Times Have Changed – Sunday, February 13, 1944
In this day and age, whenever anyone speaks of the social precautions which were formerly observed for the safeguarding of womanhood in general, and of young girls in particular, one is likely to be accused of being Victorian-which is another way of saying that the idea is thought to be stuffy and old-fashioned. But when safeguarding the most precious things in life becomes old-fashioned, civilization will be on its way out, together with the finest things that the finest people of all ages have stood for.
Notwithstanding this, there are many sincere and devoted parents, who, like their children, are going to remind us that “times have changed,” who are going to remind us that women, old or young, are no longer confined to the home—that ofttimes girls go out to make their own way at a relatively early age, just as boys do, and that there is virtually no profession, or occupation, or activity closed to them-that there is virtually no place on the face of the earth—or no kind of company, or no social situation in which, under present conditions, women, old and young, may not find themselves. All this is true. Times have changed.
In our day women go to war, as well as men; women do much of the world’s work; women are people in their own right, and any man who forgets it may expect to be quickly reminded of it. The so-called emancipation of women is irrevocable, for which we are all grateful—but it would be surprising indeed if a movement that had brought with it so much good had not also brought with it some things which are not altogether good—and because some bad things have been ushered in with some good things doesn’t mean that we have to accept them both. We still have the right and the obligation to discriminate between the two and to accept what is good and to reject what isn’t—even if times have changed. And if, perchance, there are conditions or practices or places in society where young women who desire to maintain their principles and their ideals, are induce ‘d or coerced to do otherwise, then it is up to us, as members of society, to see that such conditions and places and practices are eradicated. Where modern emancipation has given women a desirable freedom, we may be grateful for it, and where evils and abuses have accompanied that freedom, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to take the abuses in order to have the freedom.
Just because times have changed is no excuse for gullibly swallowing everything that men call “modern” whether it be good or bad. To accept a new thing which is good is progress; to accept a new thing which is bad is false, and foolish, and stupid. Times may have changed, but good and evil have not—and neither has the obligation to discriminate between them.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Feb. 13, 1944, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1944.
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February 13, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,756