And take us all in all or not at all.
The decision of Durham University to grant women the B.A. degree in 1881 is cordially applauded, though the welcome is impaired by the facetious heading, "'Ducks' at Durham"; and the liberality of Cambridge in admitting women to the Tripos Examination is contrasted with the churlishness of Oxford. As I write the tables have been turned and Oxford is the paradise of the girl graduate.
In his earlier days Punch never wearied of insisting on the importance of cookery, but a set of verses in 1881 marks an altered mood towards the old "woman in the kitchen" cry. Here the suggestion is even made that men would be benefited by a course of lessons in cooking, and there is obvious irony in the concluding lines:—
This is woman's true position—
In the kitchen's inmost nook;
And a lady's noblest mission
Is to cook.
The two moods are subtly combined in Du Maurier's famous and unforgettable picture of the cynical widow advising a wife of two years' standing to "feed the brute."
