Nay, even if you will pare the old Hebrew feminine ideal, the woman who layeth her hands to the spindle and whose fingers hold the distaff, who looketh well to the ways of her household ah not the bread of idleness, with the up-to-date modem ese woman who layeth her hands on the piano and whose fingers hold a big bouquet, who, dressed in tight fitting yellow dress with a band of tinsel gold around her head, goes to show herself and sing before a miscellaneous crowd in the fu Association Hall: if you pare these two feminine ideals, you will then know how fast and far modern a is drifting away from true civilisation. For the womanhood in a nation is the flower of the civilisation, of the state of civilisation in that nation.
But now to e to our question : what is the ese feminine ideal? The ese feminine ideal I answer, is essentially the same as the old Hebrew feminine ideal with one important difference of which I will speak later on. The ese feminine ideal is the same as the old Hebrew ideal in that it is not an ideal merely for hanging up as a picture in one s room; nor an ideal for a man to spend his whole life in caressing and worshipping. The ese feminine ideal is an ideal with a broom in her hands to sweep and the rooms with. In fact the ese written character for a wife is posed of two radicals meaning a woman and meaning a broom. In classical ese, in what I have called the official uniform ese, a wife is called the Keeper of the Provision Room_a Mistress of the Kit . Ihe true feminine ideal, _the feminine
ideal of all people with a true, not tinsel civilisation, such as the old Hebrews, the a Greeks and the Romans, is essentially the same as the ese feminine ideal: the true feminine ideal is always the Hausfrau, the house wife, la dame de menage or chatelaine .
But now to go more into details. The ese feminine ideal, as it is handed down from the earliest times, is summed up in three obediences and Four Virtues. Now what are the four virtues? They are: first womanly character; sed, womanly versation; third, womanly appearance ;and lastly, womanly work . Womanly character means raordinary talents or intelligence, but modesty, cheerfulness, chastity, stancy, orderliness, blameless dud perfect manners. Womanly versation means not eloquence or brilliant talk, but refined choice of words, o use coarse or violent language, to know when to speak and when to stop speaking. Womanly appearance means not beauty or prettiness of face, but personal liness and faultlessness in dress and attire. Lastly, womanly work means not any special skill or ability, but assiduous attention to the spinning room, o waste time in laughing and giggling and work i to prepare and wholesome food, especially when there are guests in the house. These are the four essentials in the duct of a woman as laid down in the "Lessons for Women", written by Tsao Ta Ku or Lady Tsao, sister of the great historian Pan Ku of the Han Dynasty.
Then again what do the Three Obediences in the ese feminine ideal mean? They mean really three self sacrifices or "live tors?" That is to say, when a woman is unmarried, she is to live for her father; when married, she is to live for her husband ; and, as a widow, she is to live for her children. In fact, the chief end of a woman in a is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of
the womans natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world