a small waist
means. It means the organs of the abdomen jammed down into the
pelvis; it means the organs of the chest stuffed up into the throat;
it means a weak back; it means a delicate, nervous invalid; it means
a suffering patient, and not a vigorous helpmate.
Thousands of men dare not venture, because they wisely fear that,
instead of a helpmate, they will get an invalid to take care of.
Besides, this bad health in you, just as in men, made the mind, as
well as the body, faddled and effeminate.
You have no power, no magnetism. I know you giggle freely, and use
big words, such as splendid, awful, etc.; but then, this does not
deceive us; we see through all that sort of thing. The fact is, you
are superficial, affected, silly. You have none of that womanly
strength and warmth which are so assuring and attractive to men.
Why you have actually become so childish, that you refuse to wear
decent names even, and insist upon little baby names.
Instead of Helen, Margaret and Elizabeth you affect Nellie, Maggie
and Lizzie.
When your brothers were babies, you called them Bobbie, Dickie and
Johnnie; but when they grow up to manhood, no more of that silly
trash, if you please.
I know a woman, twenty-five years old, and as big as both my
grandmothers put together, who insists upon being called Kittie, and
her real name is Catherine; her brain is big enough to conduct
affairs of State, she does nothing but giggle, cover up her face
with her fan, and exclaim, "Don't now, you are real mean." How can a
sensible man propose a life partnership to such a silly goose?
My dear girls, if you would get husbands, and sensible ones, dress
in plain, neat, becoming garments, and talk like sensible, earnest
sisters.
You say you don't care, you won't dress to please men, etc. Then, as
I said in opening this sermon, I am not speaking to you. I am
speaking to such girls as want husbands, and would like to know how
to get them.
You say that the most sensible men are crazy after these butterflies
of fashion. I beg your pardon, it is not so. Occasionally, even a
brilliant man may marry a silly, weak woman. But to say, as I have
heard women say a hundred times, that the most sensible men marry
women without sense, is simply absurd. Nineteen times in twenty
sensible men choose sensible women.
I grant you that in company men are very likely to gabble and toy
with these over-dressed and forward creatures; but as to going to
the altar with them, they beg to be excused.
Thirdly, among the men in the matrimonial market, only a very small
number are rich; and in America very rarely make good husbands. But
the number of those who are beginning in life, who are filled with a
noble ambition, who have a future, is very large. These are worth
having. But such will not, they dare not, ask you to join them,
while they see you so idle, silly, and so gorgeously attired.
Let them see that you are industrious, economical, with habits that
secure health and strength, that your life is earnest and real, that
you are willing to begin at the beginning in life with the man you
would consent to marry, then marriage will become the rule, and not
as now, among certain classes, the exception.
Ah, if ever the time shall come, when young women have occupations,
and can sustain a healthy, dignified attitude toward men,--if ever
the time shall come when women are not such pitiful dependents, then
marriage will become universal, and we shall all be happier, better,
nobler.