Somewhere in the course of the single strap, a buckle may be introduced to regulate the tension of the support. This sort of support has been very much used for children's stockings. It has now been adopted by thousands of women, many of whom have spoken to me very warmly of its value.
LARGE vs. SMALL WOMEN.
Petite, applied to a woman, is a very dear word to the fashionables. Ah, the dear, delicate, petite creature! Ah, my darling, sweet petite!
But oh, how dreadful and monstrous such words as—the great creature!—She's as big as all out doors!—for mercy's sake, look at that woman! why, she could lift an ox! Among fashionable simpletons these words are applied to a woman who weighs, say, one hundred and sixty pounds, who has a fine, noble physique, fully competent to the labors and trials of motherhood and life.
By a large woman, I mean one who weighs one hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty pounds. A small woman is one weighing from ninety to one hundred and ten pounds.
The reason for this preference for little women, among men, is simply this. Formerly, women were slaves to the passions of men. In modern times they have, among our better classes, risen a little above that, and have become the pets and toys of men. Now a pet or a toy, say a black and tan, is valuable in proportion to its diminutiveness. A man in selecting a wife that he intends to dress in silks and laces, with trinkets hung in her ears, rings on her fingers, and little ornaments stuck all over her, who is to sit in his parlor while he is absent on business, to dress and redress herself several times a day, to be ready to receive him, all corseted, besilked, bejeweled and bescented, when he shall come from his office,—a man who selects a wife as a pet, a toy, is very likely to have the same sort of preference for a petite wife, that he has for a petite black and tan.
This is the source of the preference for little women.
Whenever women shall rise to a true companionship with men, as their equals, and not their toys, then a small woman will no more be preferred than a small man.
When the great ideas of use, of citizenship, of a true womanhood, of a dignified motherhood, shall come to prevail over this Turkish notion of toy women, then women of noble bearing and commanding presence will be the style; and the little woman will suffer the same disadvantage, in the matrimonial market, that a little man does.
I beg you will not misunderstand me. I am only speaking of the source of a fashion, a prejudice, a false preference. Some of the most lovely, delightful women, as well as the most useful women I have ever met, were small.