It has never been a majority of women who for a great length of time have shirked this problem by any one of these methods.  By individuals and by groups woman has always been seeking to develop the business of life to such proportions, to so diversify, refine, and broaden it that no half failure or utter failure of its fundamental relations would swamp her, leave her comfortless, or prevent her working out that family which she knew to be her part in the scheme of things.  It is from her conscious attempt to make the best of things when they are proved bad, that there has come the uneasiness which trails along her path from Eve to Mrs. Pankhurst.

When great changes have come in the social system, her quest has responded to them, taken its color and direction from them.  The peculiar forms of uneasiness in the American woman of to-day come naturally enough from the Revolution of 1776.  That movement upset theoretically everything which had been expected of her before.  Theoretically, it broke down the division fences which had kept her in sets and groups.  She was no longer to be a woman of class; she was a woman of the people.  This was striking at the very underpinning of femininity, as the world knew it.  Theoretically, too, her ears were no longer to be closed to all ideas save those of her church or party,—­a new thing, freedom of speech, was abroad,—­her lips were opened with man’s.  Moreover, her business of family building was modified, as well as her attitude towards life.  The necessity of all women educating themselves that they might be able to educate their children was an obligation on the face of the new undertaking.  Another revolutionary duty put upon her was—­paying her way.  There can be no real democracy where there is parasitism.  She must achieve conscious independence whether in or out of the family.  Unquestionably there came with the Revolution a vision of a new woman—­a woman from whom all of the willfulness and frivolity and helplessness of the “Lady” of the old regime should be stripped, while all her qualities of gentleness and charm should be preserved.  The old-world lady was to be merged into a woman strong, capable, severely beautiful, a creature who had all of the virtues and none of the follies of femininity.

It was strong yeast they put into the pot in ’76.

A fresh leaven in a people can never be distributed evenly.  Moreover, the mass to which it is applied is never homogeneous.  There are spots so hard no yeast can move them; there are others so light the yeast burns them out.  Taken as a whole, the change is labored and painful.  So our new notions worked on women.  There were groups which resented and refused them, became reactionary at the stating of them.  There were those which grew grave and troubled under them, shrinking from the portentous upheaval they felt in their touch, yet sensing that they must be accepted.  There were still others where the notion frothed and foamed, turning up unexpected ideas, revealing depths of dissatisfaction, of desire, of unsuspected powers in woman that startled the staid old world.  It was in these quarters that there was produced the uneasy woman typical of the day.