The Maccabaean

ERHAPS the most striking of all the types which people the Eastern European Ghetto is the woman, the wife and mother. We say the wife and mother, not the maiden, advisedly, because, whilst the Ghetto recognizes the existence of the wife and mother it ignores that of the maiden. A woman's career in the Ghetto begins—not at her confirmation, or at her entrance in society—stages of life which the Ghetto maiden never experiences—but at her marriage. The unmarried woman in the Ghetto is chiefly interesting, not for what she is, but rather for what she is destined to become. We excuse the sting of the `bee because of the honey which it produces—likewise does the Ghetto tolerate the woman because of the high functions which she is to discharge. The Ghetto certainly would not tolerate an unmarried woman—there would be no excuse for her existence; nay, the earth would not hold her, she would be looked upon as the supernumery fifth wheel. For the virgin, according to the Talmud, is an incomplete being, a sort of half-finished creation of the Lord, the lesser half of man. But once her being is merged with the superior cosmos of her “better half,” she evolves as the equal of man, remaining at the same time a distinct type, apart from her mate, contrary to the civilized notion that man and woman become one at marriage. The individuality of the Ghetto woman is not sunk into that of her husband's; she retains her own pe-

culiar characteristics even though the attributes of her husband contribute toward the perfection of her being.

As she passes from under the marriage canopy she is ushered into the world which is to constitute the centre of her activity. This world is bounded by the four walls of her home, for what has a woman of the Ghetto to do with the strange things that happen beyond her home. Kol Revudoh bath melich penimoh, says the Psalmist—“Thy royal daughter's distinction is to remain within.” The women of the Ghetto are truly princesses of modesty. The world to them is what the serpent was to Eve. But they would not suffer themselves to be tempted by the golden apples of the world, for they know that its seeming gold is but dross, and that within its heart lurks the worm of corruption. They hold aloof from the world, they would not be tainted by its unclean touch. Whatever graces and charms are theirs, and these are of a moderate nature, they are cultivated within the home. Publicity, to say nothing of notoriety, is shunned, not courted in the Ghetto. The Ghetto woman is not an imperialist, for she does not believe in expansion; her home is her empire, its boundaries only does she decipher on the map, beyond it her geographical knowledge ceases. The only form of government she favors is home rule, that is, to rule at home. And truly does she reign in her home; her husband is not her “lord and master,” but her