Preparations for Successful Home-Makers.—The Importance of Sensible Dress.—An Opportunity for Reform.—The Conditions of Attractive Dress.—A Question of Healthfulness.—What Wives Need to Know Concerning Dress.—The Kind to be Avoided.—Injurious Dress Destroying the Race.—The Ailments Caused by Wrong Dressing.—The Corset Curse.—A Summary of the Evils of Dress.
“Home’s not merely four square walls
Though with pictures hung and gilded,
Home is where affection calls,
Home’s a shrine the heart has builded.”

It has been argued by the over-fastidious, when these great questions relating to our being and well-being are discussed, that it is better for our daughters that they should not know what awaits them in marriage, “lest their heart fail them.” This cannot be best. Stepping into an unknown sphere with no definite knowledge of its demands and with no preparation to meet these demands, will only occasion disheartenment, if not downright discontent, when the difficulties and responsibilities are met.

As well might a raw recruit enter the army with no knowledge of warfare and without having been drilled for service, and expect at once to become a successful commander. As well might one accept any other position of high trust in life, without knowing what fitness was demanded, and hence all unprepared for it, the only qualification of the one accepting the trust being respect for and confidence in the employer, and expect to render excellent service, as for a wife to enter unprepared upon her high duties. In either case, by dint of hard and unremitting work, a few might succeed, but the many would fail.

A revised proverb says, “Home was not built in a day.” To insure a successful home the home-maker must be a success, and to accomplish this there are years of thoughtful preparation necessary.

Marguerite Lindley says, “We cannot overdo the matter of discreetly rearing our girls. They are to be the wives and mothers of the next generation, and on them rests the matter of the prosperity of the nation. The world is to be largely influenced by their abilities and strength, and it rests with the educators of to-day to prepare them for the great work that is before them. The keynote for harmony in mental and physical education has never yet been touched, and will not be until their physical well-being is made supreme, and the mental is based on its power.”

Jules Michelet, in his admirable book, L’Amour—admirable for the time and for the people for whom it was written—says, “It would seem that French mothers were determined to educate their daughters in all the non-essentials to wifehood and motherhood, while the things that pertained to their own well-being, and the well-being of home and family, were utterly neglected.” Again, he says, “Every mother practices a kind of self-delusion. She will say, most emphatically, ‘Oh, how I love my daughter,’ and yet what does she do for her? She does not prepare her for marriage either mentally or physically.”

When our daughters have had it burned in upon their inner consciousness that sensible dress and early hours, hygienic food and habitual outdoor exercise, will do for them and the succeeding generations what nothing else can do; and when our young men show their appreciation of these things, and commend them in the highest terms possible, then will a better day dawn for the race, and a real start be made for the true betterment of mankind. Is it not true, that the majority of our young women emulate the fancies and customs upon which our young men put a premium? Here then is an opportunity for our wide-awake sons to set the pace in a reform that will tell more for the coming generations than they dream of. Says a late writer, “We may smile at but need not rebuke the instinct of the young girl to enhance by adornments her physical charms, which nature already has made more attractive than all things else to man. Woman’s innate solicitude is to please, but this is not best accomplished by artificial manners or external show.”

We see nothing wrong in adding to the first intent of dress—namely a covering—anything, yes everything which may make it attractive, so long as it does not detract from its healthfulness and comfort.

Is it not very strange that so many women of sense and wisdom, and breadth of culture far beyond the ordinary, will not hesitate to adopt and cling to customs of dress that are little less than barbarous. Does it not seem, that among the large majority of women in[41] civilized lands, the question is, when dress is considered, “Is it becoming?” or “Is it within the reach of my pocketbook?” while rarely is the consideration of healthfulness given any weight whatever. It is a lamentable truth, but we must acknowledge it if we are honest.

Dress is not alone a study in ?sthetics, not alone a study in tastefulness, not alone a study of fancy or fashion; but first, last and always it should be a question of healthfulness; and then all of the ?sthetic, all of the fashion and fancy you desire may be added to it, so long as they do not in any measure defeat its first purpose.

What do our young wives need to know concerning dress, that they may be better fitted for the responsibilities which await them? They need to know what is harmful in the present fashion, that they may in their larger wisdom, avoid it, and in its place adopt that which will insure health and happiness for themselves and their offspring.

To understand the dangers and institute the reforms necessary, they must know the anatomy and physiology of the female body, and what is necessary to keep each organ in perfect health. This in a general way they learn in their school life, as far as lungs,[42] heart and liver are concerned; but to go below the waist in knowledge, is considered indelicate in the extreme.

They must know that the corset, in their growing girlhood, prevents their proper development, and in their maturer years restricts them so that lungs, heart, and liver and abdominal organs can do but half their work, and that very poorly. They should be taught that allowing their clothes to hang from their hips is harmful in the extreme, and induces a multitude of ills that unfit them for maternity.

Let them think for a moment, that the corset when worn tight enough to insure the form which is considered correct, so narrows their lung capacity that they can but half inflate them, and so a double duty is thrown upon the heart in its effort to purify the blood, while an insufficient quantity of oxygen is given it for the purpose. When the lungs are inflated to their fullest capacity, there is only sufficient oxygen furnished to burn the waste material of the system which is thrown off through the blood. What then must be the result when a half, or a third of the lung capacity is used?

One physician has said: “Woman by her injurious style of dress is doing as much[43] to destroy the race as is man by alcoholism.” Another physician, Dr. Ellis, says, “The practice of tight lacing has done more within the last century towards the physical deterioration of civilized man, than has war, pestilence and famine combined.” Frances Willard said, “But woman’s everlasting befrilled, bedizened, and bedraggled style of dress, is to-day doing more harm to children unborn, born and dying, than all other causes that compel public attention.”

Again the corset when worn closely, or worn at all, we feel compelled to say,—because no woman who has worn a corset for years seems to be conscious that she is wearing it closely,—crowds the contents of the abdomen downward until these organs encroach upon the pelvic contents, and the uterus is displaced, and the long train of ills which inevitably follows such displacement comes as the penalty. Not always does the punishment come at once, but sooner or later it overtakes its victim, if not before the climacteric, surely, then, at the period of middle life.

Among the many ailments which come from displacements of the womb are constipation, imperfect circulation, stomach difficulties, broken down nerves, headaches, and a generally weakened condition which totally unfits the sufferer for motherhood or for any other responsibility of life.

Another evil in dress, which seems hard to overcome, is the heavy weight imposed upon the hips. This is, to-day, in a measure obviated by those who are able to wear the silk petticoats, and silk-lined skirts; for those who are not able to do this, the burden is a heavy one, unless great care is taken to lighten the dress as much as possible.

The well-made, corded and boneless waist, with shoulder straps, and supports for all the skirts, is the only reasonable thing; and this must be loose enough to allow the waist ample room for development. Think of sixty millions of corsets sold in a year in America,—one for nearly every man, woman and child in the land! Is it strange that our women are invalids, and the American race fast dying out? It is said that a French artist represented the devil in the dress and corset of a fashionable woman! A terrible commentary upon feminine folly.

Mrs. Ecob, in her book, The Well-dressed Woman, which every young wife should read, says: “The corset curse among women is more insidious than the drink curse among men. Total abstinence from both sins is the[45] only safe ground. A woman can no more be trusted with a corset, than a drunkard with a glass of whiskey.”

To sum up the evils of dress and suggest lines of study, is all we have room for in our short space.

1. Insufficient underwear.

2. The corset—which compresses the vital organs, overheats the region it covers, displaces the pelvic contents, serves as an excuse for hanging the clothes upon the hips, impedes the circulation of the blood in the extremities, lungs and brain, and robs the wearer of freedom and grace of movement; while it brings in the long line of ills which have doomed our American women to invalidism, and robbed their children, if they have any, of their lawful inheritance, good health.

3. Heavy and trailing skirts, which burden the wearers, and impede their motion.

4. Inequality of clothing, which covers the waist and abdomen, which should not be overheated, with from ten to fifteen thicknesses, while the shoulders and limbs are often covered with but one thickness, and that of cotton.

5. The high-heeled shoes which throw the body out of the natural poise, and so displace the womb.
 
6. The general lack of thought of what dress should be in order to give health and comfort to its wearers.
“Evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as by want of heart.”

Our young wives should know these evils, and institute a crusade against them, so strong and forcible, that intelligent common sense shall govern in dress, and health and happiness be the blessed results, in the home.