Do Women Enjoy One Another?

“THE most charming women in society, when they are together without men, seldom say anything that is worth hearing, and feel more bored than when they are alone. But with men it is not so. Their conversation is, no doubt, less lively when no women are present, but as a usual thing, though it may be more serious, it is also more reasonable; they can do without us better than we can do without them.”

So wrote Mademoiselle Scudery in the year of our Lord 1640, and her words were quoted the other day by a Philadelphia hostess who was entertaining five guests at luncheon, two of them from her own city, while the three others belonged respectively to Memphis, Boston, and New York.

“And it reminded me,” the hostess went on to say, “of our friend F. W., who observed lately that he vastly preferred dinners where women are present. We all knew that he was a professed womanhater, so waited for his explanation, which was, ‘For, don’t you see, in dining with men only one misses that exquisite sensation of relief which descends upon the soul when the ladies rise from the table.’”

All laughed at F. W.’s speech, but it was freely granted that men, no matter how much they may enjoy the society of women, still like best to compare opinions on serious and solid subjects with one another. But the question remained whether, in this twentieth century, which has been called “The New Woman’s Century,” there could be any need of weighing Mademoiselle Scudéry’s confession concerning the inadequacy of the entertainment which women offer to one another; whether, in these days of feminine expansion and progress, women still feel bored when left exclusively to one another’s society; “in short,” said one of the Philadelphians, “whether we ever have an exquisite sensation of relief when we leave the men over their cigars.”

“Of course,” said the hostess, “women whose sole desire it is to adore and be adored are ahvays and inevitably bored when there are no men present. We leave them out. It is the experienced, the mature, the rational, the clever women whose word counts.”

All six women were experienced, mature, rational, not to say clever; and when the opinion of each was desired, it came the turn of the Philadelphians to speak first.

“I sometimes feel,” said No. 1, “as if the passion for bridge whist were the inevitable result of our being thrown so much upon the society of our own sex. One has to do something interesting, or one would go mad.”

“And I honestly prefer to talk with women,” said the second of the Philadelphians. “I like a little more concession and rounding off than a man is willing to give. I confess I like men to take the initiative, and I am always ready to accept a man’s opinion, as the result of more careful, all-round thinking than a woman’s. A man does not allow himself to be run away with by every impulse as we do; but I do love a clever woman’s idea of things.”

Next came the charming Southerner. “Of course,” she said, “one likes to talk with men, and in doing so exerts one’s powers, and makes one’s best efforts to be interesting. It is useful to draw out a man’s views on important subjects. But with men one thinks of the impression one is making, and in talking to men one is conscious of being a little bit of a humbug. Now with women no affectations are of the least use, and there is a comfort in dropping any sort of hypocrisy, and in talking about the things one honestly cares about, — that is, domestic matters, children, and dress. Nobody need condemn these as trivial subjects, for they are of the utmost consequence. Leave knowledge of them out of a woman’s mind, and what is she ? Then women understand one another readily, and are generally helpful and sympathetic and clever. Yes, women are immensely clever; that is, when they are on their own line.”

The Boston woman entertained no doubt whatever that women are better off without men. “Men are so little in earnest; they will not be serious. You will hardly find a man who enjoys discussing abstract questions, — that is, in society. Women nowadays are interested in everything. They have retained their faith in the perfectibility of the species. Temperance, settlement work, civic and social questions, — they like to discuss these subjects, as well as Ibsen and Bernard Shaw and Maeterlinck. In travel women are the most congenial companions, and they are ideal for living with; prompt, punctual, industrious, and disinterested. No one misses men if one has a few good women friends.”

“I think,” said the New Yorker, “that women are practically more interested in women than in men. We dress for one another, furnish our homes to vie with and surpass one another, and in entertaining lay ourselves out to surprise one another. We enjoy and admire one another, too. Now take teas and luncheons, where there are never any men to count, but the women are such dears in their pretty clothes, and each with something bright to say! It is only when you get too intimate, and know their weak side, that they distinctly bore you. A man’s weak side is different; he may be vain, but he is vain in a different way. You can enter into his thoughts, help him to work them out, make him talk his best and feel contented with himself, and he admires you. Discuss any subject with a woman, and let her appear to have the pleasure of convincing you, and she takes immediately a tone of condescension, feels herself to be a superior woman, —and when a woman feels herself to be superior, Heaven help us!”

The hostess decided that, in spite of some reserves, all these opinions went to show that women appreciate and enjoy one another more than in Mademoiselle Scudery’s time; in fact, are “ discovering one another more and more.” “Was it,” she asked, “the Miss Berrys who used to say, ‘No more women, no more women’ ? But then, the Miss Berrys liked to be the centre of things and have the talk to themselves. In fact, we are all alike; we like to be the centre of things, and no woman feels the full possession of her powers who has not a little world of her own, with something revolving around her. And given this, the modern woman is ready to say, ‘No more men.’”