I began this chapter by saying something of the Stift, the refuge for unmarried women that Germany established in the Middle Ages and still preserves. I end it with the Lyceum Club, that latest manifestation of a modern woman's desire to help her own sex. The character of these institutions and their history are both significant. In other days men helped women; in these days women try to help themselves. The Stift gives a woman bread and shelter in idleness; the aim of the Lyceum Club is not to give, but to bring women together and to encourage good work. The Stifte are still crowded and the Lyceum flourishes, for in our time the old woman jostles the new. But the new woman has arrived, and is making herself felt; with amazing force and swiftness, you must admit when you reflect on the position of women in Germany thirty or forty years ago.
CHAPTER IX[ToC]
GIRLHOOD
In the Memoiren einer Idealistin, those genuine and interesting Memoirs that have been so widely read in Germany of late, Malvida von Meysenbug, the daughter of a highly placed official at a small German Court, describes her confirmation day and the long period of preparation and the spiritual struggle that preceded it.
"During a whole year my sister and I went twice a week to the pastor's house to be instructed in the dogma of the Protestant Church," she says.... "The ceremony was to be on Sunday. The Friday before we had our last lesson. Our teacher was deeply moved; with tears in his eyes he spoke to us of the holiness and importance of the act we were about to perform.... According to the German custom amongst girls of the better classes, we put on black silk dresses for the first time for our confirmation, and this ceremonial attire calmed me and did me good. Our maid took special pains with our toilet, as if we were going to a worldly entertainment, and chattered more than usual. It jarred on me, but it helped to distract my thoughts. When it was time to start I said Good-bye to my mother with deep emotion, and asked her to forgive me my faults. My sister and I were to go to the pastor's house on our way to church. There we found everything strewn with flowers. Our teacher received us in his priestly robes, and spoke to all of us so lovingly and earnestly that the most indifferent were moved. When the church bells began to peal our procession set out, the pastor at its head, and we following two by two. The way from the rectory to the church was strewn with flowers, and the church was decked with them. The Choral Society of the town, to which some of our best friends belonged, received us with a beautiful hymn. I felt on wings, I prayed to God that this hour might be blessed to me throughout my life. The sermon preached by the voice that had so often affected me made me calm. When the preacher required us to make our confession of faith, I uttered my 'Yes' with firm assurance. Then I knelt before him with the rest to receive his blessing. He put his hands on our heads, accepted us as members of the Protestant Church, and blessed each one separately, and with a special verse from the Bible. To me he said, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.' My heart echoed the solemn vow: Faithful unto death. The choir greeted the young Christians with a song of victory. We did not return to the seats reserved for candidates, but sat with our parents and relatives waiting with them until everyone had left the church, except those who wished to partake of the Holy Communion."
Malvida von Meysenbug is too much absorbed in her intense spiritual experiences to describe the lighter side of confirmation in Germany, which celebrates it with presents and a gathering of friends. A girl gets her first black silk gown for the occasion, and both boys and girls get as many presents as they do at Christmas or on a birthday. These are all set out for the inspection of the friends who assemble at the house after the religious ceremony, to congratulate the parents and the youngest member of their church. There is an entertainment of coffee, chocolate, and cakes; and a few days later both boys and girls return these visits of congratulation in the company of their parents. Some years ago, when a girl had been confirmed, she was considered officially grown up and marriageable, and entered straight away into the gaieties that are supposed to lead to marriage. But the modern tendency in Germany is to prolong girlhood, and the wife of sixteen is as rare there amongst the educated classes as it is here.
Amongst the Jews in Germany marriages are still arranged for the young people by their elders; often, as in France, through the intervention of friends, but also by the business-like office of the marriage broker. It need hardly be said, perhaps, that the refined and enlightened Jews refuse to marry in this way. They insist on choosing their own mate, and even on overlooking some disparity of fortune. Unorthodox Jews marry Christian women, and the Jewish heiress constantly allies herself and her money with a title or a uniform. In the latter case, however, the nuptials are just as business-like as if the Schadchan had arranged them and received his commission. The Graf or the Major gets the gold he lacks, and the rich Jewess gets social prestige or the nearest approach to it possible in a Jew-baiting land. An ardent anti-Semite told me that these mixed marriages were not fertile, and that if only everyone of Jewish blood would marry a Christian, the country would in course of time be cleared of a race that, she solemnly assured me, is as great a curse to it, and as inferior as the negro in America. But as she was an anti-Semite with a sense of humour she admitted that the remedy was a slow one and difficult to enforce. As a matter of fact, the Jews marry mostly amongst themselves in Germany, and men are still living in Frankfurt and other large cities who have made comfortable fortunes by the brokerage they charged on their matchmaking. Formerly a prosperous unmarried Jew used to be besieged by offers from these agents; and so were men who could give their daughters a good dowry. The better-class Jews do not employ them nowadays, but their marriages are suggested and arranged much as marriages are in France. A young merchant of Berlin thinks it is time to settle down, or perhaps wants a little capital to enlarge his business. He consults an uncle in Frankfurt. The uncle tells his old friend, the father of several daughters, that the most handsome, industrious, and accomplished man the world has ever seen, his own nephew, in fact, thinks of marriage, and that his conditions are this and that; he tells his nephew that the most beautiful and amiable creature in Germany, a brilliant musician, a fluent linguist, a devoted daughter, and a person of simple housewifely tastes, lives next door to him, the uncle. Except for the housewifely tastes, it sounds, and in fact is, rather like a courtship in the Arabian Nights so far. The prince hears of the princess, and without having seen her sets out to seek her hand. The young merchant pays a flying visit to Frankfurt, is presented to the most beautiful creature in Germany, finds her passable, has a talk to her father as business-like as a talk between two solicitors, proposes, is accepted, and at once becomes the most ardent lover the world has ever seen.