नारी विमर्श

[Dark Saint Alaick]

WHAT DO WOMEN THINK OF WAR?
(NOT THAT IT MATTERS)



Bands in the street, and resounding cheers,
And honor to him whom the army led!
But his mother moans thro' her blinding tears--
"My boy is dead--is dead!"


"Madam," said Charles XI of Sweden to his wife when she appealed to him
for mercy to some prisoner, "I married you to give me children, not to
give me advice." That was said a long time ago, and the haughty old
Emperor put it rather crudely, but he put it straight. This is still
the attitude of the world towards women. That men are human beings,
but women are women, with one reason for their existence, has long been
the dictum of the world.

More recent philosophers have been more adroit--they have sought to
soften the blow, and so they palaver the women by telling them what a
tremendous power they are for good. They quote the men who have said:
"All that I am my mother made me." They also quote that old iniquitous
lie, about the hand that rocks the cradle ruling the world.

For a long time men have been able to hush women up by these means; and
many women have gladly allowed themselves to be deceived. Sometimes
when a little child goes driving with his father he is allowed to hold
the ends of the reins, and encouraged to believe that he is driving,
and it works quite well with a very small child. Women have been
deceived in the same way into believing that they are the controlling
factor in the world. Here and there, there have been doubters among
women who have said: "If it be true that the hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world, how comes the liquor traffic and the white slave
traffic to prevail among us unchecked? Do women wish for these things?
Do the gentle mothers whose hands rule the world declare in favor of
these things?" Every day the number of doubters has increased, and now
women everywhere realize that a bad old lie has been put over on them
for years. The hand that rocks the cradle does not rule the world. If
it did, human life would be held dearer and the world would be a
sweeter, cleaner, safer place than it is now!

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Women are naturally the guardians of the race, and every normal woman
desires children. Children are not a handicap in the race of life
either, they are an inspiration. We hear too much about the burden of
motherhood and too little of its benefits. The average child does well
for his parents, and teaches them many things. Bless his little soft
hands--he broadens our outlook, quickens our sympathies, and leads us,
if we will but let him, into all truth. A child pays well for his
board and keep.

Deeply rooted in every woman's heart is the love and care of children.
A little girl's first toy is a doll, and so, too, her first great
sorrow is when her doll has its eyes poked out by her little brother.
Dolls have suffered many things at the hands of their maternal uncles.

There, little girl, don't cry,
They have broken your doll, I know,

contains in it the universal note of woman's woe!

But just as the woman's greatest sorrow has come through her children,
so has her greatest development. Women learned to cook, so that their
children might be fed; they learned to sew that their children might be
clothed, and women are learning to think so that their children may be
guided.

Since the war broke out women have done a great deal of knitting.
Looking at this great army of women struggling with rib and back seam,
some have seen nothing in it but a "fad" which has supplanted for the
time tatting and bridge. But it is more than that. It is the desire
to help, to care for, to minister; it is the same spirit which inspires
our nurses to go out and bind up the wounded and care for the dying.
The woman's outlook on life is to save, to care for, to help. Men make
wounds and women bind them up, and so the women, with their hearts
filled with love and sorrow, sit in their quiet homes and knit.


Comforter--they call it--yes--
So it is for my distress,
For it gives my restless hands
Blessed work. God understands
How we women yearn to be
Doing something ceaselessly.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Women have not only been knitting--they have been thinking. Among
other things they have thought about the German women, those faithful,
patient, home-loving, obedient women, who never interfere in public
affairs, nor question man's ruling. The Kaiser says women have only
two concerns in life, cooking and children, and the German women have
accepted his dictum. They are good cooks and faithful nurses to their
children.

According to the theories of the world, the sons of such women should
be the gentlest men on earth. Their home has been so sacred, and
well-kept; their mother has been so gentle, patient and unworldly--she
has never lowered the standard of her womanhood by asking to vote, or
to mingle in the "hurly burly" of politics. She has been humble, and
loving, and always hoped for the best.

According to the theories of the world, the gentle sons of gentle
mothers will respect and reverence all womankind everywhere. Yet, we
know that in the invasion of Belgium, the German soldiers made a shield
of Belgian women and children in front of their army; no child was too
young, no woman too old, to escape their cruelty; no mother's prayers,
no child's appeal could stay their fury! These chivalrous sons of
gentle, loving mothers marched through the land of Belgium, their
nearest neighbor, leaving behind them smoking trails of ruin, black as
their own hard hearts!

What, then, is the matter with the theory? Nothing, except that there
is nothing in it--it will not work. Women who set a low value on
themselves make life hard for all women. The German woman's ways have
been ways of pleasantness, but her paths have not been paths of peace;
and now, women everywhere are thinking of her, rather bitterly. Her
peaceful, humble, patient ways have suddenly ceased to appear virtuous
in our eyes and we see now, it is not so much a woman's duty to bring
children into the world, as to see what sort of a world she is bringing
them into, and what their contribution will be to it. Bertha Krupp has
made good guns and the German women have raised good soldiers--if guns
and soldiers can be called "good"--and between them they have manned
the most terrible and destructive war machine that the world has ever
known. We are not grateful to either of them.

The nimble fingers of the knitting women are transforming balls of wool
into socks and comforters, but even a greater change is being wrought
in their own hearts. Into their gentle souls have come bitter thoughts
of rebellion. They realize now how little human life is valued, as
opposed to the greed and ambition of nations. They think bitterly of
Napoleon's utterance on the subject of women--that the greatest woman
in the world is the one who brings into the world the greatest number
of sons; they also remember that he said that a boy could stop a bullet
as well as a man, and that God is on the side of the heaviest
artillery. From these three statements they get the military idea of
women, children, and God, and the heart of the knitting woman recoils
in horror from the cold brutality of it all. They realize now
something of what is back of all the opposition to the woman's
advancement into all lines of activity and a share in government.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Women are intended for two things, to bring children into the world and
to make men comfortable, and then they must keep quiet and if their
hearts break with grief, let them break quietly--that's all. No woman
is so unpopular as the noisy woman who protests against these things.

The knitting women know now why the militant suffragettes broke windows
and destroyed property, and went to jail for it joyously, and without a
murmur--it was the protest of brave women against the world's estimate
of woman's position. It was the world-old struggle for liberty. The
knitting women remember now with shame and sorrow that they have said
hard things about the suffragettes, and thought they were unwomanly and
hysterical. Now they know that womanliness, and peaceful gentle ways,
prayers, petitions and tears have long been tried but are found
wanting; and now they know that these brave women in England, maligned,
ridiculed, persecuted, as they were, have been fighting every woman's
battle, fighting for the recognition of human life, and the mother's
point of view. Many of the knitting women have seen a light shine
around their pathway, as they have passed down the road from the heel
to the toe, and they know now that the explanation cannot be accepted
any longer that the English women are "crazy." That has been offered
so often and been accepted.

Crazy! That's such an easy way to explain actions which we do not
understand. Crazy! and it gives such a delightful thrill of sanity to
the one who says it--such a pleasurable flash of superiority!

Oh, no, they have not been crazy, unless acts of heroism and suffering
for the sake of others can be described as crazy! The knitting women
wish now that there had been "crazy" women in Germany to direct the
thought of the nation to the brutality of the military system, to have
aroused the women to struggle for a human civilization, instead of a
masculine civilization such as they have now. They would have fared
badly of course, even worse than the women in England, but they are
faring badly now, and to what purpose? The women of Belgium have fared
badly. After all, the greatest thing in life is not to live
comfortably--it is to live honorably, and when that becomes impossible,
to die honorably!

The woman who knits is thinking sadly of the glad days of peace, now
unhappily gone by, when she was so sure it was her duty to bring
children into the world. She thinks of the glad rapture with which she
looked into the sweet face of her first-born twenty years ago--the
brave lad who went with the first contingent, and is now at the front.
She was so sure then that she had done a noble thing in giving this
young life to the world. He was to have been a great doctor, a great
healer, one who bound up wounds, and make weak men strong--and now--in
the trenches, he stands, this lad of hers, with the weapons of death in
his hands, with bitter hatred in his heart, not binding wounds, but
making them, sending poor human beings out in the dark to meet their
Maker, unprepared, surrounded by sights and sounds that must harden his
heart or break it. Oh! her sunny-hearted lad! So full of love and
tenderness and pity, so full of ambition and high resolves and noble
impulses, he is dead--dead already--and in his place there stands
"private 355" a man of hate, a man of blood! Many a time the knitting
has to be laid aside, for the bitter tears blur the stitches.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The woman who knits thinks of all this and now she feels that she who
brought this boy into the world, who is responsible for his existence,
has some way been to blame. Is life really such a boon that any should
crave it? Do we really confer a favor on the innocent little souls we
bring into the world, or do we owe them an apology?

She thinks now of Abraham's sacrifice, when he was willing at God's
command to offer his dearly beloved son on the altar; and now she knows
it was not so hard for Abraham, for he knew it was God who asked it,
and he had God's voice to guide him! Abraham was sure, but about
this--who knows?

Then she thinks of the little one who dropped out of the race before it
was well begun, and of the inexplicable smile of peace which lay on his
small white face, that day, so many years ago now, when they laid him
away with such sorrow, and such agony of loss. She understands now why
the little one smiled, while all around him wept.

And she thinks enviously of her neighbor across the way, who had no son
to give, the childless woman for whom in the old days she felt so
sorry, but whom now she envies. She is the happiest woman of all--so
thinks the knitting woman, as she sits alone in her quiet house; for
thoughts can grow very bitter when the house is still and the boyish
voice is heard no more shouting, "Mother" in the hall.


There, little girl, don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

SHOULD WOMEN THINK?



A woman, a spaniel, a walnut tree,
The more you beat 'em, the better they be.
(From"Proverbs of All Nations.)

A woman is not a person in matters of rights and privileges, but she is
a person in matters of pains and penalties.--(From the Common Law of
England.)

No woman, idiot, lunatic, or criminal shall vote.--(From the Election
Act of the Dominion of Canada.)


Mary and Martha were sisters, and one day they had a quarrel, which
goes to show that sisters in Bible times were much the same as now.
Mary and Martha had a different attitude toward life. Martha was a
housekeeper--she reveled in housecleaning--she had a perfect mania for
sweeping and dusting. Mary was a thinker. She looked beyond the work,
and saw something better and more important, something more abiding and
satisfying.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

When Jesus came to their home to visit, Mary sat at his feet and
listened. She fed her soul, and in her sheer joy she forgot that there
were dirty dishes in all the world; she forgot that ever people grew
hungry, or floors became dusty; she forgot everything only the joy of
his presence. Martha never forgot. All days were alike to Martha,
only of course Monday was washday. The visit of the Master to Martha
meant another place at the table, and another plate to be washed.
Truly feminine was Martha, much commended in certain circles today.
She looked well to the needs of her family, physical needs, that is,
for she recognized no other. Martha not only liked to work herself,
but she liked to see other people work; so when Mary went and sat at
the Master's feet, while the dishes were yet unwashed, Martha
complained about it.

"Lord, make Mary come and help me!" she said. The story says Martha
was wearied with much serving. Martha had cooked and served an
elaborate meal, and elaborate meals usually do make people cross either
before or after. Christ gently reproved her. "Mary hath chosen the
better part."

Just here let us say something in Mary's favor. Martha by her protest
against Mary's behavior on this particular occasion, exonerates Mary
from the general charge of laziness which is often made against her.
If Mary had been habitually lazy, Martha would have long since ceased
to expect any help from her, but it seems pretty certain that Mary was
generally on the job. Trivial little incident, is it not? Strange
that it should find a place in the sacred record. But if Christ's
mission on earth had any meaning at all, it was to teach this very
lesson that the things which are not seen are greater than the things
which are seen--that the spiritual is greater than the temporal. The
life is more than meat and the body is more than raiment.

Martha has a long line of weary, backaching, footsore successors.
Indeed there is a strain of Martha in all of us; we worry more over a
stain in the carpet than a stain on the soul; we bestow more thought on
the choice of hats than on the choice of friends; we tidy up bureau
drawers, sometimes, when we should be tidying up the inner recesses of
our mind and soul; we clean up the attic and burn up the rubbish which
has accumulated there, every spring, whether it needs it or not. But
when do we appoint a housecleaning day for the soul, when do we destroy
all the worn-out prejudices and beliefs which belong to a day gone by?

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Mary did take the better part, for she laid hold on the things which
are spiritual. Mary had learned the great truth that it is not the
house you live in or the food you eat, or the clothes you wear that
make you rich, but it is the thoughts you think. Christ put it well
when he said, "Mary hath chosen the better part." Life is a choice
every day. Every day we choose between the best and the second best,
if we are choosing wisely. It is not generally a choice between good
and bad--that is too easy. The choice in life is more subtle than
that, and not so easily decided. The good is the greatest rival of the
best.

Sometimes we would like to take both the best and the second best, but
that is not according to the rules of the game. You take your choice
and leave the rest. Every gain in life means a corresponding loss;
development in one part means a shrinkage in some other. Wild wheat is
small and hard, quite capable of looking after itself, but its heads
contain only a few small kernels. Cultivated wheat has lost its
hardiness and its self-reliance, but its heads are filled with large
kernels which feed the nation. There has been a great gain in
usefulness, by cultivation, with a corresponding loss in hardiness.
When riches are increased, so also are anxieties and cares. Life is
full of compensation.

So we ask, in all seriousness, and in no spirit of flippancy: "Should
women think?" They gain in power perhaps, but do they not lose in
happiness by thinking? If women must always labor under unjust
economic conditions, receiving less pay for the same work than men, if
women must always submit to the unjust social laws, based on the
barbaric mosaic decree that the woman is to be stoned, and the man
allowed to go free; if women must always see the children they have
brought into the world with infinite pain and weariness, taken away
from them to fight man-made battles over which no woman has any power;
if women must always see their sons degraded by man-made legislation
and man-protected evils--then I ask, Is it not a great mistake for
women to think?

The Martha women, who fill their hands with labor and find their
highest delights in the day's work, are the happiest. That is, if
these things must always be, if we must always beat upon the bars of
the cage--we are foolish to beat; it is hard on the hands! Far better
for us to stop looking out and sit down and say: "Good old cage--I
always did like a cage, anyway!"

But the question of whether or not women should think was settled long
ago. We must think because we were given something to think with, ages
ago, at the time of our creation. If God had not intended us to think,
he would not have given us our intelligence. It would be a shabby
trick, too, to give women brains to think, with no hope of results, for
thinking is just an aggravation if nothing comes of it. It is a law of
life that people will use what they have. That is one theory of what
caused the war. The nations were "so good and ready," they just
naturally fought. Mental activity is just as natural for the woman
peeling potatoes as it is for the man behind the plow, and a little
thinking will not hurt the quality of the work in either case. There
is in western Canada, one woman at least, who combines thinking and
working to great advantage. Her kitchen walls are hung with mottoes
and poems, which she commits to memory as she works, and so while her
hands are busy, she feeds her soul with the bread of life.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The world has never been partial to the thinking woman--the wise ones
have always foreseen danger. Long years ago, when women asked for an
education, the world cried out that it would never do. If women
learned to read it would distract them from the real business of life
which was to make home happy for some good man. If women learned to
read there seemed to be a possibility that some day some good man might
come home and find his wife reading, and the dinner not ready--and
nothing could be imagined more horrible than that! That seems to be
the haunting fear of mankind--that the advancement of women will
sometime, someway, someplace, interfere with some man's comfort. There
are many people who believe that the physical needs of her family are a
woman's only care; and that strict attention to her husband's wardrobe
and meals will insure a happy marriage. Hand-embroidered slippers
warmed and carefully set out have ever been highly recommended as a
potent charm to hold masculine affection. They forget that men and
children are not only food-eating and clothes-wearing animals--they are
human beings with other and even greater needs than food and raiment.

Any person who believes that the average man marries the woman of his
choice just because he wants a housekeeper and a cook, appraises
mankind lower than I do. Intelligence on the wife's part does not
destroy connubial bliss, neither does ignorance nor apathy ever make
for it. Ideas do not break up homes, but lack of ideas. The light and
airy silly fairy may get along beautifully in the days of courtship,
but she palls a bit in the steady wear and tear of married life.

There was a picture in one of the popular woman's papers sometime ago,
which taught a significant lesson. It was a breakfast scene. The
young wife, daintily frilled in pink, sat at her end of the table in
very apparent ill-humor--the young husband, quite unconscious of her,
read the morning paper with evident interest. Below the picture there
was a sharp criticism of the young man's neglect of his pretty wife and
her dainty gown. Personally I sympathize with the young man and
believe it would be a happier home if she were as interested in the
paper as he and were reading the other half of it instead of sitting
around feeling hurt.

But you see it is hard on the woman, just the same. All our
civilization has taught her that pink frills were the thing. When they
fail--she feels the bottom has dropped out of the world--he does not
love her any more and she will go back to mother! You see the woman
suffers every time.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Sometime we will teach our daughters that marriage is a divine
partnership based on mutual love and community of interest, that sex
attraction augmented by pink frills is only one part of it and not the
most important; that the pleasant glowing embers of comradeship and
loving friendship give out a warmer, more lasting, and more comfortable
heat than the leaping flames of passion, and the happiest marriage is
the one where the husband and wife come to regard each other as the
dearest friend, the most congenial companion.

Women must think if they are going to make good in life; and success in
marriage depends not alone on being good, but on making good! Men by
their occupation are brought in contact with the world of ideas and
affairs. They have been encouraged to be intelligent. Women have been
encouraged to be foolish, and later on punished for the same
foolishness, which is hardly fair.

But women are beginning to learn. Women are helping each other to see.
They are coming together in clubs and societies and by this intercourse
they are gaining a philosophy of life, which is helping them over the
rough places of life. Most of us can get along very well on bright
days, and when the going is easy, but we need something to keep us
steady when the pathway is rough, and our wandering feet are in danger
of losing their way. The most deadly uninteresting person, and the one
who has the greatest temptation not to think at all, is the comfortable
and happily married woman--the woman who has a good man between her and
the world, who has not the saving privilege of having to work. A sort
of fatty degeneration of the conscience sets in that is disastrous to
the development of thought.

If women could be made to think, they would not wear immodest clothes,
which suggest evil thoughts and awaken unlawful desires. If women
could be made to think, they would see that it is woman's place to lift
high the standard of morality. If women would only think, they would
not wear aigrets and bird plumage which has caused the death of God's
innocent and beautiful creatures. If women could be made to think,
they would be merciful. If women would only think, they would not
serve liquor to their guests, in the name of hospitality, and thus
contribute to the degradation of mankind, and perhaps start some young
man on the slippery way to ruin. If women would think about it, they
would see that some mother, old and heartbroken, sitting up waiting for
the staggering footsteps of her boy, might in her loneliness and grief
and trouble curse the white hands that gave her lad his first drink.
Women make life hard for other women because they do not think. And
thinking seems to come hardest to the comfortable woman. A woman told
me candidly and honestly not long ago that she was too comfortable to
be interested in other people, and I have admired her for her
truthfulness; she had diagnosed her own case accurately, and she did
not babble of woman's sphere being her own home--she frankly admitted
that she was selfish, and her comfort had caused it. I believe God
intended us all to be happy and comfortable, clothed, fed, and housed,
and there is no sin in comfort, unless we let it atrophy our souls, and
settle down upon us like a stupor. Then it becomes a sin which
destroys us. Let us pray!


From plague, pestilence and famine,
from battle, murder, sudden death,
and all forms of cowlike contentment,
Good Lord, deliver us!