Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins (1875)
Feb. 8th, 2014 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emma_in_dream*Eight Cousins* (1875) is good, but, frankly, would not be read now if it wasn’t by the author of *Little Women*. It recounts the story of Rose, who is sent to live with her uncle and to frolic with her seven boy cousins and one girl servant Phoebe.
Mostly the book is an excuse to propose an alternative way of raising girls. Her uncle lectures Rose (and the reader) at length about the value of free play, exercise, fresh air, simple foods, unstructured education, not wearing stays, abstention from alcohol, and free dress. These ideas were a lot more controversial in the nineteenth century than in the twenty first. In fact, a lot of it reminds me of Mary Wollstonecraft’s *Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792) which also spends a lot of time talking about the need to educate girls as we do boys and to free them from constrictive clothes.
The battle over the constrictive clothes is still not over. Little girls get bathers that ride up while little boys wear board shorts. I saw a little girl at the pool the other day in a polyester Ariel costume in which it was impossible to walk. And teenage girls often wear clothes which make running or moving comfortably impossible. High heels, why are they even a thing that exists? Ditto shaping underwear, which is just a corset by another name.
Yet at the same time I sympathise with Rose’s aunt who tries to get her some stylish clothes. The ones her uncle provides sound like a kind of brown track suit.
Here is Rose's aunt's choice of clothes for her.
"Bless my heart! worse even than I expected," thought the Doctor, with an inward groan, for, to his benighted eyes, the girl looked like a trussed fowl, and the fine new dress had neither grace, beauty, nor fitness to recommend it.
The suit was of two peculiar shades of blue, so arranged that patches of light and dark distracted the eye. The upper skirt was tied so lightly back that it was impossible to take a long step, and the under one was so loaded with plaited frills that it "wobbled" no other word will express it ungracefully, both fore and aft. A bunch of folds was gathered up just below the waist behind, and a great bow rode a-top. A small jacket of the same material was adorned with a high ruff at the back, and laid well open over the breast, to display some lace and a locket. Heavy fringes, bows, puffs, ruffles, and revers finished off the dress, making one's head ache to think of the amount of work wasted, for not a single graceful line struck the eye, and the beauty of the material was quite lost in the profusion of ornament.
A high velvet hat, audaciously turned up in front, with a bunch of pink roses and a sweeping plume, was cocked over one ear, and, with her curls braided into a club at the back of her neck, Rose's head looked more like that of a dashing young cavalier than a modest little girl's. High-heeled boots tilted her well forward, a tiny muff pinioned her arms, and a spotted veil, tied so closely over her face that her eyelashes were rumpled by it, gave the last touch of absurdity to her appearance.
"Now she looks like other girls, and as I like to see her," Mrs. Clara was saying, with an air of great satisfaction.
And here is her uncle's choice.
There was very little to see, however, only a pretty Gabrielle dress, of a soft warm shade of brown, coming to the tops of a trim pair of boots with low heels. A seal-skin sack, cap, and mittens, with a glimpse of scarlet at the throat, and the pretty curls tied up with a bright velvet of the same colour, completed the external adornment, making her look like a robin redbreast wintry, yet warm.
Surely there must be some middle ground where both style and comfort are possible?
Mostly the book is an excuse to propose an alternative way of raising girls. Her uncle lectures Rose (and the reader) at length about the value of free play, exercise, fresh air, simple foods, unstructured education, not wearing stays, abstention from alcohol, and free dress. These ideas were a lot more controversial in the nineteenth century than in the twenty first. In fact, a lot of it reminds me of Mary Wollstonecraft’s *Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792) which also spends a lot of time talking about the need to educate girls as we do boys and to free them from constrictive clothes.
The battle over the constrictive clothes is still not over. Little girls get bathers that ride up while little boys wear board shorts. I saw a little girl at the pool the other day in a polyester Ariel costume in which it was impossible to walk. And teenage girls often wear clothes which make running or moving comfortably impossible. High heels, why are they even a thing that exists? Ditto shaping underwear, which is just a corset by another name.
Yet at the same time I sympathise with Rose’s aunt who tries to get her some stylish clothes. The ones her uncle provides sound like a kind of brown track suit.
Here is Rose's aunt's choice of clothes for her.
"Bless my heart! worse even than I expected," thought the Doctor, with an inward groan, for, to his benighted eyes, the girl looked like a trussed fowl, and the fine new dress had neither grace, beauty, nor fitness to recommend it.
The suit was of two peculiar shades of blue, so arranged that patches of light and dark distracted the eye. The upper skirt was tied so lightly back that it was impossible to take a long step, and the under one was so loaded with plaited frills that it "wobbled" no other word will express it ungracefully, both fore and aft. A bunch of folds was gathered up just below the waist behind, and a great bow rode a-top. A small jacket of the same material was adorned with a high ruff at the back, and laid well open over the breast, to display some lace and a locket. Heavy fringes, bows, puffs, ruffles, and revers finished off the dress, making one's head ache to think of the amount of work wasted, for not a single graceful line struck the eye, and the beauty of the material was quite lost in the profusion of ornament.
A high velvet hat, audaciously turned up in front, with a bunch of pink roses and a sweeping plume, was cocked over one ear, and, with her curls braided into a club at the back of her neck, Rose's head looked more like that of a dashing young cavalier than a modest little girl's. High-heeled boots tilted her well forward, a tiny muff pinioned her arms, and a spotted veil, tied so closely over her face that her eyelashes were rumpled by it, gave the last touch of absurdity to her appearance.
"Now she looks like other girls, and as I like to see her," Mrs. Clara was saying, with an air of great satisfaction.
And here is her uncle's choice.
There was very little to see, however, only a pretty Gabrielle dress, of a soft warm shade of brown, coming to the tops of a trim pair of boots with low heels. A seal-skin sack, cap, and mittens, with a glimpse of scarlet at the throat, and the pretty curls tied up with a bright velvet of the same colour, completed the external adornment, making her look like a robin redbreast wintry, yet warm.
Surely there must be some middle ground where both style and comfort are possible?
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Date: 2014-02-09 03:56 am (UTC)I am with the uncle on most things (especially exercise) but it is so annoying that he is always right and the ladies always wrong.
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Date: 2014-02-12 06:59 am (UTC)And yes, while I did think that the uncle had lots of good ideas, it was very patronising, all about how on earth would a woman know what was appropriate in bringing up the Right Kind of Girl. Sadly, still the way that things are - that the message gets across better when it comes from a man than a woman, even when it is about womens' experiences. I do wonder whether Alcott wrote it that way unconsiously (as a product of her times), or whether it was a trend that she was well aware of and was exploiting as a method to get her message across.
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Date: 2014-02-12 11:22 am (UTC)