Various - Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447

Ever since that unfortunate affair in which the mother of mankind was so prominently concerned, the female sex might say, with Shylock, 'Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.' They are, in fact, an incarnation of the Passive Voice—no mistake about it. 'Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet,' as Burns pathetically says, to think on all the hardships and oppressions which you have undergone throughout the course of history, political and domestic. It is most wonderful that you can bear up your heads at all in the world. Most assuredly it could not be done except under favour of some inherent principle of fortitude, quite beyond all that your associate, Man, has ever displayed. For this reason, I propose to fix upon you the honourable style and title of the Martyr Sex.

As insanity is the more affecting when we observe its victim to be unconscious of the visitation, so does my heart bleed most particularly for the Martyr Sex, when I observe them undergoing severe oppressions without knowing it. So natural is suffering to the sex, or so accustomed are they to it, that they subject themselves spontaneously to enormous loads of trouble and torture, which no one would think of imposing upon them, and which they might easily avoid. It might almost be said, that suffering has a sort of fascination for them, drawing them placidly into it, whether they will or not. It seems in some mysterious way wrought up with their entire destiny.

Hence, at no period of the history of the Sex, do we find them free from some form of amateur affliction. At one time, it is one part of their persons, at another time, another, which is subjected to voluntary distress—but always some part. Not that the shifting is, so far as can be seen, designed as a measure of relief; it would rather appear the object simply is—to make every part bear its share in turn, and allow none to escape. Thus, about a hundred years ago, a lady went about with shoes that raised her heels three inches above the floor, and threw her whole person out of its proper balance, occasioning, of course, a severe strain upon certain muscles, attended by constant pain. A little later, her feet might have been found restored to their right level; but, as if to make up for this, and allow no interval of misery, a tower of hair, pomatum, flour, pins, and pinners, had been reared on the head, such as an inquisitor might have considered himself very ingenious in devising, as a means of undoing the convictions of heretics, or bringing round a Jew to Christianity. Verily, it was a most portentous enginery for the affliction of female humanity; but how heroically it was endured! A whole generation bore it without a sigh! It often cost them their night's rest merely to get it properly put in order—for, dressing being in those days very elaborate, the attendants had to prepare some ladies one day for a party that was to take place the next. They would sit, however, in a chair all night, in order to preserve the structure in all its integrity, sleeping only by snatches, and often waking in terror lest something might be going wrong. Talk of the martyrs of science—Galileo in prison, Bruno at the stake. These men had something of importance in view to sustain them in their trials. Give me the Martyr Sex, who sacrifice ease and convenience, without having any adventitious principle whatever to compensate for and support them under their sufferings.

In more recent times, we have seen the entire Sex submitting to torture in a middle ground—namely, the waist—with an equal degree of magnanimity. The corsets also formed an engine which would have perfectly fitted the purposes of the Inquisition; indeed, there were some ingenious devices of the Holy Office which did not greatly differ from it. It might almost shake the common-sense of admiration for martyrial sufferings, to find that every little girl in England was for some years both able and willing to endure a regular torture, without apparently having the least idea of making any merit by her patience. Present pains, possible consequences—such as red noses, bad breath, permanent ill health, death itself—were made light of. There being no imaginable good end to be served by it, was nothing to the point. The corsets were, for a time, a proud symbol of the martyr power of the Sex. You would see an example set forth in each milliner's window, carefully disposed under a glass-shade, as indicating the pride they felt in it as a sort of badge of honour. It is to be hoped that a few special copies will be preserved in our antiquarian museums, and, if possible, they should be such as can be certified to have killed their wearers, in order to shew to future generations what the women of our age could submit to in that particular line —not generally of course, for it is to be expected that the women of the future will have equal sufferings in some other walk to boast of.

It is not always, indeed, that the Sex have a master torment, like tight stays, to endure; but certainly they are never without some source of either anguish or inconvenience to keep their martyr power in exercise. For one thing, they are sadly afflicted with over-large shoes. Strange to say, though there are artists pretending to be ladies' shoemakers, the sex never get shoes sufficiently small. Every now and then, they are receiving some monstrous affront, in the form of a pair of shoes that might hold sufficient meal for a pudding besides their feet. From this cause flow certain pains and penalties in the form of corns and bunions, insuring that they shall never take a step in life without being reminded of the doom of suffering which has been passed upon them. To speak of the simple incommodations which they suffer from dress were endless. At one time, they are all blown out into sleeve, so that a miscellaneous dinner-party looks like a series of men and women with feather-beds stuck between each pair. At another time, the sleeve, while moderate in the region of the upper arm, is fashioned wide at the bottom, as if to allow of the fair wearers laughing in it—the joke, however, being all against themselves, seeing that the pendulous part is a source of continual trouble and worry, from its trailing through every sauce and tart that may be at table, till it becomes a kind of geological phenomenon, in the illustration which it affords of the succession of deposits and incrustations. Or the swelling falls mainly into a lower part of the dress, taking the form of a monstrous prolongation of skirts, and insuring that the fair Martyrs shall act as scavengers upon every street in which they promenade. I hardly know a more interesting sight than that of a young lady going to school on a wet day, with books to carry in one hand, and an umbrella to sustain in the other. To see the struggles she makes in such circumstances to keep her skirts from dragging in the mud, or the patience with which she submits to their unavoidably doing so, and to think of the sad condition of her lower extremities all the time—to reflect, moreover, that all this trouble and suffering could be avoided by merely having skirts of a sufficient, but not over-sufficient length—presents such an affecting picture of evils voluntarily encountered and heroically sustained, as but rarely occurs in the course of human life. It is justly held as a strong proof of patience, that you should calmly submit to be spat upon, or have mud thrown upon you by some infuriated crowd; but here is a gentle creature who literally goes out every day to endure the certain contact of these nuisances, and comes home to dinner not in much better plight than one who has sat (unpopularly) in the pillory for an hour. I really must give such martyrdom the meed of my admiration; and the more so, that I feel myself, under the hardening effects of worldly common-sense, totally unprepared to go through such hardships without some useful end to be served by it.