What a Young Woman Ought to Know

by Mary Wood-Allen

Unfortunately we have but the one word, "love," to designate many phases of kindly regard. The mother loves her child, the child loves the mother, yet love differs much in these two instances. The one is protecting, anxious, self-sacrificing, unstinted care, unqualified devotion; the other is sweet dependence, unquestioning acceptance, asking all and giving little. The love of brother and sister differs from that of brother for brother, or sister for sister. The love of man for woman differs from all other emotions of love. It contains elements not found in other forms. It may have the same quality of giving or accepting, of protecting or yielding, but with all this there is an added quality that is not found in any other relation of life, a quality that rises to the intensity of a passion, and which, if thwarted or distorted, may become murderous or lead to insanity.

This overwhelming, domineering sway of feeling inheres in the fact of sex. It is the expression of the whole nature, through the physical; it is the vital creative force endeavoring to reach a tangible result. Holy in its inception, it can be degraded to the vilest uses. Forming the distinctive feature of love between the sexes, it is too often imagined to be the all, and a strong physical attraction without the basic friendship, which can only come through acquaintance, is not infrequently supposed to be worthy of the name of love, and found, alas! to be the most unsubstantial of chimeras.

Love, to be worthy of the name, must rest, not on the fact of admiration for beauty, not on the physical attraction manifested in sweet electric thrills. Love should include intellectual congeniality and spiritual sympathy, as well as physical attraction. Lacking any one of these three ingredients, the interest of two people in each other should not be called love.

In order that it may be determined whether there is the true basis of love, there should be opportunity for unsentimental acquaintance. If we could free the minds of young people from the romantic idea, and allow them to associate as intelligent beings, and so form acquaintance on the basis of comradeship, we should make things safer for them.

But if the older people do not know how to secure this desirable state of affairs, the young people themselves might secure it if they understood its desirability. You, as a young woman, can have much influence in the right directions, supposing that you drop from your mind the idea of sentimental relations with young men and meet them on the ground of a friendly comradeship.

Don't indulge in tête-à-têtes, or in lackadaisical glances of the eye. Don't permit personal familiarities, hand pressures, or caresses. Don't simper, and put on the airs which mean, though the girl may not understand it, an effort to arouse the admiration and the physical feeling of love. Refuse to be flattered, to be played with, to be treated as a female, but insist on being treated as a woman with intelligence, with a capacity to understand reasonable things. Manifest an interest in the movements of the world, of politics, literature, art, religion, athletics. Talk of the things that interest the young man as a citizen of the world, and not merely of those things which appeal to him as a male. Be frank, be lively, be witty, be wise, but do not be sentimental.

When a young man calls, don't let him get the idea that you have to be secluded in a room apart from the rest of the family. You will be better able to judge of him if you see him with your brothers, if you note his manner towards your mother, if you hear him converse with your father, if you mark his conduct towards the younger children. He will talk sense, if he can, when he meets your family, while in a tête-à-tête conversation with yourself he may be able to hide his lack of wisdom under the glamour of sweet nothings and soft nonsense.

Then be yourself when he comes. Let him see you in your home life, at your domestic duties, sewing, helping mother, reading to father, caring for the little ones. Be an honest, free-hearted, companionable girl, and put sentimentality out of mind. You can have many such friends, and by and by, out of these you will probably find one whom you admire more and more as time goes on. You hear his sentiments always expressed in favor of truth and probity. You come to know something of his business principles, you see his courtesy to old and young, you learn of his home, his family, his social position, and out of this intimate knowledge there springs the attachment, blended with deep respect, which assures you that he is worthy of your heart and hand, and indeed of your whole life.

Little by little the comradeship has grown more intimate. You have not been sentimental. You have treated each other with respect, you have maintained your self-respect, you have held a tight rein over your fancies and emotions, but now you are convinced that you may allow them to have sway. You begin to acknowledge to yourself that you love.

And he, too, begins to manifest a deeper interest in you. You see this with a certain pride in the fact that he is not self-deceived He knows you, has seen you in your daily life, has sounded the depth of your intellect, knows of your religious beliefs, and in all he has found you coming up to his ideals. His eye meets yours with a new tenderness in its glance that touches you, because you know it is not an earthly fire of passion that glows therein. It is you, the real, immortal you, that he seeks; not merely the pleasures of sense through you; and feeling the response in your own heart, your glance kindles with the same divine fire, and your true selves have spoken to each other. You have gradually grown into the knowledge of love. You have not fallen in love. And yet there have been no words, and in maiden shyness you await his speech. Your womanly reserve has won his respect, and he makes no attempts to win privileges of endearments before he confesses his love, but frankly and manfully pleads his suit and wins.