Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/261

 would be neither possible nor desirable to embody in an Act of Parliament. It cannot be denied that women have been vastly to blame in the past for the present state of affairs in the world of morals. Their one substantial excuse is that they were kept ignorant, and taught to endure what they were led to believe was in the natural order of Providence.

One thing is obvious to the most casual observer of the city streets—to teach girls the need for self-respect. The things that girls will say and do to attract attention and win a reputation for smartness, presumably with the hope of attaching some young man to themselves, are appalling in their cheapness and vulgarity. Possibly the girls themselves are not to blame so much as those responsible for their early training, who have led them to believe that the end and aim of a woman's existence is to marry. This teaching used to run through all grades of society, and was responsible for many unfortunate marriages and incalculable misery. The right kind of men do not marry the girls of unconventional behaviour who laugh and joke coarsely with them. It matters not what kind of freedom and unconventionality a man permits himself and encourages his woman companion to indulge in, in his heart he dislikes the same kind of behaviour in the woman; and though