The Man‐Made World
outshine other women.” To these I would suggest a visit to some summer shore resort during the week and extending over Saturday
night. The women have all the week to please themselves and outshine one another; but their array on Saturday seems to indicate the approach of some new force or attraction.
If all this does not satisfy I would then call their attention to the well-known fact that the young damsel previous to marriage spends far more time and ingenuity in decoration than she does afterward. This has long been observed and deprecated by those who write Advice
to Wives, on the ground that this difference is displeasing to the husband—that she loses her influence over him; which is true. But since his own “society,” knowing his weakness, has tied him to her
by law; why should she keep up what is after all an unnatural exertion?
That excellent magazine “Good Housekeeping” has been running for
some months a rhymed and illustrated story of “Miss Melissa Clarissa McRae,” an extremely dainty and well‐dressed
stenographer, who captured and married a fastidious young man, her employer, by the force of her artificial attractions—and then lost his love after marriage by a sudden unaccountable slovenliness—the
same old story.
If this in not enough, let me instance further the attitude toward
“Fashion” of that class of women who live most openly and directly
upon the favor of men. These know their business. To continually attract the vagrant fancy of the male, nature‘s born “variant,” they must not only pile on artificial charms, but change them constantly.
They do. From the leaders of this profession comes a steady stream
of changing fashions; the more extreme and bizarre, the more successful—and because they are successful they are imitated.
If men did not like changes in fashion be assured these professional men‐pleasers would not change them, but since Nature‘s Variant tires of any face in favor of a new one, the lady who would hold her sway and cannot change her face (except in color) must needs change her hat and gown.
But the Arbiter, the Ruling Cause, he who not only by choice demands, but as a business manufactures and supplies this amazing
stream of fashions; again like Adam blames the woman—for
accepting what he both demands and supplies.