CHAPTER I

THE CONVENTIONS OF GIRLHOOD

"Creatures of circumstance who waited to be fallen in love with. . . . We stood and waited-on approval. And then came life itself and tore our mother's theories to tatters."-CICELY HAMILTON.

"The chief element of a good time . . . as these countless rich young women judge it, are a petty eventfulness, laughter, and to feel you are looking well and attracting attention. Shopping is one of its chief joys. . . . My cousins were always getting and giving, my uncle caressed them with parcels and checks... So far as marriage went, the married state seemed at once very attractive and dreadfully serious to them, composed in equal measure of becoming important and becoming old. I don't know what they thought about children. I doubt if they thought about them at all."-H. G. WELLS.

"Fine girls sittin' like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin' and waitin' and waitin'. . . ."-Oliver WENDELL HOLMES.

FEMININE life in the middle Nineteenth Century, and to a degree now almost inconceivable, was permeated with the current traditions of what good women had been, and by the assumption that these stood for the pattern of what they should still be. From the moment of birth their sex was outwardly marked by the color of their ribbons, which became the embodiment, as it were, of their discreet and pallid characteristics. Throughout

the weeks that followed the mother watched impatiently to see whether the baby's hair would be curly-" for curly hair is so pretty in a girl, you know." By the time the infant could walk and talk, she had learned that there were things taboo for her which were perfectly proper for the little male creatures of her kind: she might not yell, nor romp, nor scuffle, nor, in short, "be a tomboy," because it was not nice for a little girl.

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While the little boys of her age were gradually emancipated from lingerie garments, she still remained the charming baby-doll of the household. Her clothes continued to be made of light-colored and fragile materials, which she was constantly adjured not to soil. Her complexion, her hair, her tiny hands and feet were discussed in her presence as if they were marketable assets. most the first words in her vocabulary were "nice" and "pretty; " the one subtly stimulating sex-consciousness, the other associated with her physical limitations and the good looks which were to be a chief end of her existence. For her alone was coined the phrase: pretty is that pretty does. Boys did not have to be pretty, only good and smart; and, therefore, in the initial rivalry of the sexes she instinctively learned to lay her emphasis on prettiness. As a consequence, while she was still in knee-length dresses, clothing, manners, and appearance became of superlative im

portance. Her guardians need not have been surprised, when, a few years later, she became a vain and self-conscious creature, already measuring her beauty against that of other girls, and prematurely trying it on the males of her acquaintance.

But alas for her if her hair did not curl-if she turned out plain, or "not so pretty as her mother was"! She heard from grandmothers and other ladies of fading complexions and charms, over their needlework and tea, a chorus of pity. Many a little girl has cried her eyes out in secret because she had straight hair, large ears, or a muddy skin. This constant emphasis upon appearance had the effect, upon one temperament, of concentrating the desire of her whole nature on the attainment of conventional prettiness; upon another more sensitive one to create a morbid embarrassment amounting to tragedy; and sometimes upon stronger natures, to turn their aspirations toward some form of practical efficiency or to intellectual pursuits. However it turned out, before the girl-child was ten years old she had received an indelible impression that beauty, particularly a purely physical and luscious loveliness -such as would have been a disadvantage to a boy-was the most important attainment of a young girl's life.

Very early in this process of inculcating femininity it was necessary to check and pervert her

physical impulses. Like the racing-horse, she must be trained while yet a colt never to break her gait. The goal of conventional prettiness permitted no indulgence in dirt or sunburn, therefore she could not run or play freely out-of-doors nor develop her muscles in competitive games that required speed and wind, a quick eye and a sure aim. Being a lively animal, her natural energy would try to find outlet somewhere at first, according to her temperament and coerced by her parents' ideals of woman's sphere. If she had a robust body and a strong-willed, original personality, she would kick over the traces and break through the corral fence a good many times before the habits of domestication became ingrained. Such a temperament was always a source of trouble until she submitted to the life predestined for her by the traditions of her foremothers. She was, indeed, fortunate if her temper was not embittered, her health undermined, or her life made unhappy by the thwarting of her natural character.

But if she were born not too vigorous, and both docile and pretty, her path was smooth for her from the very beginning. Before she had mastered her letters she learned the horror of dirt, and set out on that approved career of dainty fastidiousness which is the glory of womankind. Instead of developing her muscles in large, free movements, she spent her placid girlhood in dress

ing girl-dolls that were models of ladylikeness; in giving little girls' tea-parties, where the social game of their elders was imitated in the exhibition of best clothes, the practice of polite, conversational gossip, and the rehearsal of the attractive arts; and in learning to make patchwork and her own clothes, prize cakes and fancy jellies-if her mother were of the older school; or, at a later date, in doing monstrous fancywork and embroidering her undergarments.

While her brothers played baseball and shinny or went swimming, she sat on a piano-stool, with her feet a few inches from the floor, practising the hour or two a day necessary to attain a meager proficiency. For in that day the ideal young lady must play the piano; not at all because she had musical talent worthy of serious cultivation, or because it was a necessary equipment for life-one scarcely knows why, unless to keep her out of mischief, or, perhaps, to make her more alluring to that future husband who might like a little music in the evenings now and then to soothe his

nerves.

Nor was her domestic training of a much more thorough sort, although the tradition that the

women of the household should be cooks and manufacturers was still widespread. Among middle-class American families the domestic habits of Europe persisted long after manufactured