THE AMERICAN WOMAN

by Enest R. Groves '03. Emerson Books, Inc. N.Y., 1944. PP.424.$3.50.

If it is true, as many believe, that the destiny of our country is to be increasingly in the hands of women, then it becomes important that the feminine half of our heretofore masculine civilization become cognizant of the background and evolution of their status in this nation of ours. This revised and very timely edition of The American Woman is to be highly recommended, therefore, to all Dartmouth men and their better halves so that they may be properly educated with regard to the changing status of American womankind and her advance toward full equality with men. All fair-minded males must rejoice that American women have at length very nearly won their long and arduous struggle to overcome the stamp of social inferiority which was a part of our American heritage stemming from European and earlier traditions. It must be brought home forcibly to American women that with their newly acquired rights go grave responsibilities for the future. That is why all American women especially should read this book.

In this significant and valuable book there is presented a penetrating, provocative but withal a sympathetic account, well documented, of woman's changing status in a world so long dominated by purely masculine mores, of a valiant struggle to be freed from limitations and disabilities imposed by men throughout the ages. Dr. Groves' analysis of the cultural background of the American woman is particularly enlightening. The modern world is nearly two thousand years away from the time when Christianity accepted woman's social inferiority as well as the slave type of industry, inconsistent as it was with its essential insistence upon the worth of the human individual. It required the passing of centuries before conventional thought had matured sufficiently to uncover this discordance and clashing of contradictory teachings. Even St. Paul made trouble for women of later generations when, arguing on the basis of the inferiority of women, he insisted: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." The idealization of asceticism around the third and fourth centuries was to give direction to the spiritual life of the Middle Ages and to pass down as a background influence upon the thinking and feeling of the early settlers of the United States. With the ascetic life as a religious ideal, woman became man's greatest temptation. Thus was built the inferiority status of woman so characteristic of the Middle Ages. Protestantism advanced the status of women somewhat, but less than one would have expected. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Knox were creatures of their time in their acceptance of woman's inferiority, but, as crusaders for greater individualism in their religion, they did contribute to the forces that were to enlarge the life of women and eventually release them from their manifold social handicaps. Puritanism was another influence that affected the life of women. It was traditional in its concept of women for the most part of its practical consequences led her forward.

The trend toward a freer and broader opportunity for women was to gain impetus, without intention and for the most part without protest, as a result of the conditions found by settlers in the New World. A new world truly forced a new order. The resulting social mutation in woman's sphere, with all its ramifications and practical consequences, and its great contrast to the trend of the ages, may be "the most profound and the most revolutionary contribution to the modern world that has yet come out of human experience in America." The book must be read in its entirety to appreciate the full significance of the coming of this modern phenomenon. The book adequately traces this development in relation to colonial settlements, the frontier, the Middle West, the Great Plains, Southern sectionalism, the Civil War, inventions, the growth of industries and of cities, the struggle for suffrage, World Wars I and II, the depression, and present social, domestic, and sex trends. In brief, it will be found that the sweep of American culture has brought woman to a near-equality with man in almost every aspect of her social career. It has been conceivably not only one of the most characteristic but also one of the most important results of the evolution of the American people.