If so much attention has heretofore been given to royal women, it was done in the conviction that, since, after all, the history of culture is a comparatively modern branch of scholarship, national life in periods not too clearly defined in history is best depicted in the highest circles, which, for good or for evil, will ever serve as a model or a type to be imitated by the classes below. We need only to glance at the life of fashion, so essential to women in all stages of society, to realize the truth of this conclusion.
In spite of all class distinctions, which were stronger in Poland than in any other country of western civilization, the Polish type of womanhood was nevertheless more recognizable throughout all the classes than anywhere else. In spite of all their modesty and womanly beauty, Polish women were at all times political enthusiasts; at all epochs we find among them commanding natures, resolute and manly patriots. Patriotic motives governed their loves, their marriages, their motherhood, and at no time more than since the partition of their beloved country. They excel in hospitality, which is their particular métier, and upon which they lavish, almost frivolously, their earthly goods. Courage, bravery, even heroism, are common traits, and are presupposed in their men as prerequisites to winning female affections. Ideals prevailed at all times; and for ideals, often very empty and unstatesmanlike, they sacrificed themselves, and also the life blood of their men, nay, their commonwealth, in fatal contrast to the self-interested, cool-headed, and cold-hearted statesmanship of their well-disciplined German neighbors. Upon this noble, but unpractical, national characteristic is to be based also their lack of an economic sense; work as such for material reward was always, it may be said, despised by Polish women; money was, and is, considered a sordid means for a purpose; and the same training, inculcated into the souls of the sons of Polish women, was one of the chief reasons for the political downfall of the nation. A too highly developed sense of individual liberty, the pursuit of ideals, impracticable even for their own people, and a contempt for everyday work and commonplace activity, have destroyed Poland. The eminent Danish literary historian Georg Brandes, in his Poland, reports characteristically this significant remark by a distinguished Polish lady: "What company they invited me to meet! It was made up of workmen, advocates whom we pay, manufacturers who sell goods, doctors into whose hands three rubles are slipped for a visit."
It is true that it was not always thus with Polish women, and certainly not with those of the poorer classes. In early times the education of woman consisted in prayer and work. Learning was not a womanly requisite; the domestic and agricultural work in the fields belonged to women, while the tavern was too frequently the abode of the man (chlop). Piety is a most genuine reality with Polish women; they were at all times a rock of the Catholic Church. Chastity was the most common virtue, and was strictly enforced. Nitschmann, the German historian of Polish literature, mentions the fact that as late as A. D. 1645, a young gentlewoman at the Polish court, who had entertained improper relations with several courtiers, was condemned to death, together with her lovers. Strict discipline went so far that, according to old Polish custom, maidens were chastised with rods every Friday to remind them of Christ's sufferings and to bring them nearer to God. The prayer of innocent children was reputed more effective, which was a strong incentive for young women to keep themselves pure as long as possible. No wonder that such women attained, in the course of time, a moral supremacy over their men, and that nowhere in Europe such a genuine deference was offered to women as in Poland. The almost supreme rule of the Polish mother over her sons is proverbial. With all her tenderness for her children, it is the Polish mother who drove the youth of the land to an almost hopeless struggle against the foreign conqueror, and to death on the altar of the fatherland. Nowhere has the Spartan mother's "Either with the shield or upon the shield" become such an often repeated reality as in the Polish insurrections against Russia.
Until the entrance of French fashions, which, however, especially influenced the higher classes, the costume of Polish women of all classes was national, beautiful, and many-colored. A cap of fine linen and a diadem were worn; the neck was left uncovered, as with the Polish men, and was adorned with strings of beads or jewels; rich furs ornamented the edges of their garments. The unmarried women wore fine silken or linen aprons, which are even to-day an indispensable part of the costume of Polish peasant girls at their social functions, for example, dances and spinning parties. A gaily colored cloth, artistically wound around the head, was always worn by the Polish girl of the lower classes; a white veil, which, however, must not cover the face, as with Mohammedan women, covered the heads of the maidens of the higher classes. Since the partition of Poland the gay national costume of the Poles is prohibited in Russia, but it is still worn, especially on festal occasions in Austria and Prussia.
The charm and beauty of Polish women is the constant theme of the national poets. A lyric poet of the seventeenth century, Morsztyn, sings of the Polish virgin:
"Thou model mine, divine in all thy beauty,
Compared with whom spring's roses even languish,
O brightest star, produced on earthly meadows,
Yet unsurpassed by heaven's luminaries!
"Pure spirit, encompassed in crystal,