The Changing Attitude of the Young Woman towards the Church: An Empirical Study of the Mental Life and Social Adjustment of the Young Woman of Today

The great exodus of young women from middle class homes into the world of commerce and finance has taken place, for the most part, within the last fifteen years. So accustomed have we become to the condition, that we are scarcely aware of the startling rapidity with which it has taken place. The feministic agitation of the Seventies and Eighties, innocuous as it appears today, made far more furor by contending for woman's theoretical equality with man, than the actual participation of women in every phase of economic and political life does today. For the feminine movements of those years, while widening the horizon of women and relieving the drudgery of life through literary societies left the status quo just about where it had always been. Woman's place was still in the home, but the home began to be a less constraining place. The theories of the most advanced proponents of woman's rights did not actually change the organization of society; neither did the growing popularity of coeducation. The college girls of the period left the shelter of their homes to live in a dormitory under a most rigid set of rules. The discipline of the dormitory was usually stricter than that of the home. The educators were evidently actuated by one of two ideas; either they still believed in the old theological doctrine of the innate sinfulness of woman, or else, and more likely, they believed that these innocent young lives must be protected from the evil machinations of the male. At any rate they guarded the girls entire conduct until she had not a decision to make for herself. After finishing college she perhaps became for a few years one of the young lady school teachers of the Eighteen nineties. Here again the organization of society was in no wise affected for the community in which she taught was usually a prototype of the community in which she had been reared, generally a neighboring town. The social relationships of the community were the same as the ones to which she had been accustomed. Being a teacher gave a little social prestige, and because the numbers were not large,. they were easily absorbed into the life of the community.