Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

Women are organizing everywhere for the purpose of increasing the facilities of their sisters in the studies of science and philosophy. Large sums are offered to the faculties of universities to gain admission to female students on an equal footing with the male students, for the purpose of studying some of the already overcrowded professions. In the main, all this abnormal rivalry does not contribute a single advantage to either sex.

There was a time in the history of civilized nations, and that time is not more than twenty or twenty-five years ago, when an academical education gave an immense advantage to its possessor over his less-informed contemporary, but this is not true in our time, because there is now an overproduction of college-bred men. The man who can decline a Greek noun or conjugate a Latin verb is no longer a rarity, because the sons of European tradesmen and American farmers have deserted the pursuits of their progenitors—which, in the case of the American farmers, is to be deplored—and obtained a collegiate education, that is no longer the inheritance of the privileged few, so that in our time and day an academical education has run to seed among the men. And now the attempt is being made, under the guise of social progress, to burden our girls with the same wisdom that has incapacitated many of our boys from making an honest and independent living. It would be much better for the State if two-thirds of our universities or high schools were changed into manual training schools or polytechnical colleges, where the foundations for the industrial pursuits may be laid, so that labor will be made not only respectable but intelligent.

We would then hear of educated mechanics or artisans, and scientific farmers, which, to my mind, requires the same order of intelligence to excel, that it does in the professions generally qualified as “learned.”

Why crowd our girls, then, into the professions for which they are not only unsuited by nature, but which are already demoralized by the keen competition within their ranks? It is, certainly, an open secret, in the profession to which I have now devoted the best years of my life, that the methods in vogue to get business have descended to the level of the “confidence trickster,” and that, no matter what ability or merit a person may possess, without the natural instincts and elements of the quack and charlatan he can gain neither a livelihood nor fame. This theatrical demeanor of the profession, this aping the gaudy display of European aristocrats by riding in closed coaches, driven by liveried coachmen, is but the outward symptom of the internal disease of contention for notoriety and success.

If, instead of all this false and demoralizing philosophy, termed “woman’s rights”—which is more appropriately designated “woman’s wrongs”—we turn the thoughts and ambitions of women towards domestic economy and domestic virtue, which alone should be and ever will be the ideal of noble womanhood, there will be, then, much less disease, more happiness, and less discontent. There is enough on God’s earth for all of his children to eat, wear, and work, if the labor and the subsistence are fairly and wisely apportioned.

The growing sentiment, which is as vicious as it is absurd, is that a girl, to be educated or accomplished, must be either a teacher, lawyer, or doctor, or anything else except an accomplished housekeeper, just as though it required less talent or ability to raise a child, cook a wholesome or digestible meal, and cut or sew a garment.

Why, there is much more thought and judgment required in making an angel mother than in administering or prescribing a dose of medicine and filing a legal brief, and there is not a lawyer or doctor who has given sufficient thought to the duties and requirements of maternity who disputes it for a moment. If our strong-minded women would preach this doctrine, which would tend to make household duties respectable, they would be benefactors instead of mischief makers, and then our comely girls would prefer to cultivate habits of domesticity, which should and would become as honorable an occupation as that of a doctoress or lawyeress.

Improprieties of dress are to be found in excessive or deficient clothing, in an improper adjustment, and in an inherent defect of the undergarments. I will reserve some of my views on these questions, for the chapter that is devoted to hygienic measures. In the main, the custom or manner of dressing women in Christian countries does not deserve that sweeping denunciation that some radical dress reformers make. I would not, if I could, change the very becoming and graceful modern female dress, for it possesses the merit of displaying the beauties of the figure in a modestly delicate manner, and it hides its defects from the vulgar gaze.

As a rule, there is too much pressure on the abdomen, from the weight of heavy skirts that are suspended from the hips, and not sufficient room for the chest to expand, so as to accommodate the respirating movements of the lungs. In the absence of shoulder bands, to which the skirts should all be fastened, the much-decried corset has its redeeming qualities, for it serves the purpose of a yoke or support for the different undergarments, and when not tightly laced is rather a benefit than an injury, and if the corset had a shoulder strap fastened to it over both shoulders so as to keep the garments from dragging on the hips, there could then be no objection to it whatever. The corset must always be so loosely worn as to permit the wearer’s hands to be easily passed between it and the waist. It then becomes a useful brace to a weakly woman and entirely harmless to a strong or healthy one. We can imagine how a tightly-fitting corset will cause mischief by compressing the ribs and abdominal walls, and that this absurd fettering will prevent the lateral expansion of the chest, and also injuriously press upon the internal organs, but this is not due to an inherent property of the corset itself, but to an abuse of it. One might as well advocate a return to the Roman sandal, on the ground that some persons are foolish and vain enough to wear shoes altogether too small for their feet, thereby causing deformities and corns. For my part, I admire a nice, well-shaped, healthy foot, incased in a low, broad-heeled, comfortable shoe, even if its size were one or two numbers larger than a pinched-up, deformed one. But no one would be enthusiastic enough on the question of healthy feet to have us all wear sandals again.