Letters to Young Women

LETTER IV.

UNREASONABLE AND INJURIOUS RESTRAINTS.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.

Shakespeare

I SUPPOSE that most men have observed the following facts, from which I propose to draw a lesson : — First, that young married women have a peculiar charm for unmarried young men, and that a young man’s first love is almost uniformly devoted to a woman older than himself.

A marriageable young woman occupies, or is made to occupy, a position of peculiar hardship. Our theory is that a woman should never make an advance towards the man she loves and would marry. Such a step is deemed inconsistent with maiden modesty. I do not quarrel with this, but the effect has been to make young women, who possess sensitive natures, hypocrites. It ought not to do it, but it does, Every modest young woman, possessing a good degree of sagacity, plays a part, almost always, when in the society of young men. The fear is that by some word, or look, or act, she shall express such a degree of interest in a young man as shall lead him to believe that she is after him. Young women study the effect of their language, they often shun civilities, they put on an artificial and constrained style of behavior, for fear that some complacent fool will misconstrue them, or some gentleman whom they wish to please will deem them too forward, and so become disgusted. The result is, that a man rarely finds out either the best or the worst points of his wife’s character before he marries her. Social intercourse is carried on under a kind of protest, which places every young woman in a position absolutely false before the eyes of young men. Many a woman owes a life of celibacy and disappointment to the fact that she never felt at liberty to act out herself.

With these statements, it is very easy to understand the attractions which a young married woman has for a bachelor, and to explain the phenomenon of a young man falling in love with a woman older than himself. In the first instance, a married woman becomes agreeable because she becomes perfectly natural and unconstrained, her circumstances allowing all the more grateful forms of politeness — the cordial greeting, the complimentary attentions, and the free conversation — without the danger of being misconstrued. In the latter instance, the woman throws off her constraint in the same manner, because she is in the society of one whom she regards as, in reality, a boy. She finds, very much to her surprise, that she has won the boy’s heart ; but it was the most natural thing in the world. He had never had a sight of a woman’s nature before. The girls with whom he had associated had always worn a mask. The real hearts behind it he had thus far failed to apprehend. There is a very general impression among the young men whose affections are not engaged that the best women are married, and that those who are left do not amount to much. They will think differently some time or other.

Now my idea is that this universal mask-wearing system should be broken up. It does injustice to all parties. If there is, in society, any poor creature in the form of a man whose vanity is so open to flattery that a young woman cannot treat him with natural, cordial politeness, without his thinking that she would like to marry him, and is trying to ensnare him, let him think so, and trust to time and circumstances for justice. Such men are of too little account in the world to pay for carrying a deceitful face, and despoiling the intercourse of the young of its sweetest charms. If you like the society of young men, take no pains to conceal it, but treat them with frank cordiality. No true gentleman among them will misconstrue you, It is not necessary for you to tell them that you calculate to live a maiden life. They know you lie. It will not do to indicate to any man of sense that you do not like the attentions and society of gentlemen, for he knows better. He knows, at least, that you ought to like them, and that if you do not, there is something wrong about you. Don’t practise deception of any kind. A man who is frank and open-hearted with you, deserves to be met with a frank and open heart by you; and in ninety-nine cases in every hundred, men will be honorable and manly with you, if you will lay aside suspicion, and trust them, If a man prove himself unworthy of your confidence, you have your remedy. Cut him, or tell him what you think of him, and bring him upon his knees.

I have given my advice without many qualifications, but do not misconstrue me. I write upon the supposition that you have common sense, and know what I mean. Some people, I suppose, would present you with a formula by which to conduct all your intercourse with young men. I know a large number of fathers and mothers who will think that, upon this subject, I ought to guard my language, and be more particular ; but I know very well that if you have not sense and prudence enough to take this general counsel, and use it judiciously, no qualifications that I could make would be of any service to you.

I trust you. I believe you are virtuous young women, with pure hearts and true intentions; and I know there is no danger to you until you cease to be such. You have an instinct — God’s word in your own souls — that tells you when a man takes the first wrong step towards you; and if you do not repel that step in such a manner that it will never be repeated, do you suppose that anything I could say to you would do you any good? I say this: that perfect frankness and cordiality in the treatment of young men are entirely consistent with the safety of any true woman from insult or offensive familiarity. Is your father afraid to trust you out of his sight? I am not. If I were, I would be ashamed to confess it, particularly if you were a daughter of mine. I believe in you, and I believe, moreover, that if this contemptible idea that men are your natural enemies, and that you must cheat them and look out for them, could be got out of the way, and a free and unconstrained social intercourse established between you and them, they would be much better, and you altogether safer for it. There is another subject, more or less intimately associated with this, which may as well be treated here. It is very natural for young women to get in the habit of treating only those young men politely whom they happen, for various reasons, to fancy. They “don’t care” what the majority of young men think of them, provided they retain the good will of their particular pets. They are whimsical, and take on special and strong likes or dislikes for the young men whom they meet. One is “perfectly hateful,” and another is “perfectly splendid,” and so they proceed to make fools of themselves over both parties. Now there is nothing upon which a young man is so sensitive as this matter of being treated with polite consideration by the young women of his acquaintance; and I know of nothing which will tend more certainly to make a young man hateful than to treat him as if he were so. There is a multitude of young men whose self-respect is nurtured, whose ambition is quickened, and whose hearts are warmed with a genial fire, by those considerate recognitions on the part of their female acquaintances which assure them that they have a position in the esteem of those with whom they associate the sweetest hopes and happiness of life. To be cut for no good cause is to receive a wound which is not easily healed.

The duty, therefore, which I would inculcate is that of systematic politeness. If you know a young man, bow to him when you meet him. He will not bow to you first, for he waits for your recognition. He does not know whether you esteem him of sufficient value to be recognised. If you pass him without a recognition, you say to him, in a language which he feels with a keenness which you cannot measure, that you consider him beneath your notice. You plant in his heart immediately a prejudice against yourself. You disturb him. You hurt him, and this, too, let me admit, very frequently without design. You are sensitive yourself, and are afraid he has forgotten you. You think, perhaps, that he would not like to notice you, and would not like to have you notice him. There is a good deal of this kind of thing, doubtless, but it is all wrong. There is no man who will not return your bow, and feel the better for your smile; and if the young man receiving the attention is poor, and has his position in the world to win, and feels that he has not as many attractions, personal or circumstantial, as others, you have made his heart light, and awakened towards yourself a feeling of cordial good will, akin in many instances to gratitude. A young woman who is afraid of compromising her position by recognising men out of her set, or out of a certain line of genteel occupations, shows by how frail a tenure she holds her own respectability. I could name to you women who have not only a recognised but a commanding position in the best society, who are as uniformly and systematically polite to the clerk who sells them silks, as to the pets of their circle; who have a bow and a smile for all with whom they have ever been thrown into personal relations, and who, by this very politeness, more than by any other self-expression, vindicate their place among those whom society calls ladies. There is a kind word for them in every young man’s mouth ; and no young man would ever think of presuming upon such politenesses for the indulgence of an offensive familiarity. Such women have a sacredness in his eyes that no other women possess, and he would offend them in no way, for the world.

The advice I have given you in these matters is partly for the benefit of your sex, and partly for mine. I believe that there should be a far more rational mode of intercourse between young men and young women than at present exists. I believe that every legitimate attraction that your society has for young men should be free and unconstrained. I believe that there is no good reason why a young married woman should be more attractive to a bachelor than yourselves, and that in the degree in which they are more attractive, do you wrong yourselves and the young men of your acquaintance. I believe that it is well for you, and well for young men, that they should be attracted to you by a frank behavior on your part, which will place them at their ease, and exercise upon them all that good influence which a pure, strong, outspoken female nature is so well calculated to exert.

Young men and young women, to use a cant phrase of the day, are “in the same boat.” But a few years will pass away before they will be the bosom companions of each other, and the fathers and mothers of the land. It matters everything to them that they understand each other; and to this end, in my judgment, an intercourse between them should be established upon a very different basis from that which is now maintained by society. It should be more simple, more ample, more natural, more trustful, and more heartily considerate. There is nothing in the history of the race to prove that anything has ever been preserved or won to virtue by a system of essential falsehood, or a policy of arbitrary constraint. Many a girl feels this, and will feel it to her dying day. To tie a young woman up to the meanly cautious conventionalisms of the day, is to prepare her as a helpless sacrifice to the first designing villain who insinuates himself into her confidence. Many a woman groans to-day in bondage to a drunkard, a libertine, or a dolt, who only needed to have been allowed to know men better to have secured a proper companion. I say, then, to you, young women, reform this thing altogether. It is in your hands. I give you the idea: I leave you to carry it into practice. You do not need that I should tell you how to do it. If you are not vicious, there is nothing for you, in your mind and heart, to conceal. Be simply yourselves, taking all possible care to make yourselves what you should be. Learn to think kindly of all young men, save those who you have reason to believe possess black hearts and foul intentions — those who are enemies of your sex and social purity. Treat every young man well, both for his sake and your own. You shall thus be the light of many eyes, and your kind heart, thorough good manners, and transparent nature, cannot fail to attract to you those whose true nobility is the most strongly touched by that which is best in womanhood. One of those will become your companion, I am inclined to think, if human nature, meanwhile, do not suffer some remarkable change.