DELICATE POINTS FOR OUR GIRL
THIS chapter is, perhaps, rather a _Familiar Talk with Our Girl_ on the
proprieties—which she may not recognize as such—than the emphasizing
of various points of etiquette. But the violation of the essentials
of self-respect is so common that a book of this character should
have a chapter devoted to a bit of plain speaking to the young woman
of to-day. We may call her actions, under certain circumstances, a
violation of the proprieties, or of etiquette, or of conventionality.
Or, perhaps, it is a sin against all three.
We are accustomed to seeing the sign “Hands off!” hung upon dainty
fabrics,—pure spotless materials that would be injured and stained
by the touching of a gloved or bare hand. People who admire the pure
beauty of the article thus marked do not resent the sign. They see the
wisdom of it and are willing to obey the mandate. For a fabric once
soiled never looks the same again. All the chemicals in the country can
not give it the peculiar pristine freshness that was once its chief
beauty.
To those who appreciate the beauty of youth, its pure freshness, the
thought of its being touched by indiscriminate hands is abhorrent.
[Sidenote: KEEPING A MAN’S RESPECT]
We have, happily, passed the Lydia Languish age, the day in which the
young girl was a fragile creature, given to fainting and hysterics,
clothed in innocence that was ignorance, good because she was afraid
to be naughty, or because she was so hedged in by conventionalities
that she did not have the opportunity to stray near the outer edge of
the pasture bars. In her place we have a healthy, fearless, clear-eyed
young person, looking life and its possibilities square in the face,
good because she knows from observation or hearsay what evil is,
and abhors it because it is evil. She is a sister, a chum, a jolly
companion to the boy or man with whom she associates. She rides, walks,
golfs or dances with him. She may do, and she does, all these things,
and she still keeps his respect.
Thus far we go, and then creeps in the sinister question: Does she
always do this?
The answer comes promptly: It is her own fault if she loses any man’s
respect.
To those of us who have outstepped girlhood, who have begun to live
deeply these lives of ours that are full of potentialities for good or
evil, there comes a keen insight, and, with that insight, our outer
sight becomes more clear; and, sometimes, in looking at young people,
we find our hearts, and almost our lips, crying out, “DON’T!”
[Sidenote: THE BLOOM OF THE PEACH]
We would not be—we are not—prudes, but the bloom of the peach is
beautiful, and once rubbed off it can not be replaced. The snow-white
fabric is too fair to be carelessly handled.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF GIRLS]
Last winter I sat in a train-seat behind a girl of eighteen and a young
man a few years her senior. She was pretty and bright. She chatted
gaily with her companion, who, after a few minutes, threw his arm
over the back of her seat. To the initiated, it was evidently done as
a trial as to whether that kind of thing would be allowed. The girl,
intent on the conversation, appeared not to notice the action. In a few
moments the hand resting against the girl’s shoulder was laid over the
shoulder. The owner flushed, made some laughing protest, but evidently
administered no rebuke, as the offending member continued to rest where
it was, then gradually crept up toward her neck; finally, at some
teasing remark of hers, it tweaked her ear. Had the child been older,
the look in the man’s eyes, as he watched the fluctuations of color in
her pretty face, would have warned her that she was playing with fire;
that his respect for her would have been greater had she shown in the
beginning that the sign, “Hands off!” was on her person, although
invisible to the vulgar eye.
This is but one of the many instances of the free-and-easy actions on
the part of men, permitted by well-meaning girls.
In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand a man will not
take a liberty with a girl unless she allows it.
[Sidenote: IS BERNARD SHAW RIGHT?]
I wish girls would bear this fact in mind! Men are what they make
them, what they allow them to be. When a young fellow told a man in my
presence last week that such and such a girl was a “jolly sort,” and,
while out driving, had stopped at a roadhouse with him, gone into the
parlor of the house and taken a glass of ginger ale while he had one
of whisky, I was not surprised that the man of the world to whom he
imparted this fact, remarked, “Crookéd, eh?”
That the young fellow (who, had he been older or less easily flattered,
would not have related the occurrence) flushed and laughingly denied
the allegation—did not alter the fact that the conclusion drawn was
inevitable. The young girl may not, probably did not, deserve the
stricture passed on her, but by her free-and-easy behavior she lost
something she never can regain.
Men may pay attention to girls who ignore the conventionalities, who
allow them doubtful liberties, but they like them because they are
what they term “fun.” Such girls are not those for whom men live, for
whom they sacrifice bad habits, for whom they look in seeking a wife,
and for whom they would bravely give up life if necessary. The true
love of a good man is worth winning. It is not won by the girl who
lowers herself in a man’s eyes. To her might apply the time-worn toast
of man to “The New Woman,—once our superior, now our equal.”
* * * * *
Another point to which I would draw the attention of our girl is
that the man should make the advances, should do the seeking and the
courting. To this she would reply, “Why, of course! All girls know
that.” They may know it theoretically, but does every girl live up to
that knowledge? Does she always wait to be sought, to be won, without
taking a hand herself at assisting destiny? I think observation will
not prove that she does.
In this very free-and-easy age, when men are too busy seeking the
elusive mighty dollar to be over-eager to show marked attention to
girls, it is often the young woman who pays heed to some of the
preliminaries of the courting period. It is frequently she who suggests
to a man, after meeting him several times, that she would be glad to
have him call. It is she who, when he is going on a journey, asks him
if he will not write to her. It is she who asks him for his picture
and, on occasion, offers him one of hers.
[Sidenote: KEEPING ONE’S SELF-RESPECT]
It is, and it has been through centuries, the place of the man to take
the initiative in such matters. If he wants to call on a girl, let him,
as a rule, have the courage to ask her if he may do so; if he wishes
to correspond with her, he should ask her permission to write to her.
And if he does none of these things of his own volition, they may go
undone. The girl who, through love of admiration, or the desire for
men’s attention, takes these initial steps, loses her self-respect,
and, unless the man in question be an exceptional instance, awakens in
his breast a sensation of amused interest. He is flattered, and a bit
contemptuous. As time goes on and he likes the girl more and more, that
feeling may be forgot, but it is always lying there dormant, and may
arise sometime just when the young woman would most wish for respect
and love.
Men prize that which they have had difficulty in winning. The apple
that drops, over-ripe, at one’s feet is never quite so tempting as that
which hangs just beyond reach.
* * * * *
It is well for the matter of sex to be put out of mind in many of the
dealings between young men and young women, but in the question of
loverly attentions it can not be ignored. And in this matter it is the
man, and the man only, who should make advances. It is better for her
peace of mind that a girl should never have the marked attention of
any man, than that she should forget her maidenly dignity in order to
acquire it. Such acquisition is certainly not worth the price paid for
it.
A man must look up to that which he loves. And a hard-and-fast rule is
the slangy one that declares that one does not run after a car when he
has already caught it, or when it stands at the corner waiting for him,
and ready to start or stand at his will. The girls for whom men find
life worth living are those who are ideals as well as companions.
[Sidenote: HANDS OFF]
Dear girls, be happy, be merry, have all the harmless fun that the
good God, who wishes you to be happy, sends your way. But for the
sake of the man who may one day seek you and win you—for the sake
of the womanhood that he would honor—let all men know that you are
labeled—“HANDS OFF!” and that you are not to be cheaply gained. They
will love you better, respect and honor you more for that knowledge.
* * * * *
A serious mistake often made by girl students and working girls is
taking the men who call on them to their rooms. In most cases these
rooms are fitted up with couches to look much like sitting-rooms, but
the men know they are _not_ sitting-rooms, and the girl who receives
men thus suffers for it in name if not in fact. It is a thing that a
self-respecting girl can not afford to do, even once. If she expects to
have men call on her, she must choose a room in a house where she may
occasionally have the use of a parlor. The ruling may seem hard, but
there is no getting round it.
* * * * *
No young girl can afford to accept a luncheon or dinner invitation from
a married man or, indeed, any attention whatsoever. It does not matter
that he may be an “old friend of the family,”—those who see her may not
know this and, even if they do, may not acquit her of harm. For similar
seasons, a girl employed as secretary in a man’s office should take
care that the relation between her and her employer is purely one of
business.
[Sidenote: GOOD TASTE IN JEST]
[Sidenote: DELICACY IN CONVERSATION]
One of the unfailing tests of good breeding is what one laughs at.
Without becoming priggish, a girl should discriminate between what is a
fit subject for jest and what is entitled to her reverence. As a rule,
jests about birth, death and marriage are to be avoided. A special
word of suggestion must be given in connection with the first of these
subjects. If you are to speak of a woman who is to become a mother,
say frankly that she is expecting or bearing a child. The euphemisms
employed in place of this plain phrase are unspeakably vulgar. It is
never vulgar to be frank if the person and the circumstances justify
the introduction of the subject at all. One must often wish for more of
the old-fashioned reserve on intimate topics. A critic of modern women
said of them recently: “Among themselves, women lose more delicacy than
any man could take from them.” When one listens aghast to the talk
of some modern women, one can but echo the statement. Akin to this
unbecoming freedom of speech is the lack of consideration sometimes
shown to an expectant mother by her friends. Comment in such instances
one would suppose would be recognized as the height of indelicacy, but
thoughtlessly, and in a spirit of jest, remarks are made that cause a
sensitive person to wince. Unless the mother-to-be confides her sacred
expectations, she has every right to have them treated with the respect
of silence, and only a vulgar-minded woman will intrude upon her.