Part 13 (1/2)

The prosperous and well-domiciled woman of the middle cla.s.ses could rest in the comfortable feeling that the demarcations of society no longer absolutely precluded the possibility of her daughters' entering the ranks of those famous for their signal worth of one sort or another; but as yet the great movements of modern society had not come into close touch with the lives of ordinary women. Newspapers were published, but women seldom read them. Philanthropy was making headway, but women had little part in its movement, nor had they fully entered as yet into their birthright in the realm of literature.

In the rural districts, their life was so contracted that a weekly newsletter, pa.s.sed from hand to hand, was the chief medium of information as to the outside world; but even this was not usually read by the womenfolk, who were content to receive their news by hearsay. Unlike the women of the aristocracy, the women of the middle cla.s.ses did not become beneficiaries to any large degree in the wider connections of their husbands, because such connections were for the most part of a business nature and not social. They were women of mediocrity, and their role was domestic. It was still thought unimportant to widen woman's horizon beyond the elements of an education. To these, in the case of the more prosperous, were added those accomplishments which are still looked upon by ignorant persons with disdain, but which serve to bridge the chasms of society by establis.h.i.+ng tests of good breeding irrespective of social birth; so that to reading, writing, geography, and history there were added music, French, and Italian. Such a curriculum, faithfully followed, prepared young women to move in polite circles.

The old cry of women's incapacity for intellectual attainments of the same order as those of men is audible throughout the eighteenth century. One writer, after speaking of the regard in which the s.e.x were held in England, discusses the matter of their education and concludes that it is not easy to comprehend the possibility of raising them to a higher plane than that to which they had been lifted, because of their natural incapacity for other than the domestic and social functions which they so gracefully fulfilled. To English people generally, it was a matter of pride that their women received greater respect and were held in greater affection than those of continental countries. This was often remarked upon by foreign visitors, one of whom observes that ”among the common people the husbands seldom make their wives work. As to the women of quality, they don't trouble themselves about it.” The position of the wife in middle-cla.s.s society has been set before us by Fielding in a satire that has in it much of truth: ”The Squire, to whom that poor woman had been a faithful upper-servant all the time of their marriage, had returned that behavior by making what the world calls a good husband. He very seldom swore at her, perhaps not above once a week, and never beat her. She had not the least occasion for jealousy, and was perfect mistress of her time, for she was never interrupted by her husband, who was engaged all the morning in his field exercises, and all the evening with his bottle companions.” Certainly home had come to have attached to it a notion of greater sanct.i.ty than ever before, and women were accorded their natural rights and position, with the respect and deference in the tenderer relations of life, which signified much more than the profuse chivalry of the Middle Ages or the mock courtesy of the time of Charles II.

The English people were above all domestic; and the period, in its emphasis upon this phase of social life,--the English home,--marks in a way the beginning of that conception which is now regarded as being at the very foundation of a secure society. While France was going on in its iconoclastic way, destroying all things sacred in a mad desire to seize for the Third Estate the rights which they realized belonged to them, and the grasping of which was to cause French history to be written in the blood and fire of the great Revolution, the English, having pa.s.sed out of the social depravity of the reign of Charles II., became eminently steady and conservative of those elements of social progress which, in their case, unlike that of their French neighbors, had already been secured for them by progressive and largely peaceful measures.

It is interesting to note that the term ”old maid” had now entered into the popular vernacular, although ”spinster,” with its transferred meaning, was the more respectful way of speaking of unmarried women.

”An old maid is now thought such a curse,” says the author of the _Ladies' Calling_, ”as no Poetick Fury can exceed; looked on as the most calamitous creature in nature. And I so far yield to the opinion as to confess it to those who are kept in that state against their wills; but sure the original of that misery is from the desire, not the restraint, of marriage; let them but suppress that once, and the other will never be their infelicity. But I must not be so unkind to the s.e.x as to think 'tis always such desire that gives them an aversion to celibacy; I doubt not many are frightened only with the vulgar contempt under which that state lyes: for which if there be no cure, yet there is the same armous against this which is against all other causeless reproaches, viz., to contemn it.”

The esteem in which matrimony was held as the manifest destiny of the fair s.e.x is ill.u.s.trated by all the social manners of the day. Women had, however, the good taste to conduct themselves without reproach, and not to invite attention even while they most appreciated it. In a word, the young women of the eighteenth century were not coquettes, and with them modesty was not a lost art. They were not masculine, and indeed might have been regarded from the standards of to-day as prudes. But the prudery of the British women excited the admiration of foreigners, thoroughly satiated with the arts, the flaunting manners, and the gilded charms of the young women of the European capitals.

One foreigner is found recording his astonishment at the diversity in the manner of walking of the ladies, and sees in it an index of their characters; for, says he, when they are desirous only of being seen, they walk together, for the most part without speaking. He suggests that the stiffness and formality of their demeanor when not thus on dress parade are laid aside for greater naturalness. But he says that, with all their care to be seen, they have no ridiculous affectations.

In former times, it was not customary for young women to go about without the attendance of some older person, and a girl so doing was brought under suspicion as to her character; but in the eighteenth century, young girls went about freely with their fellows and without any other company, and a writer of the period a.s.sures us that if a young girl went out with a parent, unless such parent were as wild as herself, she felt as though she was going abroad with a jailer. It was not usual, however, for girls to go about unchaperoned.

It would be an unwarranted a.s.sumption to suppose that demureness was any deeper than demeanor in the maidens of the eighteenth century, for the feminine character--and not times and customs--determines the effectiveness of the s.e.x. Matters of custom and of dress signify little, and yet the Solons who pa.s.sed the act of 1770 to lessen the potency of woman's charms appear to have been utterly oblivious of the important consideration that these do not rest in outward circ.u.mstance, but in inward grace. This curious act prescribed: ”That all women, of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether virgins, maids, or widows, that shall, from and after such Act, impose upon, seduce, or betray into matrimony, any of his Majesty's male subjects by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, etc., shall incur the penalty of the law now enforced against witchcraft and like misdemeanours, and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand null and void.” And this, too, just six years before the American Declaration of Independence!

Allusion to this act proscribing aids to beauty leads to the consideration of the matter of costume and adornment. This can be summarized in the censure which was called forth from an Italian visitor: ”The ladies of England do not understand the art of decorating their persons so well as those of Italy; they generally increase the volume of the head by a cap that makes it much bigger than nature, a fault which should be always avoided in adorning that part.” After this observation, the writer pa.s.ses on to criticise the length of the ladies' skirts, affirming that they wore their petticoats too short behind, unlike the ladies of Italy and France, for--and we are indebted to him for his explication of trains--these ladies ”pattern after the most graceful birds.” By their failure to emulate the peac.o.c.k or the bird-of-paradise in the matter of their splendid appendages, the English women are said to lose ”the greatest grace which dress can impart to a female.” He continues, saying: ”In truth, not beauty, but novelty governs in London, not taste, but copy.

A celebrated woman of five foot six inches gives law to the dress of those who are but four feet two.... This is not the case in Italy and France; the ladies know that the grace which attends plumpness is unbecoming the slender; and the tall lady never affects to look like a fairy; nor the dwarf like the giantess, but each, studying the air and mien which become her figure, appears in the most engaging dress that can be made, to set off her person to the greatest advantage.”

Pa.s.sing from the generalities of female dress and coming to particular descriptions thereof, here is an account of the costuming of the ladies who a.s.sembled at court to congratulate his majesty George II.

and his queen, Caroline, on their nuptials: ”The ladies were variously dressed, though with all the richness and grandeur imaginable; many of them had their heads dressed English, of fine Brussels lace of exceeding rich patterns, made up on narrow wire and small round rolls, and the hair pinned to large puff-caps, and but a few without powder; some few had their hair curled down on the sides; pink and silver, white and gold, were the general knots worn. There was a vast number of Dutch heads, their hair curled down in short curls on the sides and behind, all very much powdered, with ribbands frilled on their heads, variously disposed; and some had diamonds set on ribbands on their heads; laced tippets were pretty general, and some had ribbands between the frills; treble-lace ruffles were universally worn, though abundance had them not tacked up. Their gowns were either gold stuffs or rich silks, with either gold or silver flowers, or pink or white silks, with either gold or silver nets or tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs; the sleeves to the gowns were middling (not so short as formerly), and wide, and their facings and robings broad; several had flounced sleeves and petticoats and gold or silver fringe set on the flounces; some had stomachers of the same sort as the gown, others had large bunches of made flowers at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; the gowns were variously pinned, but in general flat, the hoops French, and the petticoats of a moderate length, and a little slope behind. The ladies were exceedingly brilliant likewise in jewels; some had them in their necklaces and ear-rings, others with diamond solitaires to pearl necklaces of three or four rows; some had necklaces of diamonds and pearls intermixed, but made up very broad; several had their gown-sleeves b.u.t.toned with diamonds, others had diamond sprigs in their hair, etc. The ladies'

shoes were exceeding rich, being either pink, white, or green silk, with gold or silver lace braid all over, with low heels and low hind-quarters and low flaps, and abundance had large diamond shoe-buckles.”

The preposterous hooped petticoats which ladies wore out of doors subjected them to the good-natured banter of the wits of the time. One of these sallies, which appeared about 1720, runs as follows:

”An elderly lady, whose bulky squat figure By hoop and white damask was rendered much bigger, Without hood and bare-neck'd to the Park did repair To show her new clothes and to take the fresh air; Her shape, her attire, raised a shout in loud laughter: Away waddles Madam, the mob hurries after.

Quoth a wag, then observing the noisy crowd follow, 'As she came with a hoop, she is gone with a hollow.'”

The hoopskirt was the characteristic feature of eighteenth-century styles, and it grew to such enormous proportions as seriously to inconvenience the wearer and to interfere with the cubic feet of s.p.a.ce which a pedestrian might reasonably claim as his right on a crowded thoroughfare. But there were eighteenth-century styles which were more reprehensible than the oft-caricatured hoop.

There was a cla.s.s of votaries of fas.h.i.+on, in contrast to the ma.s.s of society, whose only notion of dress was display, and toward the middle of the eighteenth century these imported the most extravagant and immodest of French styles. As they paraded the public gardens, to which all cla.s.ses resorted, the staid people were scandalized by their appearance. T. Wright, in his _Caricature History of the Georges_, says that ”what was looked upon as the _beau-monde_ then lived much more in public than now, and men and women of fas.h.i.+on displayed their weaknesses to the world in public places of amus.e.m.e.nt and resort, with little shame or delicacy. The women often rivalled the men in libertinism, and even emulated them sometimes in their riotous manners.” Women of the town were greatly in evidence, and a trustworthy traveller of the times affirms that they were bolder and more numerous in London than in either Paris or Rome. Not only at night, but in broad daylight, they traversed the footpaths, selecting out of the pa.s.sers-by the susceptible for their enticement, particularly directing themselves to foreigners. Archenholz says: _On compte cinquante mille prost.i.tuees a Londres, dans les maitresses en t.i.tre. Leurs usages et leur conduite determinent les differentes cla.s.ses ou il faut les ranger. La plus vile de toutes habite dans les lieux publics sous la direction d'une matrone qui les loge et les habille. Ces habits mee pour les filles communes, sont de soie, suivant l'usage que le luxe a generalement introduit en Angleterre....

Dans_ _la seule paroisse de Marybonne, qui est la plus grande et la plus peuplee de l'Angleterre, on en comptoit, il y a quelques annees, treize mille, dont dix-sept cents occupoient des maisons entieres a elles seules_.

Such a picture of social vice in the metropolis is a sad commentary upon the tendency of the young women of the country districts to drift to the city. The ”lights o' London” had already begun to possess that fascination for the weak in morals, the light-headed and frivolous, which has made them a wrecker's beacon on a rockbound sh.o.r.e, luring to destruction untold hosts of inexperienced country youth. Nor was the drift Londonward due altogether to the fascination which the gay and pleasure-pandering city possessed, for there were not wanting methods of enticement such as are still employed, in spite of legal penalties.

The example of city dwellers of outward respectability did not tend to elevate the moral tone of those who came fresh from the country, with its purer home life; for while the sanct.i.ty of the home was an appreciable fact of the seventeenth century, it was much less so in the metropolis and in the cities generally than it was in the country.

A notorious fact that attracted the notice of continental visitors to England was that lax morality prevailed in many English families.

Muralt, a Frenchman, even a.s.serts that he found it customary for husbands generally to maintain mistresses and also to bring them to their homes and place them on a footing with their wives. This is doubtless an exaggerated statement of the case; but when the king was not faultless, the people were apt to pursue folly. Although no king after Charles II., except George II., disgraced the nation by the profligacy which he exhibited, yet Charles's successor, James II., kept a mistress, as did most of the kings following him.

Referring again to Fielding, we get what is probably a truer picture of the times in this respect than could be penned from the hasty observations of a traveller. A young fellow who has led astray his landlady's daughter is addressed by his uncle in the following manner: ”Honour is a creature of the world's making, and the world has the power of a creator over it, and may govern and direct it as they please. Now, you well know how trivial these breaches of contract are thought; even the grossest make but the wonder and conversation of the day. Is there a man who afterwards will be more backward in giving you his sister or daughter, or is there any sister or daughter who would be more backward to receive you? Honour is not concerned in these engagements.” It need not be supposed that such sentiments were general; but that they were all too prevalent is manifested by the literature that mirrors the times.

Drinking and swearing, the coa.r.s.e a.s.sociations of the alehouse, the obscene jokes and sallies which were indulged in freely in such places and made up a great part of the conversation, were conducive to a very low moral standard for men, and there was nothing in the times to lead women to uphold higher ideals of conduct than those which were imposed upon them by the male s.e.x. Consequently, they were accustomed to a lower standard than would be tolerated to-day; but as libertinism was largely concerned with the outcast element of society, the women of the homes were not called upon to sacrifice integrity of character for its satisfaction. So that the lower moral standard was set up for men, and a woman who would attempt at once to maintain her respectability and follow such courses would very soon have found that difference in standards for the s.e.xes visited a stricter condemnation upon her than upon the male delinquent.

The testimony of foreigners to the chast.i.ty of the English matron quite coincides with that which comes from English sources. Le Blanc remarks: ”Most of those who among us pa.s.s for men of good fortune in amours would with difficulty succeed in addressing an English fair.

She would not sooner be subdued by the insinuating softness of their jargon than by the amber with which they are perfumed.” Another observer, of the same nationality, speaking of the una.s.sailability of the English woman, attributes it to the insurmountable rampart which she had in the love for her family, the care of her household, and her natural gravity, and says that he does not know any city in the world where the honor of husbands is in less danger of deflection than in London.

The social hypocrisy of the eighteenth century, as it relates to woman, was due to the failure as yet to place the s.e.x in correct adjustment with the times. Instead of considering her as having serious qualities and value other than the realization of matrimony, everything that entered into woman's life pointed in that one direction. The art of pleasing was not cultivated as an opportunity of the s.e.x due to their special graces of spirit and of person, which might legitimately be employed for their own sake to make the world happier and brighter. There was not afforded to men the restfulness and pleasure in the company of women which would serve as a delightful foil to the practical and anxious cares of their daily lives; nor were women taught to believe in themselves as capable persons in the spheres of life in which feminine personality, taste, and touch best affect and mould civilization. Except in a few notable cases, literature and art, to say nothing of science, were outside of woman's sphere, because she neither believed in herself nor was seriously regarded by men as a factor in any of the wide relations of life other than those which were involved in her s.e.x. The arts of the toilette, conversation, and deportment were all in which she was considered to need to be adept. Where naturalness was suppressed, it is not strange that the young women should have been influenced by false standards; false modesty, false sensitiveness, false ignorance, were depended upon to give them the artlessness and innocence of deportment which should recommend them to the blase men of the times.