Another common emotional awakening of girlhood is the affections. In boys this awakening causes them to gather together in gangs. They follow their leader whom they greatly admire and obey. In girls it assumes a more simple form, the devotion to a girl friend of her own age, and the affection between them is deep and intense while it lasts. They tell their most private thoughts in secret to each other, dividing all honors, pleasures and gifts; they are almost inseparable, and I have known a girl whose affection was so deep for her “chum” that she wore mourning when the chum's father died.
Another form of affection which the girl of this age manifests is that for an older woman, often a teacher or neighbor. Parents sometimes look askance at this relation, and rightly so, for a friendship can be beneficial or harmful according to the character of the older woman. But with all these interests there is nothing so all-absorbing or so interesting to the adolescent girl as herself. She has become conscious of self. Now she burns with ambition to go out into the world and do mighty things. She feels sure she will be a great singer, or a dancer, or, perhaps, an actress. Again, she feels she will write a wonderful book—about herself—or at least she will be the heroine. Or she will write a wonderful tragic play; or she will nurse on the battlefields and care for the sick and dying. These, together with thousands of other desires, burn in her mind, and can be increased or lessened according to the character of the books she reads. The literature placed in a girl's hands at this age has as great an influence on her thoughts and acts as her companions.
In early adolescence this self-consciousness manifests itself in modesty, blushing, giggling, physical awkwardness, mentioned earlier on this subject, all signs that the girl is conscious of that inner self—the ego.
It is at this stage when the mother tries to explain what the menstrual period means to the girl that she is met with icy indifference. She refuses to talk on this subject, or anything pertaining to the sex subject, because she has just become conscious of her sex, and everything connected with it seems offensively personal.
She most likely has received her sexual information from some one else, and the mother is astonished at the stubborn silence on the part of her daughter. She fails to realize that some one else has that confidence which belongs to her and which she should have gained many years earlier. There is a strong tie between the adolescent girl and her sexual informant. The influence of an older girl over a younger, between whom there are confidences regarding sex, is surprisingly great. The mind at this age is very susceptible to influences of any kind, and the ideals instilled into a girl's mind are of paramount importance.
These are only a few of the disturbances of the adolescent girl. But they are sufficient for us to know that at the bottom of all these disturbances is the mysterious influence of sex gradually unfolding itself and finally claiming its own.
At the time these emotions are in full sway along comes a newer and deeper one. The boy with whom she has played for the past several years, run races, played house, ball and games, one day looks into her eyes—and something happens.
Perhaps that look was accompanied by a pull at her hair, a pinch on her arm, or a hit with an apple core, but the glance was one which awakened within her a new instinct; the consciousness of sex, and upon her horizon man appears.
Those who have investigated boy and girl love affairs seem to be of the opinion that they are invariably of short duration. Out of 100 high school girls interrogated, two had married while at school, and one of these had received a divorce shortly after. This goes to prove that the boy a girl is willing to elope with, or even starve for at 18, is quite forgotten at the age of 25.
When girls marry between the ages of 19 and 20—the years when they are developing in body, mind and character, they are at a loss to understand themselves, because they are ignorant of the fact that the wonderful instinct of sex is making itself felt. For thousands of years this instinct has been in the germ of life. When they have reached that age nature is preparing them to proclaim its right, to perform their natural functions, to propagate.