WOMAN'S WRONGS:
A CO UNTER-IRRITA NT.
BY
GAIL HAMILTON.
" Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."
BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
x868.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year x868, by
TICKNOR      AND    FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co.,
CAMBRIDGE.




WOM AN'S W RONGS.
THE friendliness existing between women and clergymen, though not
usually considered especially complimentary to either class, is a matter of common recognition. It is generally referred
to with a certain half-bantering condescension, that sometimes scarcely stops
short of a sneer.  Yet this friendliness
is in part, at least, founded on a law of
human nature which it is not wise to
overlook. Clergymen, whatever may be
their theories about woman, are forced
by the very exigencies of their profession to treat women as independent human beings.   The teachings and the
example of the Divine Master are too
I




2           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
plain to be misinterpreted, and the issues too momentous to be neglected.
The clergyman more than any other
looks at woman from the pure point of
soul.  He knows that, notwithstanding
all the dictates of conventional propriety,
truth and nature, in supreme interests,
assert their sway; and a woman's soul is
to him just as self-centred, just as responsible, just as important, as a man's
soul. All talk of incompleteness and dependence, of oaks and vines, is hushed
before the Divine voice:   If thou be
wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; but
if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it."
When this voice finds no echo in the
clergyman's soul; when this respect is
simply conventional, enforced by the requirements of his profession, active only
in one direction, having no influence over
his every-day opinions; when his spirit
is not elevated by the language he uses,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         3
by the air he breathes, - he sinks lower
than his fellows. The very fact that he
can resist such influences indicates a soul
indissolubly wedded to earthliness, and
we may confidently count on finding a
conscience insensible to appeal, conceit
impenetrable to facts, a sensuality incapable of purification, a character beyond
reclamation.
The Rev. John Todd, D. D. has
lately been moved to announce and expound the laws of human life, especially
in their bearing upon the relations between man and woman. He has done
so with a wisdom accurately described by
James in the fifteenth verse of the third
chapter of his Epistle. If to diminish
disgust of vice, and to destroy the charm
of innocence, be success, he has indeed
achieved a singular success. He turned
his attention to a thing,
" Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told,"




4           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
and he so managed to overlay it with
impotent and sometimes ridiculous logic,
with ill-directed denunciation, with irreverent assumption of Divine prerogatives,
with Scriptural misrepresentations, with
a kind of talk for which the popular
phrase "silly sentimentalism" is too substantial, and which is better described
by sentimental silliness, that pious fatuity did the work of infernal cleverness,
and the original offence seemed likely
to escape its just condemnation through
scorn of the folly and immorality directed
against it. He touched a sacrament, and
it shrivelled into profanity.  Marriage
became in his hands a base commercial
transaction. Woman was reduced to the
level of the beasts that perish. What is
beyond the province of reasoning he did
not scruple to force under the yoke of
his sophistry. Things secret and sacred,
the soul's most solemn symbolism, God's




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         5
own trust to the hidden heart of humanity, too deep, too holy, too awful for
sound, or sight, or touch, he brought out
remorselessly to the blare of argument,
and the glare of ambition, and the stare
of stupidity.
Through the rank growths of selfishness his words spread like prairie fire.
A gospel that preaches masculine selfgratification as manly religion, the lowest womanly subserviency to man as the
sole womanly way of doing God service,
is not the boon of every day, nor to be
lightly let slip. Its improbabilities, its inconsistencies, its monstrosities, seemed to
go down sweetly, like the grapes of Beulah. Clerical conferences passed resolutions fortifying Dr. Todd's position. " Religious" newspapers hastened to give him
their sanction. Secular newspapers became suddenly devout, and, ranging
themselves by the side of their religious




6          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
brethren, went singing Te Deums after
Dr. Todd.  The piety of it, Iago, the
piety of it! Liberal Christian and bigoted Puritan, man of God and man of
the world, all who loved themselves better than righteousness, who would rejoice
to see iniquity framed into a moral law
and transmuted into gospel, -all, for
once, laid down the weapons of their
warfare, and joined in the holy shout,
" There is no god but God, and Dr. Todd
is his prophet!"
Into the region whither Dr. Todd thus
betook himself it is not permitted to follow him. Over the new heaven and the
new earth of his own creation he must
hold undisputed sway. But whom the
gods will destroy they first make mad.
Deceived, probably, by the silence of
those whose disapproval was not the less
deep because unspoken, mistaking the
noisy applause of selfishness and thought



WOMAN'S WRONGS.         7
lessness for the verdict of virtue, he has
ventured forth into a field where it is
possible to meet him; he has put his
hand to things which it is not desecration to handle; and I propose to take advantage of the opportunity which he has
himself furnished to examine, for a few
moments, the calibre of this man who has
been so suddenly set up as a moral lawgiver to woman.
In late issues of an able, if not the
leading, religious newspaper of New England, appeared a series of articles from
the pen of. Dr. Todd, entitled " Women's
Rights." The newspaper thus recommends them: "The principles advanced
and urged with the author's customary
felicity of thought and expression are
such, we think, as will meet the views
of our readers."  The same articles have
just been published in book or pamphlet
form-I have not seen the republica



8           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
tion - by a Boston house; and an able,
if not the leading, secular newspaper
of New England declares the book to
be "full of good strong common-sense,
which will commend it to the great mar
jority of American women."   I have
diligently examined the critical notices
of the press, and have found this opinion
echoed, East and West, with scarcely a
dissenting voice. It is this essay to which
I beg to call attention. The authority
given it by its indorsers is my only apology for detaining the reader over assertions that are either baseless or purposeless, and arguments that have been a
thousand times refuted.
Dr. Todd begins with a mixture of
majesty and sweetness at once imposing
and conciliating.
" Sound, as it goes from the bell in
the church-tower, probably goes in waves
and curves, and not in straight lines.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        9
Human feeling and thought seem to
move in tidal waves, modified, doubtless,
by the peculiarities of the age. At one
time the women of Rome became so discouraged and down-hearted with their
condition, that they committed suicide to
such an extent that the Senate, alarmed,
passed a decree that all who should hereafter commit suicide should have their
bodies exposed naked in the streets.
The instincts of modesty came to woman's aid, and there were no more suicides. On the true instincts of the sex
I rely, while I speak to the women of
my generation kindly, faithfully, plainly,
calmly, and decidedly."
The women of my generation must see
at the outset that a new course is to be
adopted towards them.   They are no
longer to be spoiled children. They are
to come under a discipline gentle but
firm, and be brought up in the way they
should go.




10          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
But if Dr. Todd had searched through
the world, he could hardly have found an
historical illustration better adapted to
his essay than the one he has chosen. It
strikes the key-note of his thought. The
women of Rome were so wretched that
they rushed to death for relief.  The
Senate thereupon passed a decree, not
to abate the wretchedness, but to prevent its expression; not to make life
more attractive, but death more repulsive. After eighteen hundred years of
Christianity, Dr. Todd can think of no
more excellent way.
"Discouraged and down-hearted" is
perhaps one of those felicities of expression which we are called on to admire.
Repetition and contradiction of word and
sentiment will be found to be Dr. Todd's
especial felicity.  So far as happiness
consists in setting adjectives and pronouns adrift without any visible means




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        11
of support, the following sentence must
be conceded to be eminently blissful:
"Among the other sex there is a widespread uneasiness, - a discontentment
with woman's lot, impatient of its burdens, rebellious against its sufferings, an
undefined hope of emancipation from
the ordinary lot of humanity, by some
great revolution, so that her condition
will be entirely changed! "
"This feeling" —we quote now rather
for the felicity of the thought than of
the expressibn-"- crops out in publicly
ridiculing marriage, dwelling on its evils,
raving about the tyranny of men, crying
for the' emancipation of women. "
Dr. Todd can never be suspected of
using language to conceal ideas.  Does
he mean to say that this wide-spread uneasiness has no just foundation? Does
he mean that this discontentment is discontentment with that which should




12          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
cause only contentment; that this impatience, or, to quote him more accurately,
this "impatient" is an "impatient" of
burdens Divinely appointed, the " rebellious" a  rebellious" against sufferings
Divinely ordained?  He speaks of a
"hope of emancipation from the ordinary
lot of humanity"; what does he mean
by "the ordinary lot of humanity "?
Work and disease and death are the ordinary lot of humanity. Do women, in
their worst conventions, demand from
men emancipation from work, from disease and death, in their season? In the
very next paragraph he says: " The demand is.... that.... women.... shall
be educated as he [man] is, enter the
same pursuits that he does, receive the
same wages, occupy the same posts and
professions, wield the same influence, and,
in a word, be independent of man." Does
that look like claiming exemption from




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       13
the ordinary lot of humanity? Is it not
rather a claim to share the ordinary lot
of humanity?
In what Woman's Rights convention,
from the pen of what Woman's Rights
advocate, has Dr. Todd found any public
ridicule of marriage, or any other dwelling on its evils than such as was intended
to remove them?
Dr. Todd says: " The demand is, that.... she shall be allowed hereafter to be
in all respects equal to man." Directly
after he adds: "Nobody pretends that
the sexes are equal in weight, in height,
or in bodily strength." Does he mean
that women demand the concession of
an equality which they admit does not
and cannot exist?  His words say it.
But it is not the "strong-minded women,
who clamor and disgust their sex and
ours in demanding' women's rights,' "
whom he addresses. He is wise in so




14          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
doing.  Women who had taken       any
thought for these things would speedily
increase and intensify his disgust. It
is to " those who shrink from these moral
Camillas " that he sagaciously turns: " It
is to this class of the sisterhood I am
wishing to address myself at this time.
Will you allow me, then, to come and
sit down by your side, making no claim
to superiority? "- dear, condescending
man!
" Will you, will you, will you, will you walk in, Mr. Fly."
So far it is preface and introduction.
Having comfortably established himself
by the side of his " fair ones," he proceeds
to treat of the equality of the sexes, on
which he rashly promises to waste no
words. This promise is fulfilled by making all the conventional concessions of
woman's intuition, her delicacy of taste,
the girl's quickness of mind up to a certain period as compared with the boy's.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        15
" We, sons of dust, move slower, we creep,
where you bound to the head of the stairs
at a single leap." We must not pause to
admire the grammatical felicity of " move
slower," nor the rhetorical felicity of
picturing women as mounting stairs per.?altum, but go on to the finer felicities of
thought. "'Why then,' my lady reader
will say,'why can't we be independent
of man?' for this is the gist of the whole
subject.  I reply, you can't for two
reasons: first, God never designed you
should; and secondly, your own deep instincts are in the way." From the manner in which the Divine designs and
opinions are quoted by Dr. Todd, we
should infer that the Almighty had taken that gentleman into his confidence.
Certainly he speaks with a definiteness
which ought to presuppose a new revelation of St. John the Divine. From the
mere terrestrial point of view, we should




16          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
say that his classification lies open to the
charge of cross-division. Divine designs
being indicated by human instincts, his
first reason involves his second; but of
course one who has the entree of heaven
is not dependent upon earthly facts for
his knowledge. Familiarity, in his case,
seems as usual to have bred contempt.
He regards the Divine instrumentalities
-these womanly instincts and limitations - quite insufficient to secure the
desired end, and evidently believes that
the Almighty could never accomplish his
object with women unless the Rev. John
Todd offered himself as a medium of communication.  Accordingly, "bear with
me; and keep good-natured, while I show
you what you, dear ladies, cannot do,
and God don't ask you to do.
" 1. You cannot invent. There are all
manner of inventions in our age, —
steam, railroads, telegraphing, machinery




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        17
of all kinds, often five hundred and fifty
weekly applications for patents at the
Patent Office, but among them all no
female applicants." Here, felicities both
of thought and expression crowd upon
one another so rapidly that the " female
mind" pauses bewildered. The invention of steam is a feat paralleled only
by that of the young soldier who, when
asked if Newburyport was his native
place, said no, but on his return from the
war he meant to make it so! Discriminating age, that invents applications, but
not applicants; railroads and telegraphing, -a less felicitous writer might have
said telegraphs, - but among them all no
women!
" You have sewing-machines almost
numberless, knitting-machines, washing,
ironing, and churning machines; but I
never heard of one that was the emanation of the female mind. Did you?.
2




18          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
I suppose this power was denied you, lest
it should take you out of your most important sphere, as I shall show."
"I suppose." So, then, Dr. Todd's revelation was fragmentary as well as that
of St. Paul, who also was obliged to interpolate, to the rest speak I, not the
Lord."
It might be said, if the question were
of invention, that possibly one reason
why women have never been inventors is, that they have never been artisans; but the matter is utterly irrelevant. Granted that women cannot invent; granted that the sparrow killed
cock-robin; — what of it? What connection is there between power of invention
and woman's rights?   Woman's rights
means, perhaps chiefly, the right of suffrage. Does Dr. Todd maintain that inventive power is necessary to the possession or the exercise of that right? Does




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       19
he mean to say that no man shall vote
for town-officers till he has invented a
sewing-machine? Of all the inventions
of our age, - steam and telegraphing and
female non-applicants,-I never heard
of one that was the emanation of Dr.
Todd's mind. Did you? Shall Dr. Todd
therefore be disfranchised?
But, says Dr. Todd, with equal pertinence: " You cannot compete with men in
a long course of mental labor. Your delicate organization never has and never
can bear" (another happy grammatical
touch) " the study by which you can become Newtons," and so forth. No woman has ever stood by the side of Phidias or Homer, and the girl's best training gives her less skill on the piano than
her brother attains with no training at
all.
Again, what of it?  When Dr. Todd
says so neatly, "And even in cooking and




20         WOMAN'S WRONGS,
in millinery, as is well known, men must
and do stand at the head of these occupations," we may infer from their superior fitness that millinery and cooking
ought to be given up to men, - a proposition in which I should heartily concur; when he asks, "Did you ever know
a woman who could endure being a
teacher till seventy-five, as men often
do?" we may say under the rose, "and
might in some cases till seventy-five
thousand, for all the fatigue their teaching need cause them"; but how does
it all stand connected with " women's
rights"?  Do Newtons and Raphaels
alone choose rulers and discern principles and pass judgment upon laws?
How many Miltons and Canovas does
Dr. Todd reckon in his congregation, and
how cheerfully do the other members
yield to them a political monopoly? If
Dr. Todd should ever come to the conclu



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        21
sion that he cannot equal Shakespeare,
will he at once propose to give up one
third of his salary and his whole right
of franchise?
" Delicate organization " is the alleged
cause of this mental inability in woman,
- "because her bodily organization cannot endure the pressure of continued
and long labor as we can."  She has'a
peculiar organization, requiring the most
careful and gentle treatment."  How
wide-spread is the evil which Dr. Todd
deprecates? How many women in America are suffering from a mad endeavor
to become Newtons and Raphaels, compared with the number who are straining every nerve, who are laboring to exhaustion, disease, and death, in the effort
to earn their bread, to support helpless
relatives, or, where there is not poverty,
to do the every-day work of exacting
households? How many female brains




22          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
are exhausting themselves with a long
course of severe mental labor, compared with the number that are destroying themselves by inaction? Dr. Todd
is eager to snatch women from the gulf
into which their strenuous intellectual
work threatens to plunge them. He is
painfully alive to the dangers that menace from Newton's Principia and Paradise Lost. He prescribes the most careful and gentle treatment to save women
from the fatal effect of music and metaphysics; but of any hurtful demand upon
female strength from other sources he
seems to be entirely unaware. He recognizes no peculiarity or delicacy in the
female organization, which incapacitates
a woman for sewing all day, or standing
behind a counter all day, or spending all
day for weeks and years in doing, not
household work merely, but household
drudgery, with no holiday or holi-hour,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         23
but such as neutralizes itself by bringing
increased toil in its train. Yet it seems
impossible he should not know that, for
one woman diseased by excessive brainwork, there are one hundred diseased by
excessive nerve and muscle work or mental idleness.  He has "no difficulty in
admitting that the mind of woman is
equal to ours, nay, if you please, superior." (This must be only one of Dr.
Todd's "nice and pretty things."   He
cannot for a moment seriously harbor
the suggestion that any female mind can
really equal - ours!)  It is her physical
organization that stands in the way. His
position then virtually is: The female
mind is strong; the female body is
weak: therefore the female mind must
be spared, but the female body may be
worked indefinitely. Q. E. D.
Dr. Todd says, with charming and elegant playfulness, " He is a poor dog that




24          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
barks up the wrong tree, however loud
or earnest he may bark," -a principle
which, if true, it is suicidal for him to
enunciate.
"If what I have said," continues the
unterrified Doctor, "seems to want gallantry, I reply, it is not gallantry that I
am now after, but facts,- truth, —the
true sphere and power and glory of woman." Not at all. One may ransack his
whole essay in vain for a single indication that he is in search of truth, or
facts, or woman's sphere. Everything
goes to show that he considers himself
already in possession of the truth; he is
quite settled in his own mind as to what
is really woman's sphere, and he is concerned only to bring women over to his
way of thinking.
"Be patient. I have some nice and
pretty things to say, some garlands to
weave, after I have led you to see the




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        25
great facts of your being." Not after I
have discovered them, but after I have
led you to see them. Take heart, dear
ladies. You are not to be given over
to uncovenanted mercies. Dr. Todd will
take you tenderly by the hand, he will
guide your wayward little feet to the
abyss of your incapacity. But having
given you a glimpse into its depths,
and convinced you that, unlike your fathers and husbands, you cannot invent
steam or write Odysseys, he will kindly
pluck you a posy to still your sobs, and
then let you go home.
"The design of God," says the great
expounder, taking a fresh start from the
skies, -  the design of God in creating
woman was to complete man."   "What
is the chief end of man?" asks the Westminster Catechism. "Man's chief end is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever."
"What is the chief end of woman?"




26          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
" Woman's chief end is to complete man."
True, just as much as God's design in
creating man was to make a clay model
for woman. "She has a mission,....
to be the mother and the former of all
the character of the human race. For
the first most important earthly period
of life the race is committed to her,for about twelve years almost entirely.
The human family is what she makes
them." Assertion may be met by assertion. The human race is committed
to the father just as much as to the
mother.  The   strongest force stamps
character, whether it be that of father
or mother. Often the good teachings
of the mother are nullified by the bad
example of the father. The child's mind
and heart are the offspring of his father
as well as of his mother. A mother cannot make the family happy or prosperous
without the help, or in spite of the hin



WOMAN'S WRONGS.         27
drance, of the father, any more than the
father can without her or in spite of her.
There is no such dividing line between
father and mother. Their duty is inextricably interwoven. "She is the queen
of the home, its centre, its light and glory." (Recent intelligence.) " Our mothers
train us, and we owe everything to them.
Our wives perfect all that is good in us,
and no man is ashamed to say he is indebted to his wife for his happiness, his
influence, and his character." Dr. Todd
must be wary, or his felicity of style will
get him into trouble. A double mortgage
to the full extent on the same property
renders a man liable to the law. If he
owes everything to his mother, and yet
is indebted to his wife for his happiness,
his influence, and his character, we can
only suggest to him the old Farmers'
Almanac couplet,"Owen Moore has run away,
Owing more than he can pay."




28          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
" The home, the home, is the fountain of
all that is good on earth." Are churches
and Sunday schools and theological seminaries, then, fountains of unmixed evil?
"Mother, wife, daughter, sister, are the
tenderest, most endearing words in language. Woman is the highest, holiest,
most precious gift to man." Does Dr.
Todd intend this for argument? Does
he mean that all homes are actually fountains of good; that all men pursue towards their mothers, wives, daughters,
sisters, the tenderest and most endearing
course of action; that all men recognize
and treat the women with whom they
come in contact as their highest, holiest,
most precious gift, or that they come so
near it as to make any change undesirable? If not, what does he mean? Why
is he just now barking up that particular
tree?
"If woman steps out of her sphere




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        29
and demands to be and to do what men
do," —especially if she demands to be
what men do, she is certainly an extraordinary woman,-" she will not be
allowed to be a man, and be treated with
the tenderness due to women." But if
she stays a woman, will she be sure of
that tenderness? "If she goes to Congress, she must also go to the heavy
drudgery of earth," from which, as every
one knows, she is now entirely exempt.
Just here, in fact, Dr. Todd surpasses
himself, and becomes continuously delightful. Whoever feels obliged to use his
reason finds himself constantly hampered
by its requirements, and can reach correct conclusions only by a slow, zigzag,
and often perplexing path; but Dr. Todd
is free from vexing limitations. His
mind seems to be of that privileged sort
that has no relation to facts. Ile assumes the point in question, he proves




30          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
what was not denied, he disproves what
was not asserted, he contradicts his own
statements with a blithe unconsciousness
truly refreshing. Indeed, his expertness
in the latter feat is so great, that he may
be said to have introduced a new form
of proposition, the Kilkenny categorical;
propositions which you have only to set
side by side, and they immediately eat
each other up. He labors under a
chronic conviction that what women want
is to be men. When they express a
desire to be like men in respect to getting fair wages for work, he finds it a
desire to wear-I borrow his own eloquence- pants. That is as near as he
can get to the trouble of the time. He
prepares an elaborate and, formidable
list of occupations,- trying up whales,
cutting out tumors, stirring tan vats,
bleeding calves, sticking swine, and many
others equally ~esthetic, - and felicitously




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         31
adds, "Now she must go in for all this,
if she leaves her sphere and tries to be a
man."  "Take off the robes, and put on
pants, and show the limbs, and grace and
mystery is" (a minor grammatical felicity) "all gone. And yet, to be like a
man, you must doff your own dress and
put on ours." "Dear sisters, you can't
be good wives, mothers, and crowns of
your families, and go into these things,
- can you?"
Why not? Wives and mothers in their
recognized  sphere" are called on to perform many services no more agreeable
to woman's "refined," and far more exhaustive to her "delicate organization,"
than blacking boots.  But why mnust
the dear sisters go into all these things?
Suppose they do want to be men, and
suppose they succeed in becoming men,
how does it follow that they are to be
forced to "hang on the yard-arms "? Are




32           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
men forced to hang on yard-arms? Does
Dr. Todd earn his living by cburning
over a smelting-furnace "? Has not a
man, in spite of his right of suffrage, we
will not say in consequence of it, power
to say whether he will or will not spend
his days as a barber? Do not men become doctors, lawyers, architects, artisans,
laborers, as they will, guided by taste,
fitness, or ambition? When women become men, why must they pass under a
different law? Why must Lucretia Mott
go to the Arctic Ocean and hunt seals,
while Dr. Todd may stay at home and
write sermons? Through stress of need,
men sometimes pursue uncongenial occupations, but women do it already. By
becoming men they would lose nothing in that direction. I know of no
employment which men are absolutely
forced to adopt, except that of war. If
women vote, they must also' wear jack



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        33
boots and spurs."  But is the wearing
of jack-boots and spurs the only duty in
war-time? During the late war was
there not an army of women at home
as large as the army of men in the
field, and did they not work as long
and as efficiently? And if war is so
dear to the human heart that it cannot
be relinquished, may not the regiments
of women be detailed for services just
as important as those of men, yet just
as womanly as those of the host of women that were employed in our civil
war? But is it an impossibility that
men will by and by cease to let their
angry passions rise to the point of tearing each other's eyes?  Would it be
an irreparable. calamity,- would Dr.
Todd, as a minister of the Gospel of
Christ, consider it a consummation devoutly to be deprecated,-if the unfitness of jack-boots to woman should re



34          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
suit, not in the discomfiture of woman.
but in the abolition of jack-boots?
On the subject of voting, Dr. Todd
comes out in force. "A   great hue and
cry is set up about the right of women
to vote, and the cruelty of denying
them this gift. Plainly this is merely a
civil, and not a natural right. Minors,
foreigners, and idiots are denied it."  A
mere bagatelle. What are the women
fretting about?  They are no worse off
than idiots. Can any reasonable being
be discontented who is allowed to exercise all the rights of infants in arms?'It would seem    best.... for those
who, at any hazard or labor, earn the
property, to select the rulers." But there
are thousands of women who earn property; therefore they shall not select rulers, according to Dr. Todd's logic. Man
"wants rulers in reference to the industry and business of his age. Let him




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       35
select them." Woman also wants rulers
in reference to the business and industry
of her age. Let her not select them.
Dr. Todd says: "The wealth of the age
is expended by woman, - earned by the
man,-for the most part." As I write,
I see load after load of salt hay going by
from the marshes. The men who made
that hay rose at one o'clock in the morning, rode two, three, or four miles to the
marsh, and worked till night in cutting
and curing it. But the women who
stayed at home rose at the same hour,
prepared the men's breakfast, packed
their dinner and lunch, and, in cooking,
cleaning, making, and mending, worked
just as long and just as hard as the men.
The money for that hay will not be paid
into their hands, but they earned it just as
much as the men. Dr. Todd avows that
men are indebted to their wives for their
influence and character. But it is influ



36         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ence and character that determine income.
"Being a widow or fatherless, is a misfortune." (Not always.) "But the husband
or father earned the property, and voted
as long as he lived. It may be a misfortune that the property does not now
vote, but not so great a misfortune to
the world as to have the sex go out
of their sphere and enter into political
life."  The disputed point is, whether
voting is woman's sphere. You shall
not vote, says Dr. Todd, because it is
going out of your sphere!  And this
is the good, strong common-sense which
is to commend itself to the great majority of American women!
" Moreover, there is something so unseemly in having women wading in the
dirty waters of politics, draggling and
wrangling round the ballot-boxes, e. g.
mingling with the mobs and rowdies in
New York City, that I wonder she ever




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        37
thinks of it."  Doubtless she never would
have thought of it, had she dreamed that
it would excite Dr. Todd's wonder; but
as the deed is already done, perhaps the
next best thing is to inquire who made
the political waters dirty.  Who is it
that is draggling and wrangling around
the ballot-boxes? Must we say men?
But woman is man's highest, holiest,
most precious gift. It is to these draggling, wrangling mobs and rowdies that
this holy gift is intrusted. A man who
has kept his gift sacred at home for
three hundred and sixty-four days of
the year will not be likely to desecrate
it at the polls on the three hundred
and sixty-fifth. And if men are so bad
that they cannot be trusted to vote
with women, is it beyond question that
they ought to be trusted to vote for
women?
Again, suppose the ballot to be-ex



38         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
tended to American women, how many
of them will mingle with the mobs and
rowdies of New York City? How many
of the women in Dr. Todd's congregation
will take the first train for New York on
election day? And even in New York,
who are the women that will draggle and
wrangle around the ballot-boxes? Is it
the women of Grace Church and Trinity,
of Dr. Thompson's and Dr. Chapin's
and Dr. Adams's churches?   Do Dr.
Thompson, Dr. Chapin, and Dr. Todd
draggle and wrangle around the ballotboxes? and are their wives any more
likely to do it than themselves? We
will not of course hazard the conjecture
that the female mind might invent a separate arrangement for taking the female
vote; but draggling and wrangling do
not seem to be the necessary concomitants of voting among men. And if a
man feels that his wife's character is not




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        39
strong enough to enable her to deposit a
ballot once a year without demoralizing
herself and disgracing him, he can fall
back to the old English common law,
and shut her up at home till election
is over. So any woman who feels within herself that her womanliness would
be injured by going to the polls, that
her dignity cannot stand so trying a
process, has always the simple remedy
of staying away. Let no woman be led
into temptation. But to keep all the
dear sisters from the polls because a few
of them  are too weak to be trusted
there, is purchasing peace at a great
cost.  That the advocates of voting are
"moral Camillas, who clamor and disgust
their sex and ours," is nothing to the
purpose, unless unattractive manners are
recognized as a disqualification for the
exercise of the right of suffrage. Unless
it is demanded that a man shall be agree



40          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
able before he is allowed to vote, there is
no justice in demanding that a woman
shall be agreeable.
The complicated question of wages has
no complications for Dr. Todd. Minds
of the best endowments and the highest
culture have given their energies to this
subject, yet have failed to lead the world
to a satisfactory conclusion. Dr. Todd
takes hold of it, and difficulties disappear
like flax in the fire. He confesses that
it is a hard problem to solve, and immediately goes and solves it. How, will any
one guess?  By saying, first, we can't
have justice in these matters; and secondly, we already have it! "We can't
have justice in these matters. But bear
in mind, that God has put the labor and
the duty on men to support the families;.... and to do it, and bear the responsibility, he must receive wages accordingly.  Is it, then, so very unjust that




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        41
woman, who has no such responsibility,
does not receive so high wages?"
Here, straightening out the tangle of
talk, we find three distinct lines of response to the complaint of low wages: —
First, We can't have justice in these
matters, illustrated by the case of an excellent pastor who receives only four
hundred dollars salary, and of many who
receive five or six hundred dollars.
Second, We have justice, for men have
the responsibility, and therefore they
ought to have the wages.
Third, The great laws of political economy, especially the law of supply and
demand, are beyond reach of human law
and power, therefore all talk is useless.
To the first we may say that the impossibility of securing justice does not
stop the mouths of the excellent pastors
any more than those of women. Every
reader of religious newspapers knows




42          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
that the cry of the clergy for larger salaries is an exceeding great and bitter cry.
But I think there is no record of any
attempt by Dr. Todd to hush them by
telling them that they can't have justice,
-that their demand is vain so long as
there are thousands ready to underbid
them, and do the work cheaper,-that
the demand will pay in proportion to the
supply, and no human power can alter
this. Yet it is difficult to see why the
suggestions which are thought so salutary and sufficient in the one case are
not equally so in the other.
For the second. Does responsibility
indeed enter into the calculation of
wages? Does a mechanic with six children receive more money for his work
than a mechanic with no children? Then
it would seem that Dr. Todd's third
proposition cannot be true, at least not
in the common acceptation of its terms.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.          43
Demand pays in proportion to the supply
of responsibility, not solely to the supply
of work. But why then is not woman's
responsibility also taken into the account.
Why do not school committees pay to
female teachers who have families to
support the sanie salary which they pay
to male teachers similarly situated? Dr.
Todd indeed denies that there is any
female responsibility. The woman on
whom his eye is chronically set "has no
such responsibility." The world, as Dr.
Todd sees it, is evidently modelled on the
heaven which one of our exquisite little
Sunday-school songs so poetically portrays -
" No wickedness there, not a shade of transgression,
Nor poverty there, - no, the saints are all wealthy, -
Nor sickness can reach them, - that country is healthy."
In his apocalyptic vision he sees
women as queens, walking gracefully
in waving robes, hearing only the most




44         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
endearing words, receiving only such
careful and gentle treatment as their refined organization requires, yet fired with
an unaccountable desire to leave it all
and rush to the slaughter-house to knock
down oxen on their own account, and
receive as much money for it, to spend
on rings, as men receive to buy bread
and butter for the whole family. He
does not recognize- he at least makes
no provision for- the thousands of women who have their own bread to earn,
and often that of relatives. " The wolf is
at the door," cry these women. " We are
starving in the house. Untie our hands
that we may have a fairer chance at the
foe!" " The house, the house," cries Dr.
Todd, "is the place for women. Wolf-fighting belongs to men. Woman's delicate organization cannot endure so long
as his," -and goes back into his study.
For the third proposition. If it be




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        45
true, why does he make the first and
second?   Because he is gifted with a
brilliant inability to distinguish between
what is true and what is untrue, what is
pertinent and what is impertinent. To
him a principle, a fact, an obligation, an
incident, a possibility, all belong to one
class. He tosses together a heap of
bricks and stones and mortar and rubbish, with a granite block or two, and
thinks it is a marble monument. And
men upturn to it solemn, admiring eyes,
and commend it to American women!
But Dr. Todd does recognize the fact
that "there are over seventy thousand
more females" (what felicity should we
have missed had he called these females
women!) "in Massachusetts than there
are men, and probably twice this number
in the State of New York..... Our young
men go off early in life, leaving homes,
mothers, and sisters behind them.....




46         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
Now the question comes, what shall be
done in behalf of these thousands of virtuous, educated, and noble girls?"  At
last, then, we have got Dr. Todd face to
face, not with a phantom of his own
brain, but with a real difficulty. How
does he meet it?
" The cry is,' Make them into clerks,
book-keepers, bankers, and give them all
the employments of men.'.... Let us
think it over a moment. We are sorry
for this state of things and wish we
could remedy it." That is hopeful; Dr.
Todd might have put his hands into
his pockets, and said he was glad of
it! But what is he sorry for? —that
the seventy thousand girls are born, or
that the seventy thousand young men
went West? Would he think it better
for themselves and society that they
should have stayed at home? "But suppose now we make these girls into clerks,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        47
in stores, in the counting-room, in the
insurance-office, in the bank,-say ten
thousand in Massachusetts and twenty
thousand in New York,-don't we displace just so many young men, drive
them off to the West, prevent so many
new families from being established here,
take away thirty thousand chances of
marriage from these females, and enhance the evil we are trying to remedy?  Is it a blessing to woman to
lessen her opportunities for marriage?
This state of things will eventually right
itself, but it bears hard upon women now;
but to displace men, to increase the evil,
to plan for a present exigency by upturning all the arrangements of Providence,
is not wise. We must look at the grand
total of result. It is not that we wish to
keep women from enjoying anything and
everything that is for the best good
of her sex. I speak of displacing men,




48         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
and forcing them away. I might add,
that, from the very instincts of the human heart, every public employment
diminishes woman's chance of marriage,
and in proportion to its publicity."
So then it seems that, if women leave
their sphere, they must go into ore-digging and hod-carrying, timber-cutting and
log-driving, but they may not go into
banks and insurance-offices. There is no
objection to displacing young men from
yard-arms, but they must not be displaced
from the counting-room. The law of
supply and demand must regulate wages,
but it cannot be trusted to regulate work.
Employers may justly pay women starvation prices, but women must not seek
any other than the starvation places.
No moral sense need keep a tailor from
oppressing his needle-women, but moral
considerations must keep needle-women
from taking refuge in a strawberry-gar



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        49
den.  No girl must enter a shop or
a school-room, - Dr. Todd does not
say school-room, but he must mean it,
since a school-room is a more public
place than an insurance-office, and a
woman there displaces a man just as
certainly,-no girl must enter a shop
or a school-room, because she displaces
a man and diminishes her chance of
marriage. Dr. Todd elsewhere tells us
that he has been for forty years connected
with female seminaries. Female seminaries are chiefly under the charge of
female principals and teachers. Has he
taken care to inform those teachers that
they are upturning the arrangements of
Providence? Has he exhorted them in
season and out of season, for as long a
time as the Israelites were wandering in
the wilderness, to leave their schools and
go home, that they might be ready in
case a suitor should happen along?
4




50         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
What does Dr. Todd propose? He
shuts the avenues to employment: what
does he open instead?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
He has no more to say on the subject.
He takes up at once another theme.
The seventy thousand women may sit
on the curb-stone and suck their thumbs,
for anything he has to suggest. It bears
rather hard on woman now, he admits,
but it will eventually right itself. Sucking your thumb is not a lucrative, nor,
after a certain age, an honorable or
agreeable occupation, but in course of
seventy or a thousand years something
better may offer; which is consoling.
Starving is not pleasant now; but to
stave off starvation by going into a drygoods shop and upturning all the arrangements of Providence is not wise.
A pretty Providence, truly, that scatters
through the State seventy thousand more




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         51
women than can be married, and then
forbids them to do anything else than
marry! A Providence after Dr. Todd's
own heart, that tosses together a mass
of incongruities and calls it an arrangement! -an arrangement so stable and
efficient that a girl can upset it with a
yardstick!
And this is what our religious teachers call felicity of thought, and our
secular teachers, good, strong commonsense.
Dr. Todd next settles the question of
female education and female colleges.
" If it ministers to variety to call a girls'
school a college, it is very harmless."
He is willing the fair ones should amuse
themselves with edge-tools to that extent. But open the knife? No, no, pet,
it will cut its little hands!  As for training young ladies through a long intellectual course, as we do young men, it




52          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
can never be done, they will die in the
process. Give woman all the advantages
and all the education which her organization, so tender and delicate, will bear,
but don't try to make the anemone into
an oak," and so forth. Thus the tender
and delicate organization stands in the
way, not only of Herschels and Laplaces, but of ordinary college graduates.
Doubtless our colleges are in many respects excellent institutions, but I have
never been so impressed with the weight
of learning invariably brought from them
as to feel that the female brain would
hopelessly stagger under it. However,
Dr. Todd says it would, and it is perhaps
unseemly to discuss the question. But
he is willing to declare "deliberately
that the female has mind enough, talent
enough, to go through a complete college course, but her physical organization
will never admit of it, as a general thing.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        53
I think the great danger of our day is
forcing the intellect of woman beyond
what her physical organization will possibly bear. We want to put our daughters at school at six, and have their
education  completed at eighteen.  A
girl would feel mortified not to be
through  schooling  by the  time  she
reaches that age" (a statement that will
surprise girls, I think). "In these years
the poor thing has her brain crowded
with history, grammar, arithmetic, geography, natural history, chemistry, physiology, botany, astronomy, rhetoric, natural and moral philosophy, metaphysics,
French, often German, Latin, perhaps
Greek, reading, spelling, committing
poetry, writing compositions, drawing,
painting, &c., &c., ad infinitum.  Then,
out of school hours, from three to six
hours of severe toil at the piano. She
must be on the strain all the school




64          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
hours, study in the evening till her eyes
ache, her brain whirls, her spine yields
and gives way, and she comes through
the process of education, enervated,
feeble, without courage or vigor, elasticity or strength. Alas! must we crowd
education upon our daughters, and, for
the sake of having them'intellectual,'
make them puny, nervous, and their
whole earthly existence a struggle between life and death?"
But Dr. Todd wanders from his point.
In fact, it is always hazardous to predict from the beginning of his sentences
what the end will be.   He starts with
a disclaimer against female colleges; but
here we find ourselves in the midst of
a protest against female seminaries. So
it is not simply that girls are unable
to go through the course prescribed for
boys; they are also unequal to that
prescribed  for girls.  The reason  al



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        55
leged is, that their health will not permit it.  "Now   that we have taken
woman in hand, we are in danger of
educating her into the grave, taking
her out of her own beautiful, honored
sphere, and making her an hermaphrodite, instead of what God made her to
be."
Why, here is. still another fresh charge
under cover of the old one, -a wheel
within the wheel within the first wheel.
Is Dr. Todd springing a trap upon us?
All through his discussion of the subject,
he has been deprecating female education solely on the ground of female
weakness; but in the very last sentence
he brings up quietly, as if it were one
and the same thing, an entirely new
and distinct objection, - strong-mindedness. Is this fair?  His woman being
educated into the grave, the natural inference is that she will stay there;




56          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
but before the breath is fairly out of
her body, presto! she is up again and
whirling out of her sphere! Now, with
all deference to Dr. Todd's masculine
strength, and to that long and severe
course of intellectual training which it
has enabled him to undergo, and which
has so well fitted him for his sphere, we
must submit that this is putting rather
too fine a point upon it. We may educate our girls to death, or we may educate them into woman's-rights women,
but we cannot do both. Perhaps a woman may as well be dead as be voting,
but they are not yet synonymous terms.
A girl cannot be in her grave and be
going around lecturing at the same time.
Dr. Todd may have his choice of the two
evils. Which does he mean, then, - that
girls cannot be educated as men are,
because they will die in the process, or
because they will mount his pet bug



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        57
bear, ride away from their spheres, and
try to be men?
If any other Providence than Dr.
Todd's were concerned, one might be
disposed to inquire its object in giving
woman more mind than she can cultivate.
"A little farm well tilled" is supposed
to be more profitable than ever so great
a reach of waste land. Why endow
woman with as much mind as man, if
she is forever incapacitated from training
it? But Dr. Todd's Providence is sui
generis, and we will simply meet his assertion with another,-that the female
not only has mind enough, talent
enough, but also body enough, to go
through a complete college course. Dr.
Todd judges, from what he has seen in
female schools, that it cannot be done.
I judge, from what I have seen in and
out of female schools, that it can be
done. He laments that, between the




58          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ages of six and eighteen, the poor thing
has her brain crowded with history,
grammar, and the rest. I affirm that if,
between the ages of six and eighteen, a
girl cannot get all those things into her
brain without crowding it, she is a poor
thing. A girl can go to school, pursue
all the studies which Dr. Todd enumerates, except ad infnitum, know them,not as well as a chemist knows chemistry, or a botanist botany, but as well
as they are known by boys of her age
and training, as well indeed as they
are known by many college-taught men,
enough at least to be a solace and resource to her, - then graduate before
she is eighteen, and come out of school
as healthy, as fresh, as eager as she
went in, and never through her subsequent life know a week's, scarcely a
day's illness. I know this, for I have
seen it. Nature harmonizes body and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        59
mind in woman as well as in man.
Aching eyes and whirling brain and
yielding spine need no more attend intellectual activity in girls than in boys.
Let a girl have a strong constitution, a
vigorous body, and a sound mind, to
begin with, - let her be taught to work,
to play, to study, and not to dawdle,let her have plenty of fresh air, wholesome food, early sleep, active out-door
exercise, and healthful dress, all of which
are compatible with a long intellectual
course, - and she need fear nothing that
seminaries or colleges have to offer.
The reason why girls in school and
out of school are puny, enervated, and
exhausted is not that they are girls,
but that they have inherited feeble constitutions, or they have been injured
by improper food, improper dress, late
hours, unnatural and unwholesome excitement, or they have been committed




60          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
to unskilful and incompetent teachers;
and  among    incompetent teachers I
should certainly reckon those of Dr.
Todd's acquaintance,- teachers who, besides the routine of school, require from
three to six hours of severe daily toil
on the piano. I do not know any such
teachers.  I never heard of any such
practice. In all the female schools I ever
knew, music was considered as a study,
and was included in the regular course.
It certainly does not demand such a
lion's share of time in boys' schools or
colleges, and therefore, in considering a
girl's chances of passing through a college safely, these three or six hours may
be counted in her favor.
A newspaper paragraph circulating
while I am writing is so apposite that
I cannot refrain from transcribing it.
The London correspondent of the
" Tribune " calls attention to a work little




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        61
known even in England,- " Notes of
a Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in
the First Six Books of the ZEneis," by
Dr. James Henry. The author's ability
as a commentator has been acknowledged by Mr. Conington, who has profited by it in his recent translation of
the same epic. But the most remarkable feature of this persistent study is
thus stated by Dr. Henry himself: -
"I have been, as the title imports,
twelve years, twelve of the fairest years
of my life, engaged in this work; encouraged by no one, approved by no
one, patronized by no one, receiving no
particle of assistance either at home or
abroad from any one of all the numerous persons who have, with more or less
success, cultivated the same author, except alone the assistance which I have
reared and created for myself in my own
daughter, who has already, at the age of




62         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
twenty-two, arrived at such a degree of
knowledge of the subject, that I have
not printed a single comment without
first submitting it to her censorship.
Many and valuable have been the suggestions I have received from her, although I have not specially stated the
fact, except at _En. II. 683," in the
note on which he remarks: "I cannot
refuse myself the pleasure of informing
my readers that the above very new,
and, it seems to me, very true explanation of this difficult passage was suggested to me by one whose zealous assistance and co-operation has all along
not only lightened but rendered delightful to me the otherwise almost intolerable labor of this work, — I mean
my beloved daughter, Katharine Olivia
Henry."
Study is healthful. Real study conduces to peace of mind and body.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        63
Many girls, and boys too, are incapable
of it.  I have known parents lament
the effects of hard study on their children, when those children never knew
an hour's hard study, and never could
compass it if their life depended on it.
What they suffer from is inability to
study, not study.  Parental ignorance,
vice, weakness, or mismanagement has
given them bodies and souls alike nerveless and flaccid. They can go to parties,
follow the fashions, lounge over books,
perhaps pore and worry over them; but
they are utterly incapable of concentration, energy, struggle, victory.  Their
minds are inane and their bodies drooping. Others have fine physical powers
in which their puny souls are wellnigh
lost.  Others have strong souls, but
chained to a body of death. By all
means let such children quietly fall out
of the ranks. It is only adding cruelty




64          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
to cruelty to require of them what can
be done only by able-bodied souls and
able-souled bodies; but to make them
the standard -to force healthy, jubilant
beings, all thrilling and tingling with
life, to keep step with them - is a device
worthy of Dr. Todd. If, instead of laboring to dwarf woman's intellect to the
measure of her crippled physical powers,
he had labored to raise her physical
powers to the height of her uncrippled
intellect, - if, instead of showing parents
that they wrong their children by trying to educate them, he had shown the
earlier and deeper wrong of multiplying children too feeble to be educated,he would, I was about to say, have
labored to some purpose; but remembering the manner in which he espouses
a cause, I withdraw the suggestion, and
only beg him to fight it out on the line
which he has already taken. The die



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        65
covery of the laws of life is difficult
and delicate. To put Dr. Todd on the
scent might be fatal to the search. Fortunately for mankind he is committed
against its improvement.  So far from
endeavoring to ascertain the conditions
of advance, he strenuously preaches that
the true mission and highest glory of
the languid, enervated, and puny beings whom he portrays is to reproduce themselves in the greatest possible numbers.
His conclusion of the whole matter
is, that " the root of the great error of
our day is, that woman is to be made
independent and self-supporting, - precisely what she never can be, because
God never designed she should be. Her
support, her dignity, her beauty, her
honor and happiness, lie in her dependence as wife, mother, and daughter.
Any other theory is rebellion against
5




66          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
God's law of the sexes, —against marriage," and so forth.
"0 woman! your worst enemy is he
who scouts at marriage,.... who would
cruelly lift you out of your sphere and
try to reverse the very laws of God;
who tries to make you believe that you
will find independence, wealth, and renown in man's sphere, when your only
safety and happiness is in patiently,
lovingly, and faithfully performing the
duties and enacting the relations of
your own sphere. Women of my country! beloved in your own sphere, can't
you see that man, rough, stern,....
head,.... woman,.... patient,.... loving,....heart." I give only the catchwords; every one can fill the gaps for
himself.
It is the old refrain.  Everything is
just as it should be, except that women
are not contented.  They are beloved




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       67
and honored in their own sphere. Why
do they try to leave it? Women who
have been oppressed and neglected by
their natural protectors among men,
or who have lost them through illness
or death, claim opportunity to protect
themselves, and are met by the cry,
"The great error of our day is that
woman is to be made self-supporting."
Forced to do man's work, woman asks
as far as possible man's advantages, and
is told that God never designed she
should support herself.  Seventy thousand women, for whom no man has been
or can be provided, are told that their
support, their dignity, their beauty and
honor and happiness, lie in dependence
on some man. Any other theory is rebellion against God's law of the sexes,
and of the universe generally.
Dr. Todd's aim, so far as he has any,
seems to be at unmarried women, es



68          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
pecially in the latter part of his essay.
But if he will examine the reports and
records of the Woman's Rights conventions, I think he will find "Mrs."
quite as often as "Miss" against the
names. If he will investigate the alleged grievances of women, I think he
will find the complaint of wives quite
as long and loud and bitter as that of
maidens. If any women scout at marriage, it is as often they who have
tried it as they who have not. But
taking him on his own ground, what
would he have these unmarried women
do? What course does he propose to
the girls who have left school and are
entering their womanhood? Marriage,
marriage, marriage, is the one profession,
the one sphere, the one blessing which
he holds out to them," A sovereign balm for every wound,
A cordial for their fears."




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       69
He sees honor, dignity, support, nowhere
else. To this, and this alone, he urges
them by every consideration earthly
and heavenly. What then? Shall the
girls take matters into their own hands?
Shall they swarm into the countingrooms, the factories, the colleges, the
theological seminaries, drop a courtesy
to the young men, and say, "Sir, will
you please to marry me?"  As for sitting at home and waiting for the young
men to come to them, they do that
now. Unless Dr. Todd means that they
are to go out into the highways and
hedges and compel men to come in, it
is difficult to see what he does mean.
If he permitted himself to use his eyes,
-a habit which he gives no sign of
ever having fallen into, —he would see
that reluctance to marriage is not the
great or the growing fault of women.
He would see with deep inward shame




70          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
not unmixed with pity, that mental idleness, lack of purpose and interest in life,
poverty, weakness, and bad teachings,
have made women so ready to accept
any sort of marriage, that too often the
womanly name is lightly spoken, the
womanly assent lightly valued. That
which should be to men the prize of
life they count but an ordinary commodity. Wives are to be selected, not won.
Love is a serving-man, not a conqueror.
Marriage is a provision; an occupation,
an arrangement, any coarse and common
thing, and Dr. Todd will have it so.
And the religious newspapers and
the secular newspapers join voices and
shout Amen!
Here Dr. Todd's argument ends, but
his peroration is so characteristic that
one cannot refrain from a few notes of
admiration.  "I have spoken to you,
gentle ones, kindly and faithfully." This




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        71
is a continuation of the conciliatory
style, and is always to be adopted in
addressing women. "Very likely I may
have a torrent of abuse poured upon
me for it; but it is time that your
real friends should no longer have utterance  choked."  Utterance  choked!
Have such real friends as Dr. Todd had
their utterance choked?  Then surely
they can talk as well without their
throats as with them, for his talk has
been talked from the foundation of the
world, -at least as far back towards it
as this generation can remember.  He
might have listened any time within the
last ten years, and found men still harping on my daughter on precisely his
own key, though it must be admitted
that the peculiar felicity of Dr. Todd's
expression gives to the antiquity of his
thought a piquancy truly original.  "I
have tried to select smooth stones from




72         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
the brook for my sling, and not to
wound those whom I would defend."
Is this, then, the way to defend women,
by slinging stones at them? And does
it mend the matter to say that he did
not mean to hurt them? Would he fire
a broadside into a female seminary, and
excuse himself to the bleeding, moaning victims on the plea that he took
round shot and not conical? "And having said this, I only add, that no provocation will force me to speak on this
subject again."
Ungentle ones, we fear, will add that
nothing in his essay becomes him like
the ending of it.
And all the Wackford Squeerses who
have gone into the business of newspaper editing smack their lips over this
twopenn'orth of milk in a mug of lukewarm water, and cry out to their unlucky readers, " Here's richness! "




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         73
Proving Dr. Todd wrong is, I am quite
/
aware, a totally different thing  from
proving any one else right. The fitness
of female suffrage does not depend upon
the character of its adherents or opponents. The question stands precisely
where it stood before Dr. Todd took up
his pen. It has been so long discussed,
with so much ability and so much disability, that it would seem  as if every
wise and every foolish thing that could
be said about it had been already said,
and one feels disposed to apologize at
every step for reopening the subject.
But the publication of Dr. Todd's essay,
and its reception by our'reverend as3ecmblies of divines and our social philosophers, speedily transform the amiable
disposition into an impulse to follow the
example of the renowned Jenny Geddes,
and fling a stool at their heads. A generation that accepts "Woman's Rights"




74           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
need not complain of anything that may
be offered it in the way of triteness.
A   remarkable feature of the discussion is the scarcity of reasons brought
against female suffrage.    There   seems
to be a sort of instinct against it, but
scarcely anything that can be called a
reason.   This instinct may in itself be
the best of reasons, and if opponents
would only plant themselves there, simply affirming,
"I do not like you, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this alone I know full well,
I do not like you, Dr. Fell,"
they would hold a strong position. But
the things brought forward as arguments
are so flimsy, that argument and instinct are blown away together.
Nor is the spirit in which the question is discussed always unexceptionable.
There is something like taunt on the




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       75
woman side, and something like threat
on the man side, not unnatural in the
circumstances, but both alike unworthy
of the cause and unfruitful of good.
Female suffrage is not an affair of antagonism between man and woman. It
is not a struggle in which women are
to be the gainers and men the losers.
It is one in which both are to gain or
both to lose alike. If women ought to
vote, a woman's vote is as much a man's
right as it is a woman's right. If women ought not to vote, a woman's vote
is as great an impertinence to a woman
as to a man.  It is not even whether
women wish to vote: it is whether they
have a right to vote; whether they
ought to vote; whether the country
needs the votes of her women, and can
afford to do without them.
I believe it is seldom, if ever, denied
that women have abstractly an equal




76          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
right with men to vote. The objection
is, that the exercise of that right will
change, first, the womanly nature, and
second, the womanly sphere. It will
make women bold, pushing, masculine.
It is essentially unwomanly.
But what is it that is unwomanly,the possession of political opinion, or the
expression of that opinion by walking
to the vestry, or the town-house, or the
public hall, and putting a piece of paper in a box? Not surely the former.
Surely we all know that women are already in the habit of forming opinions
on politics.  More than this, their interest in and their knowledge of politics
are exactly in proportion to their intelligence, to their intellect; not at all in
proportion to their amiability or their
femininity. A woman may be ignorant
of politics, and be graceful, lovely, fascinating, or she may be coarse, harsh,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        77
unattractive; but I venture to say there
is not in the country a woman of active intelligence who is not conversant with the general state and aims of
political parties. Some of the women
whose names have a political prominence
are among the most attractive women
of their time, others are among the
most repulsive. So it seems that the
holding of political opinion does not of
itself change character.  And if a woman is not demoralized by saying to her
husband and her visitors that she considers Mr. A. Johnson an able and admirable President, would she be demoralized by dropping into a box a vote to
that effect?
So when it is said that voting is out
of the womanly sphere, will any one be
so good as to tell us what it is that is
out of her sphere, the possession or the
expression of political opinion? But pos



78          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
session, as we have seen, she already
holds. Wives, mothers, daughters, who
discharge with fidelity every domestic
and social duty, are conversant with national and international affairs. Nay, I
have no hesitation in affirming that exactly in proportion as a woman is clearsighted, far-sighted, judicious in her domestic and social administration, in just
that proportion is her judgment of public affairs clear and just and wise.
Faithful in least, faithful in much, is
not the axiom of religion only. Stories,
theories, rumors, assert the contrary;
appearances sometimes indicate the contrary, but I never knew a fact that did
not confirm this statement.
Is it then the act of casting a ballot
which is to draw or drive woman out
of her sphere, - this woman who in the
centre of her sphere has already performed all the work preliminary to vot



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        79
ing, whose opinions are matured, whose
decisions formed? But on occasion of
a concert, a lecture, even a political address, she already goes to the same place
and sees very nearly the same men that
she would on election-days. At what
moment then, at what point, does she
take the fatal step that puts her beyond
her sphere?
Is it that the interest in and knowledge of politics requisite for voting will
take too much time that ought to be
devoted to other and nearer duties by
the ordinary woman?   But what proportion of the time of ordinary menmerchants, mechanics, laborers - is spent
in politics? For how many hours in the
day, for how many days in the year, for
how many weeks in their lives, are they
drawn away from their counting-rooms
and workshops by political exigencies?
Do they not acquire their opinions un.




80          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
consciously as a part of their recreation,
and is not the time spent in voting so
small as to exercise no appreciable influence on the ordinary year's wages of
the common workingman? Does the
wife of the butcher or of the shoemaker suffer any measurable deprivation from her husband's absorption in
politics? Is there anything in the nature of woman which would lead us to
suppose that her devotion to politics
would be greater than that of her husband or that to her husband?. or that
it would be more difficult for her to
acquire knowledge than for him?   On
the contrary, would not the change from
the narrow circle of her domestic home
to the great circle of her national home
be a benefit to her? Would it not
be to her as to her husband, and even
more than to her husband, inasmuch
as the change to her would be greater,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        81
a refreshment rather than an additional
task? Would it not give a spring to
her mind, a quickening to her life, that
would react favorably on her home?
Would not the very act of gaining political knowledge fit her the better for
administering her domestic government?
Is it that voting, though an innocent
thing enough of itself, is the forerunner
of many evils, is but the opening to
woman of offices and employments that
have hitherto belonged and are suitable
only to man? that female suffrage means
female electioneering, stump-speaking,
office-holding, and other ills equally unpleasant to contemplate?
But suppose the right of ballot should
indeed fashion womankind politically after the similitude of mankind, how extensive would be the evil deprecated?
There is indeed among men much political wire-pulling, yet how few, in pro6




82          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
portion to the rest of mankind, are the
political wire-pullers! Members of Congress are many, but they do not show up
largely among our neighbors. The name
of political office-holders is Legion, yet
somehow they seldom drop in to tea.
And of those that do hold office, how
many hold it in the most imperceptible
manner! You may be for weeks in the
company of a modest selectman, townclerk, churchwarden, and never discover
the fact, - may imagine all the while
that he is only a lawyer or a grocer.
If then the holding of office interferes
so little with men's business, why should
it any more interfere with women's?
If so few farmers are called from
their farms, and shoemakers from their
benches, what reason have we for supposing that more cooks will be drawn from
their ranges or washerwomen from their
tubs? Moreover, there are thouseInds




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         83
more of women than of men, at least
in Massachusetts; and if from Massachusetts men can be spared and not missed,
how much more the women! At present, when a man is elected to an office incompatible with and less important than
his regular business, he simply declines
it. Women can always do the same.
No one proposes to force them to be
Presidents or even town treasurers.
But we need not go so far as this, for
Nature anticipates us. These things, we
say, are all unnatural, and therefore they
are objectionable. They are unwomanly.
But if they are unwomanly, women as a
class will never take to them. If homelife is the natural sphere of woman, nothing but necessity will ever drive her
from it. Certainly no allurements will
ever draw her out. We are never allured
to that for which we have no natural
taste. Nothing is safer to trust in, noth



84           WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ing is harder to force, than nature. If
women have a natural distaste and unfitness for public life, there is no more
danger of their voting themselves into
public officers than there is of men's
voting themselves into nursery-maids.
Undoubtedly there are women-exceptional cases, if you please-who are
much better fitted to hold office than
most men. There are women who are
better orators, better mathematicians,
better business managers than most men.
Voting will not make them so, as absence
of voting has not prevented their becoming such. These women may possibly become public officers, but such
women always have become public officers.  Fitness for the work was long
ago considered a vindication of the
work. There is no record that the most
conservative Israelites ever objected to
Deborah's judgeship, or that Hilkiah the




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        85
priest, or Shaphan the scribe, or Asahiah
the king's servant, had any misgiving
about going to the college to consult
HIuldah the prophetess who dwelt in it,
or that the Republican party ever rejected the votes which Miss Dickinson's
eloquence brought out in the campaign
of 1860. If the right of suffrage shall
result in bringing woman from the domestic hearth to the public hall, it will
only show that we have all been wrong
together in restricting her to the former.
Certainly we shall never know what woman's natural sphere is till she has an absolutely unrestricted power of choice,that is, until her nature is suffered to
have free play.
Do women indeed not wish to vote?
That is the best of reasons why they
should not be forced to vote, but no
reason at all why they should not be
allowed and required to vote. Those of




86         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
us who are Orthodox Congregationalists
know very well that we never excuse
our fellow-sinners from repentance because they do not wish to repent. This
very fact of unwillingness we bring as
the heaviest charge against them, and
with all the more vehemence urge them
to a change of heart as the necessary
precursor of a change of life. If women ought to vote, their indifference to
voting is but a sign that they are dead
in trespasses and sins.
Moreover, it cannot be denied that there
are many women who do wish to vote.
On what ground shall they be debarred
from doing so? Even though it were
granted —what is by no means proved
- that the majority of American women
do not wish to vote, how does that affect
the minority who do wish it? Because
A, B, and C do not wish to exercise a certain right, shall D not be allowed to
exercise it?




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        87
Or is it that women are, by nature,
education, or both, unfit to exercise the
right of suffrage? This, if true, is pertinent and conclusive. I am not prepared to say that it is not true. Undoubtedly a very large number of women
are by their education unfit to vote; but
does the same standard of fitness apply
to men?   Are American women, as a
class, more unfit to vote than Irishmen?
Are they less capable of understanding
issues involved, and of passing judgment
upon measures proposed, than negroes
who have been slaves for generations?
And if their minds are so narrow that
they cannot comprehend, and so feeble
that they cannot entertain, national questions,- if they are so unable to control
their impulses and conquer their prejudices that they cannot act wisely in national contingencies,- are they fit to be
the wives and mothers, the companions




88          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
and teachers, of those on whom thought
and action devolve?
But whatever may be true of the masses of women, it will not be denied that
there are individual women, and a good
many of them, who are more fit to vote
than the majority of voters.   It will
not be denied that the Mrs. Stowes, the
Miss Mitchells, the Mary Lyons, the Mrs.
Mills, the Madame de Staels, are as able
to form an intelligent opinion, even upon
questions of finance and internal improvements, as the laborers who are digging in the canals, and the shoemakers
pegging on their benches. If fitness is
the standard, why is fitness excluded
from, and unfitness admitted to, the
polls?
Does the allegation of female unfitness
come with a good grace from the lips of
men? The suffrage has hitherto been in
their hands; what is the result? Politics,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        89
which, whether considered as a science
or an art, is one of the most noble and
dignified subjects that can occupy the
human mind, has fallen to the level of a
miserable scramble for place and pelf.
Men have made it so foul and degraded
a thing that its very touch is thought
to be contamination to women, and the
name of politician is a reproach. The
polls, under the exclusive control of men,
have become a place of such desperate
resort that the word is a proverb for
vileness and violence.  The houses of
Congress are composed of men, theoretically of the ablest men in the nation;
and in perhaps the greatest emergency
of modern times they only succeeded in
making a patchwork of reconstruction,
which the President thrusts his fingers
through the moment they are gone home;
and if, alarmed, they rush back and patch
up the ghastly rent, no sooner is quiet




90          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
restored, and Congress dispersed, than
the restless Presidential fingers are poking through another thin place. It is
not a question of wise politics, but of
skilful workmanship.  We need not inquire whether they are masters of statecraft; they are not even mechanics.
Legislation is in the hands of men, and
they cross and recross the great currents
of society as unconsciously and as placidly as if those currents had no existence;
they tinker at the great natural laws of
trade as confidently as they hammer the
red-hot iron upon their own anvils; they
tamper with the great natural laws of
morals and manners as boldly as if history had left no record of previous similar attempts, and the kingdom of Heaven
were to be taken by an order of the
General Court. All official appointments
are in the hands of men, and they have
made Fernando Wood Mayor of New




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        91
York, and sent John Morissey to Congress, and put Andrew Johnson in the
Presidential chair.
One kind of unfitness in women is said
to be their intense personality. They
never consider a subject fairly. They
always look at every question with reference to some man. In the light of recent
events, this tendency seems anything but
an unfitness. If the party of freedom
and progress had looked a little more
closely at the men whom they set up for
leaders, it would have been better for the
party and better for the country.
But cannot men be trusted with the
interests of their own wives, mothers,
daughters, sisters?  Certainly they cannot. Men are in the constant daily habit
of doing injustice to wife, mother, daughter, sister. The minds of women are
dwarfed, their health ruined, their fortunes squandered, their hearts broken, by




92          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
men who stand to them in the nearest
and dearest relations. Do not men themselves see this? Do men trust men,even their own fathers, brothers, and
sons? Do not the men who ask this
question know scores of men to whom
they would be unwilling to trust the
interests of their own mothers and sisters and daughters?   Moreover, there
are many women who have none of these
relationships to flee to, who stand alone.
If society were millennial, if men and
women were infallible, if every woman on
arriving at maturity became the justly
beloved and honored wife of a justly
beloved and honored husband, and remained so during all the years of their
lives, she might safely trust her interests
in his hands; but with a society so far
deflected from uprightness as ours, with
human life so far from its ideal, there
is no class that can safely delegate




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        93
its interests to another class.  It is
because human nature is defective that
human laws are made; and human nature being defective it is never safe to
trust it with irresponsible power.
But will the incursion of woman upon
the ballot-box seriously mend matters?
I.fear not. Accomplished in the manner
and to the extent proposed, I honestly
think not. The association of man and
woman is natural. Their dissociation in
politics is unnatural. The exclusion of
any one class from an equal position with
another class regarding affairs in which
both have an equal interest, and to which
both contribute an equal support, is arbitrary and unnatural, and all things
unnatural are wrong and hurtful. On
this ground female suffrage seems to me
a right and wise measure, and its prohibition an absurdity. But beyond this
all is fog.  What definite benefit is to




94          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
accrue to woman or to the State from
indiscriminate female suffrage, I must
confess, after all the talk, I fail to see.
The volume of the vote will be in.
creased, but I do not see that its proportion will be affected; and the proportion
of the vote and not its volume is the
quarter from  which danger threatens.
True, in a republican government, the
broader the basis, the better, provided
it be sound; but if it be not sound,
how can its breadth be an element of
strength? Believing, as I do, most firmly, that the right of suffrage belongs to
woman in precisely the same measure as
to man, —no more and no less,- and
that it will do for woman precisely what
it does for man,-no better and no
worse,- still, were the alternative presented to me of changing the basis of
suffrage, either by extending the franchise
indiscriminately to women, or by still fur



WOMAN'S WRONGS.      95
ther restricting it among men, I think I
should unhesitatingly choose the latter.
I would far sooner trust the welfare of
the country to the freely acting wisdom
of intelligent and virtuous men, than to
the wisdom of intelligent and virtuous
men and women, hampered, baffled, and
overborne by the folly of unintelligent
and vicious men and women. On matters
of so grave and vast importance, subjects
which have received the profound attention of the deepest thinkers, it may
seem presumptuous for a "commoner" to
advance an opinion. But it is to the glory
of the thinkers that they have reasoned
so closely, and spoken so clearly, as to
have brought the subject within the
scope of common minds, and every day
brings us visibly nearer and nearer to the
time when the commonest minds will be
called on to pass judgment, which, if not
absolutely final, will be relatively so to




96          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
many, and of the most serious moment
to all.
To many the flimsiness and folly of the
arguments brought against female suffrage have been its strongest recommendation. If this is all that so violent an
opposition can bring forward against a
cause, the cause must be a wise one.. It
has seemed to me a certain but a distant
event; if, however, Dr. Todd can, in the
language of one of his admirers, be induced to reconsider his determination to
write no more, it is not impossible that
we may count the female vote at the
next Presidential election! But towards
female suffrage, in itself considered, I have
never been able to feel otherwise than
indifferent. There are so many things so
infinitely more important, more close to
the welfare and happiness of society and
of individuals, and especially is the happiness of woman so apart from, and inde



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        97
pendent of, her right of suffrage, that it
has seemed an altogether secondary and
unimportant matter.  Woman without
the ballot may possess every condition of
a dignified womanhood. Every reason
for withholding the ballot from her seems
simply frivolous; but what is there on
the other side so attractive, so promising,
what is there to arouse so much enthusiasm and enlist so many energies? It
would sometimes seem, from the tone of
discussion, as if the ballot were a sort of
talisman, with a power to ward off all
harm from its possessor. To me it looks
rather like a clumsy contrivance for
bringing opinion to bear on government,
-fine, delicate, precise, as compared with
the old-time method of the sword; but
coarse, blundering, and insufficient when
compared with the pen, the fireside, and
the thousand subtile social influences,
penetrating, pervasive, purifying. A few
7




98          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
salient points of opinion the ballot-box
grasps and presents. A sort of rough,
average justice it dispenses, and is so far
a powerful influence for good; but all the
delicate shades of opinion and all the delicate grades of justice it misses and must
always miss. Voting is the prescribed,
legal, official way of expressing opinion,
but there are many other ways equally
powerful.
When it is argued that women should
not vote because they are already sufficiently represented by their husbands,
brothers, and sons, it may justly be replied that self-appointed representation is
no representation at all. If women, with
perfect freedom of choice, choose that
these men shall vote for them, they may
properly be said to be represented; but
for man to usurp their vote, and then call
himself their representative, is simply
falsehood and tyranny. Women might,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        99
with precisely the same show of reason,
claim the vote on the ground that men
would be sufficiently represented by their
mothers, wives, and daughters. But is
not that which is logically and technically
false actually true?  Women are not
technically represented by men; but is
not the opinion of the women of the
country really presented with as much
accuracy by the actual male vote as it
would be by the female vote? Does any
one suppose that if female suffrage were
established in any State to-day, the vote
would be materially changed? Would
the Republican party or the Democratic
party be larger in relation to its rival
than it is now? Is it not true that, as a
general thing, the women of a family are,
and always will be, of the same political
faith as the men of a family?  Or we
may put it the other way, and say the
men of a family always think as the




100         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
women do, —not necessarily from subserviency on either side, but from the
great natural law that birds of a feather
flock together. The contrary is sometimes assumed.  Female suffrage is opposed on the ground that it would disturb the harmony of families. That is,
women must not be allowed to speak,
because they will oppose men. This is
tyranny pure and simple. It shows that
the light parts on our maps are a delusion,
and that we are still in barbarism. But
I do not think the harmony of families
would be disturbed. We know that in
religion, which is equally the "sphere"
of both sexes, there is little disturbance.
Many husbands indifferent to religion
have wives who are interested in it, but
it is seldom that a positive aggressive
Universalist and a similar Orthodox are
yoked together.  When there is any
marked religious leaning, husband and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       101
wife usually lean one way. What difference does it make then whether the male
and female thought be represented by one
vote or two? Now the one Republican
vote is met by the one Democratic vote
of the neighbor over the way. Then
the two Republican votes will be met by
the two Democratic votes; but the result
will not be changed. There will be a
few Democratic wives of Republican
husbands, but there will be also a few
Republican wives of Democratic husbands.
Women in not voting are not unrepresented in the sense or to the extent to
which non-voting negroes are unrepresented. The African is a separate race
from the Caucasian, with its own ambitions and traditions. Either, without the
other, is an entire and a distinct race;
but the men and women of an American community are one race. Either sex




102         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
alone is but a fragment. Neither rises or
falls without taking the other with it.
The male vote does not represent male
thought alone; it is the product of both
male and female thinking. The life of
our men and women is constantly and
inextricably intertwined; in the house,
in the church, in the assembly, in work
and worship and recreation, they are
inseparable companions, every moment
giving and receiving influence. They
are so closely joined that their reciprocal
relations are the most powerful and important relations of life. So the man
represents the woman because he needs
must; and he is equally represented by
the woman. In any community the character of either sex may be inferred from
that of the other. The very laws that
bear so unjustly on woman represent
not only a man's thought of woman, but
woman's thought of herself If the wo



WOMAN'S WRONGS.       103
men of Massachusetts, or of New York,
or of any State where there are unjust
laws, should rise in a body as women
and demand the repeal of those laws,
they would be repealed. Strong as are
love of power, and the might of brute
force, and the greed of gain, there is
no man and no law that can stand
out against the concentrated will of
women. It is because the mass of women do not know what the laws are, or
do not care, that the laws stand. The
improvement in laws respecting women
since the Woman's Rights agitation commenced shows what can be done even
by a few women without the ballot.
This no more militates against the vote
of women than against the vote of men;
but, if true, it shows that, when either
sex votes, the other does in some sense
vote with it. It is not the legislators
alone, it is the Woman's Rights women




104        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
who have been at work repealing old
laws and enacting new. Let the women
of America make up their minds what
laws they want, and they will have them,
and may laugh at the ballot.
It is utterly irrational to have scores
and hundreds of illiterate foreigners, just
naturalized, go to the polls and send one
of their own number to make laws for
the nation, while an educated and intelligent woman is not allowed to cast a
vote to keep him at home. But I see
no measure intended to keep the ignorant man away from the polls; only a
proposition to enable him to bring his
ignorant wife with him. We are not
planning to order up a reserved force of
intelligence to bear upon unintelligence;
for the unintelligence is to order up its
reserves just as freely; and the two reserves must pound away at each other, leaving the original forces precisely




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        105
where they were before. Nor is it true
in politics, as in war, that the two
trained and intelligent allies are more
than a match for their untrained opponents. Patrick's vote has precisely the
same power as Mr. Percy Howard's, and
Bridget's will count for just as much
as Mrs. Percy Howard's; and in everything except the vote intelligence has
full play now. Nay, if there is any
advantage, I believe it is on the side of
Patrick. It is easier to command the
vote of the ignorant in a body for the
wrong, than that of the wise in a body
for the right.
If women say all this is speculation
and irrelevant, that they have a right
to vote and wish to exercise it, the argument is valid. The burden of proof
lies with those who deny the existence
and the exercise of this right. I deny
neither, but only attempt to show that it




106         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
is a subordinate and comparatively insignificant matter.
How will the possession of the ballot
affect in any way the vexed question
of work and wages? One orator says:
"Shall Senators tell me in their places
that I have no need of the ballot, when
forty thousand women in the city of
New York alone are earning their daily
bread at starving prices with the needle?"
But what will the ballot do for those
forty thousand women when they get it?
It will not give them husbands, nor make
their thriftless husbands provident, nor
their invalid husbands healthy. They
cannot vote themselves out of their dark,
unwholesome sewing-rooms into counting-rooms and insurance offices, nor have
they generally the qualifications which
these places require. The ballot will not
enable them to do anything for which
their constitution or their education has




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       107
not fitted them, and I do not know of
any law now which prevents them from
doing anything for which they are fitted,
except the holding of government offices.
I can think of no other occupation which
the right of suffrage will open to woman,
and of public officers the number must
always be, in proportion to the population, insignificant. If, as is affirmed, politics is "out of her sphere," if, as I should
say, and as I certainly believe, the nature
of woman inclines her to private and
domestic, rather than to public life, the
women who will fill the higher offices
will be very few; and, after the subordinate offices are filled, the bulk of the
female population will still remain to be
provided for. It could hardly be otherwise without calamity. Says a female
writer: "How many doors to remunerative employments would be thrown
open to woman if she had the ballot!




108         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
How politicians would interest themselves in finding places for her!"  But
I can only say, far distant be that day!
If the possession of the ballot is to enlist woman in the great army of officeseekers, it will be a disastrous possession
both to herself and the state. I cannot look upon such a sentiment from a
woman without dismay. Are women to
be elevated by becoming entangled with
politicians and intriguing for places?
Are men thus elevated?    Is it generally considered a creditable and honorable employment for men to be hanging
upon the skirts of Congressmen? Finding places for her! I trust the ballot,
if it does anything, will enable woman
to command place for herself. I trust
that the mischievous doctrine that places
are to be found for persons, and not persons for places, will receive no countenance from women. The enormous losses




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       109
in purse and reputation already sustained
by the country from the incompetence
and dishonesty of her servants are sufficiently appalling. So far as women
have any influence, let them teach that
the honor, the prosperity, the resources
of the country are a sacred trust, to be
committed to the most worthy, not a
huge treasure-trove to be plundered by
the most needy and greedy. For women,
if office they are to have, I pray let office always seek them, but let them
never seek office.
Is it said that the impetus given to
woman by the social elevation consequent on the possession of the ballot
will act in every direction, will quicken
all her energies, will impel her into a
thousand paths which now she never
dreams of entering, and will give her an
importance in the eyes of men which will
effectually secure her from their oppression?




110         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
But how is this work to be wrought?
Does the possession of the ballot really
mark any practical social elevation for
women? Will they stand, either in their
own view or in that of men, any higher?
Will they have more social influence, pr,
if their vote be the duplicate of the male
vote, will they have any separate political
influence? The vote in the hands of the
freedman marks a real change. He was
a slave; he is a man, and the ballot is
at once the sign and the staff of his freedom. But women are free-born. They
have an acknowledged, or at least an uncontested right to form and to express
opinions on every subject, in every way
that man has, save one. Much real power
of expression, much actual influence, they
possess which men do not. They have
no consciousness of inferiority. Those
women who are wise and thoughtful,
who understand politics, political and his



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        ll
torical, and who comprehend situations,
are too high to be degraded by the absence of the ballot. Classing them with
idiots does not make them idiots. The
classification fixes the status of the classifiers, not of the classified. Their rank
and power in society, and their selfrespect, will not be touched by suffrage.
The influence of any woman's vote is
slight compared with that of her voice.
As for the feeble and frivolous women,
-the women who are given over to
trivialities, who know and care nothing
for politics, and reckon their ignorance
an accomplishment,-will the ballot raise
them up into dignified human beings?
I hope so. It is, indeed, almost the only
ground of hope; it is almost the only
direction in which there seems to be a
prospect of any definite advantage' from
female suffrage; but I fear not. If women can live in the midst of the deep,




112         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
strong excitement of the times, if their
ears can be filled with the discussion of
questions which affect the honor and
safety of the country, and yet brain
and heart remain untouched, there is
reason to fear that the franchise will
fail to enfranchise them. All this is no
reason for withholding it. I only intimate that such withholding cannot be
considered the cause of the apathy which
prevails, and that the bestowal of the
ballot will hardly dispel the apathy. It
is only that the ballot has no power
to elevate those who are unworthy to
hold it. The "mobs and rowdies" have
long held the ballot, but are no less mobs
and rowdies.   The ballot neither elevates nor depresses. It takes its character from its possessor.
What incitement to honor, profit, education, do women miss in missing the
ballot? What barrier will it remove,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        113
what stimulus present? The brilliant
prizes of life are already open to female
competition. There are still unequal
laws, but not so many, or so severe, as to
prevent any woman's becoming whatever
she has power to become in any walk of
life except the political.  Within her
grasp lies all the freedom which she has
the nerve to secure. Prejudice itself has
softened down into an insipidity which
is no obstacle to a really robust soul.
There may be petty jealousies to impede
and annoy, but these the ballot will not
remove; and these excellence, without
the ballot, will remove. Art, literature,
science, theology, medicine,-all lie in
her manor, but how largely are they
left uncultivated! Miss Dickinson has
had a career more brilliant than that of
most men, but she stands almost alone
upon the platform. Miss Hosmer's position is honorable and secure, but her
8




114         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
followers are few. Mrs. Stowe has left
all men far behind her, but the female
story-writers are no better than they
were before Uncle Tom came, and
spoke, and conquered.  What has the
ballot to do with such women? It can
give them no more money, for they already command the highest market-price.
It can give them no social standing, for
they rank first now. Does the want of
it keep any one from adopting their career? I venture to say that there is
not at this moment in the whole country a woman who is held back from
public speaking, or from any of the finer
or higher arts, for lack of voting. If
women held to-morrow the right of suffrage, there would not be any more
female lawyers, preachers, artists, doctors, than there are to-day. The opponents of female suffrage think otherwise.
Strongly declaring that these things are




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       115
repugnant to womanhood, they profess
to believe that no sooner is woman absolutely free than she at once rushes
into them; that is, the moment nature
has scope, it turns upon itself. But I
believe that women do, and always will,
of their own choice, prefer seclusion to
publicity; for they have now sufficient
freedom of choice to indicate this. There
is nothing now to hinder a woman from
taking charge of a church, if she and the
church wish it. Indeed, women to-day
hold pastorates, and no one molests them.
Probably there is not a village or a city
in New England where a woman would
not be listened to respectfully, and given
full credit for all her wit and wisdom.
Let any woman, who is moved to address
a public assembly, announce such an
intention, and she will have a larger
audience than a man of similar ability,
and she will have at least an equally




116         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
appreciative hearing. If she can sustain herself, she will be sustained by the
public.
Is it said that women are not yet
educated to fill these public positions,
and therefore they do not come forward?
But every school, except the highest, is
open to girls now; and even the doors
of colleges are beginning to creak on
their hinges. The self-same day on which
women wish to go to college, they will
go. While men are hesitating, colleges
are founding for women; but if a force
of sixty girls, well fitted for college,
should beleaguer old Harvard to-day,
they would compel her to capitulate.
Nay, if twenty girl-graduates of high
schools should knock at her doors for
admission, those doors might groan and
grate harsh thunder, but they would
swing open, and let them in. Meanwhile, I suppose our high schools are




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        117
quite equal to the colleges of fifty years
ago, so that girls now may have as good
an education as their grandfathers, and
really their grandfathers made a very
respectable figure.
I am willing to admit that our girls
generally are not half educated, but I fail
to see how the ballot is responsible for
the deficiency. This is no reason why
the ballot should be refused them, but it
is a reason why they need not be listless
and miserable without it. It is a reason
why we may not attribute our lack of
female orators, artists, writers, and speakers to its absence.
Still we have not reached the masses,
-the women who have no inward, irresistible bent to anything, who have no
ambition for a career, but who must earn
their own living, who, while the leaders
are conquering all opposition, all circumstances, still remain, thirty-nine thousand




118        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
and five hundred out of forty thousand,
for whose sake the ballot is demanded,
and whose fortunes the ballot is expected
to create. We have as yet found no answer to the question, What will the ballot
do for them? A thousand employments
it will give them, say its advocates, but
they do not specify ten. Indeed, I cannot
find one. Is it, in fact, the want of the
ballot that keeps them at starving prices,
any more than it is the want of the ballot that keeps them back from art and
science? I think not. All suffering is
pitiable, but I cannot spend all my pity
on these forty thousand. I pity myself.
I pity the twice forty thousand women
in New York who are annoyed, hindered, and injured by the incapacity of
foreign servants that do not know the
difference between a castor and a tureen,
or between truth and falsehood; but
whose lives might grow smooth and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       119
peaceful through the advent of forty
thousand intelligent American servants.
These forty thousand women are starving
over their needles, but if a busy housemother wants a plain dress made, she
must pay ten dollars for the work, bespeak it a month beforehand at that,
and submit to whatever abstraction of
pieces the dress-maker or her apprentices
choose to make. Not to speak of dressmaking, it is no easy matter to secure
really good plain sewing; and really good
plain sewing, so far as I know, always
commands good pay. Why then do not
these women who are starving over the
needle make fine dresses for twenty dollars, instead of coarse trousers for twenty
cents? Why do they not become milliners and mantua-makers, and earn a fortune and an independent position, instead
of remaining slop-makers, earning barely
a living, and never rising above a ser



120        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
vile and cringing dependence? It is because they have not the requisite skill or
money; but of these they cannot vote
themselves a supply.  Here is a girl
who wants some other work than sewing. She goes to a counting-room, and
is offered, by way of trial, a package
of letters to copy. The work is expected to occupy about a week, and she
is to be paid twenty-five dollars. She
brings back the letters, copied in a clear,
round hand, but so carelessly and inaccurately that her work is worthless.
Here is a pretty, bright young woman,
engaged with a roomful of companions
in a similar work, and actually boasting
that her employers "cannot do anything
with us. They make rules that we are
to be here at such times, and to leave the
room only at such times, and do only such
and such things; but we will do just as
we like"; and I am not surprised by and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       121
by to hear that there is trouble brewing,
nor do I see how the right of suffrage is
to remove the trouble. There are so
many things to be taken into the account,
that one has need of great caution in
forming opinions; but it seems to me
that the great and simple cause of the
low wages paid to women is the low work
they produce. They are equal only to
the coarse, common labor; they get only
the coarse, common pay, and there are
such multitudes of them that their employer has everything his own way. The
moment they rise to a higher grade of
work, the crowd thins, and they become
masters of the situation. It may not be
their fault that they are not skilled artisans, but I suppose trade takes into account only facts, not causes. I am not
now  exculpating or inculpating those
who grind the faces of the poor. I am
not speaking of them at all.  I desire




122         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
and design to look at the question solely
from the woman's point of view. The
laws of supply and demand are just as
rigorous as if the brutal and profane
head-shopman were a wooden automaton.
There are a few employers who modify
them by moral laws; but to the great
mass work is worth just what it can be
got for, and so long as work can be
got at starving prices, living prices will
not be paid. What can the ballot do
here? Nothing but mischief. The relations between employer and employed
the law seldom touches but to disturb.
"Hands off" is all we want of government, -its own hands and all others.
Freedom, not fostering, is its aim, — or
fostering only through freedom. Only
so far as government continually tends
to non-government, continually tends to
relegate its power to the individual, to
decrease itself and to increase the citizen,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       123
is it performing the true function of
government.
But if women are prevented from establishing themselves in business through
want of means, they need not on that
account work at starving prices. I suspect that every one of those forty thousand women could find a comfortable
home in New York, —a home in which
she would have plenty of wholesome
food and sufficient shelter, and in which
she could earn besides two or three dollars a week, if she would accept the
home. The work would be more healthful and far less exhaustive than the starvation sewing. Household service is
always in demand. A woman needs no
capital to enter upon it. Even skill is
not indispensable. There are thousands
of families to which, if an intelligent, virtuous, and ordinarily healthful woman
should go and say, "I have been starving




124         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
with my needle, and I desire now to try
housework. I know very little about it,
but I have determined to devote myself
to it, and am resolved to become mistress
of it," she would be welcomed. Here, by
exercising those virtues and graces which
every human being ought to exercise,by being faithful, good-humored, and efficient,-she could speedily become an
honored and valued member of the family,
and secure herself a home that would last
as long as the family held together. She
could make herself as useful to the family
as the family is to her. Where is the
sense in a woman's starving because she
has no food in her hands, when a woman is starving by her side because she
has no hands for her food? I feel indignant when I hear these multiplied stories
of wholesale destitution. I am disposed
to say to these women: If you choose to
stay at home and perish, rather than go




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       125
into your neighbor's kitchen and supply
your wants, do so; but do not appeal
to those for pity from whom you refuse
employment.   I know there are many
who are tied to their own wretched
homes; but if those who are unencumbered would resort to the kitchens of the
rich, it would relieve the stress of competition, those who remain would command
a better price for their labor, and starvation would be permanently stopped. I
do not say this because housework is
woman's sphere, but because it is honest
work that calls her, and any honest work
in her power is better than starvation,
and more dignified than complaint and
outcry. If it were picking apples, or
gathering huckleberries, instead of housework, I should recommend that just the
same.  The case of the woman is precisely the case of the man. If a man
had palpable artistic genius, we should




126        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
earnestly desire for him artistic employment; but if he could by no means succeed in securing it, we should certainly
advise him to chop wood, however disagreeable wood-chopping be to him, rather than die; and if he chose to shiver
and starve at his home, rather than
come and cut my wood, for want of
which I stand shivering, I should take
his starvation with great equanimity.
So with women. No one has a right to
tell women what they ought to do, to
dictate to them their. sphere. But when
women cry out that they are dying for
want of the ballot, we have a right to
say: Not so. Unquestionably you are
dying, and unquestionably you have not
the ballot; but the two do not stand in
the relation of effect and cause. Equally
without question you ought to have the
ballot; but it is not the ballot which
will raise you up from this sickness.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       127
I admit that there are serious drawbacks to household service, -some drawbacks of an honest self-respect, some
of a foolish self-disrespect, calling itself
pride. It is often said, that, if a woman
could be taken into a family on a footing of equality,-meaning chiefly, I find,
if she could sit at the family table,there would be less reluctance to domestic service. It is not reasonable to expect that an intelligent American woman
should be willing to consort with low
and ignorant foreigners. But it would
scarcely be hazardous to predict, that,
if intelligent American women would
go into American kitchens, they would
quickly drive out the unintelligent foreigners; and for the rest, the matter of
equality is simply trivial.  Social position adjusts itself where there is social
worth. The servant in the kitchen may
be wholly superior to the mistress in




128         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
the parlor, or she may be inferior; but
sitting together at table affects the question not at all. It may be requiring
more insight than we have a right to
expect, to ask the mass of women to see
this. But any one can see that the table
is often the only place where the family
can meet, and a stranger's presence destroys the confidence and freedom which
make the charm of family life. The family do not object to the servant's presence necessarily because she is not equal
to themselves, but because she is not
one of themselves. They are quite right.
Family seclusion can scarcely be too sacredly guarded; and the woman who
wishes to encroach upon it-who is so
blind that she cannot see that there is
anything to be encroached upon -shows
by that token her unfitness to share
it. There is, too, much less danger of
clashing when mistress and maid have




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       129
their orbits on different planes. Duties
are far more clearly defined, and relations far less complicated; and if the
maid have ability, she will gradually assume an almost commanding position in
the household. She will be less its servant than its friend, its care-taker, honored and prized beyond what money can
express.
But there is also, it must be admitted,
a well-grounded repugnance to household service because of the character
of the householders. There are women
who seem to have no suspicion that servants have any rights, tastes, or feelings
which mistresses are bound to respect.
They are exacting and petulant. They
make no allowance for human nature.
They take no thought for the comfort,
the health, or the welfare of their servants, but expect the servant to take
constant thought for theirs. It never
9




130         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
occurs to them that a servant has any
need of rest or recreation, of society or
sunshine. They consider the servant an
absolute dependant, and themselves ab
solute monarchs.  Perhaps there is no
remedy for this but to let such women
alone. And yet, at the worst, are the
selfishness and unreason of a mistress
worse than those of a master? Possibly.
More petty, constant, and irritating, perhaps, but not so brutal, so repulsive. At
the worst, are the small rooms, the close
kitchens, the constant calls, worse than
the long monotonous days spent over
the health- and heart-destroying needle?
But the worst cases are comparatively
few, though they bring all others into
bad odor. The actually good places are
not few, and the passable places are many,
and will be more, just as fast as good
women can be found to fill them. Let
intelligence and modesty and worth go




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      131
into the kitchen, and they must soon bring
intelligence and modesty and worth into
the parlor. There is also another advantage for young women: while all their
copying or shop-keeping has no peculiar
value except as a trade, housework is
an apprenticeship which may be very
useful to them in a different position.
They are not only gaining money, comfort, and independence, but they are fitting themselves for keeping their own
houses, if they shall ever have houses to
keep. With their one stone they are
hitting all the birds they will ever be
likely to have a chance at.
I do not mean to say that this backwardness about entering household service is entirely owing to indisposition.
Much, doubtless, is due to the fact that
supply does not know how to get at
demand. The women who are bending
over the needle are not able to be far




132         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
or clear sighted, and they see nothing
else to do but to live on from hand to
mouth. They cannot give up their sewing long enough to seek places. They
have no capital to live on while in
search of them. There is a pathos in
the fact that a single advertisement a
short time since, as I happen to know,
brought nearly three hundred answers;
and the advertiser secured, not only for
himself but for several friends, admirable domestic assistants.  This, at least,
is certain; in a country where the conditions of life are as equal as in ours,
and where the male population is always
in excess of the female, there is not the
slightest need of any woman's starving
for want of remunerative work. But the
irregularity or absence of communication between those who want work done
and those who want to do work, is a
matter for individual enterprise, rather




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        133
than  for legislative enactment.  The
establishment of a bureau to supply the
defect, and bring the two pressing wants
face to face, would seem to be a fine object of philanthropic activity, and very
likely of business ability. To wait for
the ballot to do this is worthy of the
subjects of an Oriental absolutism, not
of the citizens of a great Republic.
What can the ballot do towards equalizing wages, where work is already equalized without affecting wages, as is not
unfrequently the case? There are shops
of the same sort, on the same street, with
male clerks in one and female clerks in
another, where the former work fewer
hours and receive higher wages than the
latter. There is a wrong, an injustice,
but the law cannot interfere. It cannot
force a haberdasher to pay ten dollars
for service which he can secure for six.
Moreover, the question of female clerk



134         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ship is not yet settled. There are conscientious, intelligent, and obliging shopkeepers, who say that female clerks are
not satisfactory. Their strength is not
equal to the draughts made upon it.
They are not able to stand so long as
clerks are required to stand. They have
not the patience, the civility, the tact
that male clerks have. I do not know
how this is; I only.say these things are
alleged. I have never noticed any especial incivility in female clerks, and I see
no objection to their sitting when they
have nothing to do. But the persons
who hire are the persons to require and
to define service, and if they do not
choose girls, or do not value them so
highly as boys, how can legislation help
it? All the voting in the world can
never add a cubit to a woman's stature.
Here also the rule of quantity and quality comes into play, and regulates wages




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       135
with a high hand. So long as ten girls
stand before the door for every one girl
that stands behind the counter, ready
to take the place which she relinquishes
for the self-same wages that she disdains,
there is very little use in talking; but
superior business qualifications are recognized and rewarded. Waiting in the
office of one of our large business establishments not long since, I observed
a young woman open the door and report
a telegraphic question to the proprietor.
He gave her an oral answer to be transmitted by telegraph, and when she had
gone he said to me: "There is not another person in the house to whom I
would trust a telegram unwritten. She is
sure to be accurate. An intelligent woman is more intelligent than an intelligent
man." I said: "How do her wages cornpare with those of a man?"  "We pay
her just as we should pay a man."




136         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
But teaching, which is admitted to be
a peculiarly feminine employment, and
which under male regulations is attended
with most flagrant injustice, is chiefly a
public concern. It belongs to the State,
it is adjusted by the ballot, and its injustice is therefore a proper subject of
legislative control.  That there is injustice it is hardly possible to deny. Not
only is a woman paid less than a man
for the same service, but in a public
school a woman will be substituted for a
man on the ground that she is a better
teacher; her superiority to him is recognized as the cause of her appointment
over him; and yet she will receive only
about two thirds of his salary. A woman
teaches in a high school, side by side with
a man, and knows that she does more work
and better work than he, and that she is
acknowledged to do it, and yet receives
less than one half, often not more than




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       137
one third, as much as he receives. Will
female suffrage remedy this? If it could
be changed by voting, would the votes of
women change it? Is there any reason
to suppose that women would be any
more forward than men in paying high
wages to a woman? Are women, as a
general thing, more ready than.men to
do justice to a woman? I fear not.
There are women who deprecate this
state of things, but there are also men.
The mass of men are willing it should be
as it is, but so are the mass of women. I
think, if the women of a country village
were to decide by vote whether the
schoolmistress in summer should have as
much a month as the schoolmaster in
winter, the money coming from their
own, that is, their husbands' purses, they
would vote, No, in about the same proportion as men now vote it. If the women in a city ward were asked wheth



138         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
er the female assistants in their high
schools should have as much as the
male, they also would largely answer, No.
It is partly because women have not sufficient esprit de corps to stand up for
one another to any extent.    Women's
love of men is so much stronger than
their love of justice, that they would
go wrong with men, rather than right,
against them. So far as this is the result of a false education, of God-is-thylaw-thou-mine teachings, it is to be deprecated. So far as it is the natural arrangement of things, it is beneficial. Certainly
that would be a calamitous cause which
should array the two sexes against each
other. I trust we shall never be reduced
to such extremities that women must
band together to extort justice from
men, as the bold barons extorted Magna
Charta from King John. It would, in
fact, be practically impossible, for the




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      139
idea underlying the relation of the two
sexes is the idea of unity; that of individuals of either sex is separation; and
this instinct of unity will always keep
men and women working with and for
each other, though they may often work
wrong. So much the more reason is
there that they should learn to work
right,- that their mutual helpfulness
should not be perverted into mutual hindrance, -that tyranny on the one side
and subserviency on the other should
not usurp the moral support which is due
to each sex from the other. As it is,
women have no better friends than some
men, and no worse foes than many women.
Another reason for supposing that female suffrage will not change the status
is that women do not seem generally to
quarrel with the status. They are just
as free to speak their minds now as they




140         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
will be to vote their minds by and by;
and except from teachers and their immediate friends, I do not recollect hearing any remonstrance against the inequality of the wages of teachers. Women generally look upon it with apparent
indifference. It scarcely excites remark,
and an exposition of the wrong meets
only a languid assent.  Even teachers
themselves usually take very little notice
of it. Girls accept summer schools and
summer wages without protest or comment, and are only too glad of them.
But few teachers, and those of the highest character, express any dissent.
What would be the use? The State, like
any private employer, pays market prices
for its work, and the machinery works all
the more smoothly because people do not
know the difference between a good article and a poor one. If a clergyman
preaches dull sermons, or a tailor makes




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       141
an ill-fitting coat, —if a doctor loses patients and a lawyer cases, - their sin finds
them out at once. Not so with a poor
teacher. He may go on in his poorness
for years, and never be found out. If a
teacher is popular, his employers are satisfied; if he is unpopular, they are dissatisfied. The best teacher will always
be liked by his pupils, but an unpopular
teacher may be vastly better than a popular one. The popular qualities may be
joined with vices of character whose debasing influences will go with the pupils
through life, and the unpopular qualities
may be allied with sterling virtues whose
effect will be equally strong and durable.
People do not consider their children of
so much importance as what they call
business. Women who will not let a
week, scarcely a day, pass without inspecting their kitchens; men who keep
every branch of their business under




142         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
their own eye, will let their children
go to school by the year together without any personal acquaintance with the
teachers under whom they are placed, or
any personal knowledge of the method
pursued in their education. In what is
really the most important concern of
their lives, they trust entirely to others.
The co-operation, even the communication, between parents and teachers is
generally next to nothing.
As a timely illustration of the condition of things, let me state a fact which
once came under my observation.
In a New England city somewhat
famous for its schools, it was publicly
announced that a professor of elocution
would give a course of lectures to the
teachers. At the time appointed, a
goodly number of teachers were assembled; and a member of the school committee, a clergyman, called the meeting




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       143
to order, and said to them, in substance:
"We obtained Professor Blank's services
to instruct the teachers, because we felt
you needed it. Could you have heard
all that was said by the committee regarding the reading in your schools, at
the time this matter was under consideration, you would not feel flattered.
The committee wish they had it in their
power to insist on the attendance of
every teacher at these lectures. As one
of the grammar masters remarked, if
any teacher does not feel sufficiently interested to attend, her place had better
be filled by one who does! Let me say,
though we have it not in our power to
insist on every one's attending, yet the
committee expect every teacher to attend, and if there are those who do not,
they will be remembered!"
I think that the existence in a community of any correct idea of the teach



144         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
er's character, position, and functions
would have prevented such a display of
"plantation manners."  It would make it
impossible for a community to choose, as
the medium of communication between
itself and its teachers, a man capable
of the combined churlishness and cowardice of this clergyman.   Or, if he
should creep into office, it would make
it impossible for him to exercise his cowardice and churlishness by singling out
the female teachers for insult, while
adroitly exonerating by implication the
male teachers, who, as it was his business to know, are equally responsible.
It would shed, even through his brain,
some glimmering consciousness that a
body of teachers whom it was fit thus
to address were persons totally unfit to
be intrusted with the education of children, and that therefore the blame
of their shortcomings would rest with




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      145
the community that employed them;
and it would thus prevent a good deed
from being barbarously marred in the
doing.
If, then, a good teacher should refuse
anything less than a man's salary, she
would simply be discarded, and a substitute found. The substitute might be
inferior, but her employers would never
know it.  How can a workman, with
any expectation of success, demand high
wages on the ground of high work, when
his employer does not know the difference between high work and low? More
than this, employers value high work so
little that they do not even demand the
external conditions without which high
work is not to be expected.  Public
opinion does not demand that female
teachers should be educated, and in consequence a large proportion of them are
uneducated. That is, the intellectual
10




146         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
training of children is committed to
persons who are themselves almost entirely deficient in what would properly
be called intellectual training. If a person is conversant with the branches which
he is called upon to teach, it is enough.
The effect upon mind and heart which
education gives is not held in estimation.
A high-school teacher must know Latin
and mathematics and history, not because
he is any broader and better man for
the knowledge, but because he must
teach these studies. A primary-school
teacher does not teach them. So a girl
who does not know enough to enter as
pupil the lowest class of a high school
may enter the primary school as teacher.
Parents are quite satisfied to intrust their
young children to persons who earn no
more, and who receive no more, than the
cook in the kitchen. That is, it is considered fitting and economical to consign




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       147
children at the most susceptible age -
at the age when they are the least influenced by books and most by personal
contact with the teacher-to the care of
an ignorant and almost unknown person.
At the time when the teacher's character
has the most influence, it is considered of
the least importance; while, when girls
and boys are pretty thoroughly moulded,
it is thought necessary to employ teachers with some pretensions to learning.
There needs a different and a deeper
change than any proposed by the ballot.
It needs to be understood that the instruction of children in their early years
is at least as important and as exacting
as that in their later years. It needs to
be understood that their early education
requires not only as peculiar a fitness, but
as elaborate a preparation, as their later
education.  If a woman has natural
skill and tact, she needs education to




148         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
give weight to her teaching and material
for her tact. Her work in the primary
school exhausts just as much vital force,
makes just as large a drain upon her
intellectual resources, and should receive
just as high remuneration, as work in
the high school. To raise the standard
of wages, without raising the standard
of qualifications, would be but premature reform.. A great many female teachers already receive more than they are
worth. They are not fit for their places.
It is not their fault. They are faithful
enough, as far as they know. Parents
employ them and are content with what
service they render; but, compared with
what teachers ought to be and to do,
they are good for nothing. The same
is true of men, - though perhaps not so
largely. The proportion of male teachers who have received a liberal education is very much larger than that of




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       149
female teachers. But if it were smaller,
it would make no difference. That a
male teacher is bad, does not make a
female teacher good. That a man is receiving ten times as much as he is worth,
does not make a woman worth what she
receives. That a woman is worth far
more than a man, does not make her
worth what she would be if she were
educated. Let the standard be raised,
and the number of competitors is at once
diminished, and we are in the line of
higher wages. But I have no expectation of any palpable or permanent relative increase in the wages of female
teachers until female resources are multiplied. When women are able to refuse
low wages, they will be offered high
wages. So long as they are glad of ever
so small remuneration, they will be sure
to get it. When female teachers are so
good, so strong, so facile, so able to turn




150         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
their hands to something else, that if
they cannot get good wages for teaching
they will follow an occupation in which
they can get good wages, the work is
done. They will need no ballot to be
in demand. As it is, they are at the
mercy of their employers. If a girl is
ever so disgusted with her two or three
hundred dollars a year, she does not
know which way to turn to get more.
She must take what people choose to
pay; and will people ever choose to pay
more than they are obliged to pay?
The difference in the number of occupations pursued by men and those pursued by women has less practical effect
on women's wages than mere statistics
indicate. The men who are disposed of
by employments not open or not possible to women, must be pretty well
matched by the women who are engaged in the employments which ar'e or



WOMAN'S WRONGS.      151
dinarily involved in marriage, and which
are equally shut to men. So that the
number of women and of men left to
compete for the employments common
to both cannot be so very unequal; and
their wages would not naturally be very
dissimilar. Nor can the existing dissimilarity be owing to the greater number of
women than of men in the country, for
there are by actual count more men than
women. So far as it arises from an unequal distribution of women, the inequality may be remedied by bureaus of employment, by individual energy, by private philanthropy, by anything except
law. An error in the calculation may be
that marriage does not entirely withdraw
women from the competitive employments. It ought to do so. Every married woman, especially every mother,
ought to be able to devote her whole
working time to her domestic duties.




152        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
The care and labor of a family, with or
without children, are enough for any one
woman. Every married woman who, not
forced by natural taste and aptitude, but
by outward necessity, the res angusta domi, engages in money-earning occupation, is a monument of her husband's incompetency, - always excepting illness,
which is incompetency, indeed, though
perhaps of the least reprehensible sort.
Any person with a just idea of what is
due to a family and from a family knows
that the family occupation is absorbing
and exclusive. The danger indeed is
that it will absorb that to which it hag
no right, and exclude that which is its
sacred duty; but in the matter of employment it bears, like the Turk, no
brother near the throne. Still I do not
know that a law could be passed prohibiting married women from binding shoes,
or knitting sale stockings, or teaching




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       153
school. We must take things as they
are, bending them always towards the
right. As things are, if women would
make a wise choice of work, and would
thoroughly fit themselves for the positions which they choose, I see no reason
why they should not materially mend
their condition. If the women whose
natural endowments fit them, and whose
natural taste leads them, to be teachers
would fortify their endowments by corresponding acquisitions, would correct
and cultivate their taste by a long
course of intellectual training,-if the
women whose bent is to book-keeping
and business would take pains to understand book-keeping and business, would
carry to them the same attention and
devotion which men carry,-if the women to whom housekeeping is of itself
no more distasteful than school-keeping,
who would never think of declining mar



154         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
riage because it involved housekeeping,
but would rather look forward with pleasure to that feature of it, - if they would
put away false pride and keep a house
not their own, would not a relief be felt
in every part of the social system?
When it is found that the women who
have not the power or the taste to become trained and valued teachers have
become trained housewives, or skilful
seamstresses, or accomplished laundresses,
or sweetmeat-makers, or strawberry-fanciers, or counting-room clerks, and the
supply of teachers is somewhat scant,
there will be no drawing back on account
of a few hundred dollars more or less.
And the laundresses and housewives will
have a less exhaustive, a more satisfactorylJife, and a more remunerative occupation, than they had as poor teachers.
Does not this require a change other
than the ballot can accomplish,-other




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       155
indeed than the ballot proposes to accomplish,-but a change entirely possible of
accomplishment without the ballot?
Meanwhile, let the underpaid teachers
console themselves with the reflection
that they are doing the community ten
times more harm by bad work than the
community is doing them by bad pay!
What will woman's vote do to reform
our criminal code?   Everything, say
some. Vice, if we may trust these rosyhued visions, is to disappear when women
hold the ballot. I anticipate no such
result. Vice is too deeply rooted in
men's hearts to be extirpated by any
such summary process. Crime is hardly repressed by legislation; vice, never.
That attempts will be made I do not
doubt. -Men have made them to.some
extent. Women, with a moral sense more
keen in some directions, if more obtuse
from want of cultivation in others, will




156         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
renew the attempt with a more eager
effort, and doubtless with a temporary
and local success. The royal road to a
desired object will seem to be legislation, and legislation we shall have in
galore. But the principles of human nature, which are the principles of Divine
truth, are unchangeable, and if we do not
work in line with them  our work will
come to naught. Every human law not
founded on natural law must sooner or
later fall to the ground. If it is a natural
law that no man shall interfere with his
fellow except to prevent his interference
with his fellows, a law establishing such
interference will be both useless and
harmful. If moral ends can be attained
by moral means alone, legislative enactments will be none the less impertinent
and invalid because they are framed from
benevolent motives. A knowledge of
the successes and failures of other nations




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       157
and ages would be of great service to us
in solving the problems of our own. A
knowledge of political and social principles would do much towards guiding
our thinking into right channels. But
such knowledge is the very last to be
found. Here the principle of representation is carried out with marvellous
fidelity. The dense popular ignorance,
not only of the nature but of the
existence of such a science as political
economy, is ably and fully represented in
every legislative assembly, State and
National. The result is visible in laws
that perish with the using; but often not
till they have spread derangement and
distress through every class on which
they are brought to bear. We try experiments on abandoned theories, with an
alacrity and a confidence which imply a
most touching ignorance of the fact that
some points are settled.  It is hardly




158         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
probable that women are any better
qualified for legislation than men. As
they have never been held to public
responsibility for their opinions, they
have perhaps taken less trouble to form
correct ones; as there has always been
in the inferior male mind a certain repugnance to the possession by women
of any political knowledge, and therefore
a certain odium attached to such possession, it may well be that women are at
present even less fitted to legislate wisely
than many men. More unfit than many
men they cannot be, for multitudes appear to have no single qualification to
insure wise legislative action. From the
access of women to the ballot-box, therefore, we may look for a sword before
peace.
Nothing need be feared from this. It
is natural that woman should have part
in government, and therefore the conse



WOMAN'S WRONGS.       159
quence must be good. Moreover, if the
ballot ever educates, it will educate
women. If women are not far enough
advanced to be improved by it, who is?
But though it will be better in the end,
because it is the only rational way of
doing things, at first we shall have rather more crude law-making, rather more
legislative journey-work, than we have
now. Women will attempt to sweep
away vice with the besom of law, and
with apparent success.  But a reaction
will follow, and into the empty, swept,
and garnished house will enter seven
devils more wicked than the first. Then
the evil will correct itself, and so the
pendulum will swing back and forth, till
the united trials of men and women will,
we hope, teach them that the motives
and the character of law-makers will not
give efficiency to that law which is not
founded on the eternal principles of na



160         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ture and truth.  Men and women together will be slow to learn it, but
they will learn it a little faster than
either would alone. Now it is easy to
charge every deviation of the ship from
her course to the want of a womanly
hand at the helm; but when the womanly hand is there, and we see the ship
still veering from her track, we shall
begin to believe that the trouble lies
elsewhere as well, and. enter upon an
honest and earnest search for its cause.
I do not mean that with woman's vote
we shall do any worse than we do now.
We must, at least after a while, do better.
But we shall do so little better, and that
little so slowly, that long-time opponents
of female suffrage will wag their heads
and cry, Aha! Aha! and imagine that
they have fully established their reputation for superior, far-sighted wisdom.
This is of small account. The fact will




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       161
remain that the one bone of contention,
the one root of bitterness between man
and woman, will be removed. This of
itself, even if no principle of justice were
involved, might seem-enough to warrant
the extension of the suffrage to woman,
and is a result to be counted on with
more certainty than any immediate improvement of the laws. If men believe
as firmly as they profess to believe that
they are doing the best which can be
done, I should think they would, like the
unjust steward, make friends of the inammon of unrighteousness, and say to women: "You fancy you can do so much
better than we. Just try it. Take the
ballot and convert the world at once to
goodness and justice." So long as women
have not the ballot, they will fondly
picture the things which they might
accomplish with it. Give them the ballot,
that they may see for themselves how
11




162         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
little it can do. Give them the ballot,
that they may have all the power there
is, and learn its weakness. Give them
the ballot, that we may have decided
what is the nature of woman, and so
reconcile or destroy all conflicting theories of woman's sphere, and learn once
for all by her success or failure what
purpose her Maker had in her creation.
This we certainly never can learn so long
as woman either is, or believes herself
to be, held back by unjust restrictions.
Somewhat as President Buchanan
maintained that the South had no right
to go out of the Union, and the North
had no right to hinder it; so, as a woman I would never ask the ballot, and
as a man I would never refuse it.
Female suffrage appears to be a foregone conclusion; it remains for us to
prevent it so far as possible from being a
conclusion in which nothing is concluded.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       163
Right or wrong, England and America
seem tending towards universal suffrage,
and in fact, as in terms, universal suffrage must include female suffrage. Not
attempting or desiring to interfere with
those who would hasten our steps, I feel
more concerned that there should be
preparation for it. To me, female suffrage, in the form in which it is proposed, shares with universal suffrage,
though in a less degree, the character
of an experiment whose result is doubtful. Manhood suffrage has a noble ring
to it. But its warmest advocates do not
mean precisely what they say. No suffrage is meant to be absolutely universal,
absolutely unrestricted. Lunatics are denied it, notwithstanding that the point
where sanity ends and insanity begins is
often indeterminable. Foreigners are denied it, though no one questions that
Count Gasparin, on his arrival in Amer



164          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
ica, would know more of our political
philosophy, our practical tendency, and
national needs, than an ordinary Irish laborer after a five years' residence. Minors are denied it, but many a lad of
eighteen or fifteen, and not a few of
twelve years, understand the issues better, and are far more able to vote intelligently, than many-of our naturalized
citizens. Strictly speaking, then, no one
advocates universal suffrage. All are in
favor of limitations, and limitations which
must often be in their operations somewhat arbitrary, though they are meant to
follow, and do largely follow, the great
natural lines of distinction. There is
therefore nothing unnatural, nothing inconsistent, nothing unrepublican, in an
endeavor to restrict still further the suffrage. If society has the right to make
one restriction, it has the same abstract
right to make another. If it has the




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      165
right to say that men may vote at
twenty-one, but may not vote at twenty,
because it is judged that twenty-one is
on an average the earliest age at which
we may expect discretion, it is not inherently unreasonable and repugnant to
common sense and human nature to say
that a man shall not vote at twenty-one
unless he can read and write. The right
and the wrong of it depend upon the
nature, not upon the fact, of the restriction. Nor does there seem to be any
reason why restrictions upon the suffrage
should be of such a nature that mere
lapse of time, without any regard to
character, shall be sufficient to remove
them. I should be glad to see a man
required to give some proof of ability
before he is allowed to control society.
For the ballot does not mean simply
self-government; it is also government
of others. The vote of New York is not




166         WOMIAN'S WRONGS.
confined to regulating New York interests. It sends John Morrissey to Congress to make laws for the nation, and
may send him to the Court of Saint
James to represent the nation.    The
same authority which has a right to say
that a man who has been in State prison
for crime shall not exercise over others
the lordship of voting has a right to say
that a man who has not taken the trouble
to learn to read the law which forbids
crime and prescribes its penalty shall not
exercise such lordship. Surely in a country like ours inability to read and write
is as strong presumptive evidence of incompetency to exercise the right of suffrage as the fact of being only twenty
years old. I should be glad to go further,
and not only have the standard of qualification higher, but, notwithstanding the
antiquity of the idea, make the possession
of the ballot contingent upon the posses



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        167
sion of property. Property suffrage has
indeed an aristocratic and odious sound,
-beside manhood suffrage a mere materialistic tinkle; but government itself we
want chiefly for materialistic purposes,
chiefly to keep men from preying upon
one another, and so give ample room for
all idealism and all excellence to flourish.
Government deals very largely with property interests, and it seems as if those
who earn and dispense property are the
ones to understand best the laws which
control it. He who cannot manage it
for himself is hardly the one to manage
it for other people. The aristocracy of
property suffrage may be a very democratic aristocracy. In our country the
race is open to all. The competitors, as
a general thing, carry only such weights
as nature imposes. The goal is acknowledged to be fitting, and the laurels
worth the wearing. Hence there seems




168          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
to be no more generally accurate sign
of wisdom, thrift, practical ability, than
success here.  Undoubtedly there are
exceptions, but no more than there are
to the other rules. The standard need
not be high. We do not want a rich
man's government, but we do want a
wise, a judicious, a responsible man's
government; and nothing contributes
more to this than the possession of property which depends for its value chiefly
upon the nature of the government. The
poor man's fifties or hundreds at stake
make him as careful, as conservative, as
interested, as the rich man's thousands.
He will be just as alert against foolish
expenditure, just as restless under oppressive taxes. Certainly let the ballot be
put within reach of every industrious
person in any calling of life; let the condition of suffrage be such' that a non-fulfilment of the condition is presumptive




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       169
evidence of incapacity to exercise the
right. Who shall fix the standard? The
same authority that fixes it now. The
authority that grants to every tatterdemalion the right to vote because he'is
twenty-one years old may forbid the
man of twenty-one years to vote because
he is a tatterdemalion. The indiscriminate bestowal of the ballot makes the
ballot common and unclean. A restriction of age alone offers no stimulus to
improvement. A restriction of sex or
color is a barrier to improvement. No
incapacity retains the one restriction; no
capacity removes the other. I would
have the ballot made a noble and desirable possession, a sign of sagacity, of
ability, of worth, something to be striven
for, a guerdon as well as a power. And
when it is thus ennobled, let it be open
to all who can fulfil the conditions,men and women, black and white.




170        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
I think men do not dream how aggravated is the affront they put upon women in some of the arguments about
voting which they employ. I do not
mean such men as Dr. Todd alone, who
cannot open their mouths but to exasperate; but men who really know in many
respects what they are talking about, who
are capable of speaking on the subject
with candor and moderation, and not
without sense, but who are unhappily not
incapable of using arguments utterly
beneath the dignity of man or woman,
- arguments which, employed towards
themselves, they would be the first to
resent, and whose fallacy, employed on
any other theme, they would swiftly
detect and denounce. I mean such responses, to the women who claim right of
suffrage, as that women have plenty to
do at home without asking office; that
they had better do their own work well,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       171
before they ask to do men's; that if they
would teach poor women and their own
daughters to sew well and to cook well,
they would have a sufficiently broad field
for the exercise of their philanthropy and
all their powers, and would do far more
good to the country than by voting;
that if they persist in demanding their
rights so strenuously, they may get more
rights than they want,-the right to
stand in cars and to take outside seats
on coaches. These are the arguments of
savages, and fit to be addressed to savages, but they are unworthy of civilized
people. To attempt to deter women from
claiming what belongs to them by threatening to withhold something which does
not belong to them, is child's play, and
very small and mean play at that. To
ask women to relinquish a right and a
duty in exchange for a courtesy, is to
ask them to do what is dishonorable. If




172        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
voting be a right, yield it; if it be not
a right, withhold it; but to acknowledge
the right, and attempt to scare off or buy
off the claimant, is a process not adapted
to excite respect for the masculine character or confidence in the masculine wisdom.
If a man, robbed of his purse by a
highwayman, or kept out of his rightful
inheritance by an unscrupulous kinsman,
should seek justice from the law, how
would he like to be bidden by the judge,
Go home to your farm and your plough;
there you will find enough to do. You
will get far more money and respect by
teaching your boys how to plant and hoe
than you ever can by prosecuting lawsuits!" Nor would it tend to soothe his
feelings that the judge were himself the
highwayman. "I want justice," he would
say, "not advice. Your suggestions are
impertinent. Cease to wrong me before




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       173
you dare counsel me." So may the women who claim rights say to the men who
withhold them and counsel duties. This
is not argument; it is insult. There can
be no more brazen effrontery than for
men to attempt to dictate to women
their sphere. It is an assumption of Divine prerogative which can excite only
anger and bitterness. It is this unwarranted and contemptuous dictation which
gives to the woman's-rights struggle its
animosity and repulsiveness. Women
kept back from what they believe to be
their own, from what they can show as
good a title to as any man, are told to go
home and do housework. All that there
is of spirit in a woman rises up in defiance. What right have men to assume
such judgeship? Who made them interpreter between God and woman? Her
duty, her sphere, lies between herself
and her Maker. What she can do, and




174         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
what she chooses to do, she has a Divine
right to do, subject only to Divine limitations. She is no more under bonds to
do housework than is a man. If she
chooses and has the ability to get her
living in some other way, Whe has the
same right to do it that a man has.
A popular lecturer not long since declared that Anna Dickinson could make
as good a loaf of bread as any one,
and that there was nowhere a betterordered cottage than that over which
Lucy Stone presided. His motives were
good, and his statements may have been
adapted to the hardness of his hearers'
hearts, but he should never have condescended to make them. It was coming
down from the true position to pander
to a false principle. So far as lecturer
or audience was concerned, judging from
the newspaper report of the lecture, it
is no more Anna Dickinson's duty to




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      175
know how to make bread than it is Caleb
Cushing's. Whether Anna Dickinson can
make bread, or Lucy Stone keep house,
is the affair only of those persons for
whom it is the duty of the one to make
bread and of the other to keep house.
If Anna Dickinson chooses to deliver
lectures, and buy bread with the proceeds
instead of making it,-if Lucy Stone and
her husband choose that she shall deliver
lectures and hire a pair of hands to keep
their house,-it is altogether fitting and
proper. It is a thousand times more fitting and proper a way of keeping house
than the way which men not unfrequently adopt, and without rebuke, — namely,
marrying for it. Let us see every man
bound down to one specific trade before
we attempt to bind woman. Let us see
every boy constrained to raise wheat to
make bread with, before we constrain
every girl to make bread.




176        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
"The education of girls now-a-days is
extremely absurd," an honorable gentleman is reported in the morning paper to
have said at a meeting of the Social Science Association. " There is no sense in
having girls study Greek and Latin when
they cannot make good bread, pies, or
puddings"; and every girl of character
and individuality who read his words
vowed in her heart eternal hostility to
the making of bread, pies, and puddings,
a vow which she will faithfully keep
till some strong influence comes upon
her, and makes the distasteful work
pleasant. But meanwhile the contemptuous words have borne fruit of indignation and disdain towards the speaker,
when there might have been respect and
docility. Why will men destroy the advantage which their education, their position, and their sex give them, by these
foplish words?  Why will they be so




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       177
blind as not to see where the true
mischief and danger lie? Why do not
men say to women, and to those about
to become women, what they might say
with tenfold more effect than any woman's words would have,-why do they
not say, instead of those debasing sensual teachings which make woman a mere
waiter upon the gross necessities of man,
and which are only more disastrous
when they are accepted than when they
are rejected,-why do they not say, "Be
content to strive for nothing less than all
which a woman may become. Cease to
think that pettiness and frivolity and
insipidity are feminine accomplishments.
Cease to think it a beautiful, a graceful, a womanly thing to be a fool.
Strengthen the mind by study and the
body by exercise. Store your memory
with facts, and cultivate your judgment
by reasoning. Fit yourself for the place
12




178        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
which you select or accept. Be wife,
mother, teacher, nurse, what you will, but
be your best; and be always a woman first; be always higher than your
work. Remember always that you must
be before you can do. Scorn to contract your powers to the narrow circle
of your personal contact, but compre.
hend with your interest all that touches
welfare. Consider nothing human as foreign to you. Make home, so far as you
have or can have power, a centre of
comfort indeed, but of light, of intelligence, of humanity as well, and count
the whole country your home, and the
whole world your country. Disdain to
affect or to cherish an ignorant innocence, but wear an aggressive and allconquering purity. Remember that the
perfect woman is nobly planned, not
only to warn and comfort, but to command. Learn to think nobly, to love




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      179
nobly, to live nobly, and demand and
enforce by your own nobility, from all
who seek your friendship or companionship, the same outreach for noble
thought and love and life."
Do men fancy that the sceptre will
depart from them when women become
sovereigns?  So long as women remain
subjects, the sceptre crumbles in man's
grasp, and his kingdom runs to waste.
It is not women alone who suffer from
the ignorance and inability, not to say
imbecility, which have been sedulously
inculcated upon woman as a grace and a
charm. Men come down to meet their
women. It is wellnigh impossible for a
man to live high when the women of his
household and his acquaintance are constantly attracting him to live low. When
women drivel, men grovel. If men really
feel that they are too mean and feeble
and false to retain their influence over




180        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
women, when women shall be encouraged to a free and full development,
there is a sort of wisdom in their smalltalk of bread and butter. Happily there
are men who have sufficient self-respect
to look, not only without dismay, but
with lively satisfaction, upon every sign
of improvement in the character and
education of women; who feel neither
gratified nor conciliated to hear a woman
declare that she cares nothing about politics and has all the rights she wants;
men who are not deceived by the sentimentalisms of a threadbare chivalry, but
who see and say that the influence of a
large-natured woman is elevating, and
the influence of a small-natured woman
is degrading.
Breadth and depth of culture are the
only royal road even to good housekeeping. Granted that the majority of
women do lead a dmlestic life, and should




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       181
therefore be educated with reference to
it; there is no employment in the world
that needs Greek and Latin more than
domestic employment. The position of
a woman at the head of a family is
more like that of a man at the head of
a government than like any other. Every possible variety of mental training
she needs; every possible variety of intellectual furnishing will come into use.
Without the liberality, the comprehensiveness, the wisdom, which education
gives, she cannot administer the affairs of
her kingdom well. Natural tact will do
much, but it cannot supply the place of
education. When a woman has learned
to make a pudding, she has learned but
the smallest and easiest part of her duty.
She needs to know how to sit at the
table where the pudding is served, and
dispense a hospitality so cordial and enlivening that the pudding shall be for



182        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
gotten. There are a thousand women
who can make a pudding, where there
is one who is mistress of her servants,
of her children, of her husband, of her
house, of her position.  Granted that
women need have no character on their
own account,-that their glory and dignity and importance lie in being the
mothers of men. All on that ground
they need the most thorough intellectual education. A woman can make a
dress fit well though she have little
knowledge of anything else; but she
cannot fashion an immortal soul for a
worthy immortality without a worthy cultivation of her own soul. A woman who
is not the equal of men is not fit to be
the mother of men.
Let me n6t, however, miss an opportunity, or anything that may be construed into an opportunity, to repudiate
this whole. doctrine.  A woman should




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       183
be strong and wise and cultivated, not
chiefly because she becomes thereby a
better wife and mother, but because wisdom is better than folly, strength than
weakness, cultivation than neglect. A
woman's glory is in herself. If she is
wise, she is wise for herself. It is just as
great for her to do a great thing herself
as it is to have her husband or son do it,
and husband and son are all the more
likely to be great for her grandeur. But
what with pulpit and press, lecture-room
and social science, the theory that woman is but a mere auxiliary of man
seems to be reviving with great force.
The Mohammedan and the Mormon doctrines are that women have no life in
the next world except through their husbands. The Christian doctrine is that
they have none in this. "Man," says a
popular lecturer, "needs the conscious
affection of a female heart to soften the




184         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
asperities of his own, and to give completeness to his being." But what of the
female heart while it is thus softening his
asperities and completing his being? Is
asperity-softening a pleasant work? Will
it be likely to give completeness to the
female being? or is she supposed to be
already complete? "In order to found a
home," says the same lecturer, according
to the newspaper report, " the first thing
to do is to look around for a woman who
would make a good partner in this home
business, - a woman pure, good, sensible, modest, tidy, good-looking, and intelligent." I should say, decidedly the first
thing for him is to take a good long look
at himself, and make sure that he is pure,
good, sensible, modest, tidy, good-looking,
and intelligent, and therefore a fit person
for a woman of such qualities to associate
with.  "Her support, her dignity, her
beauty, her honor and happiness, lie in




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       185
her dependence as wife, mother, and
daughter..... The woman who, at this
day, feels that to be the mother of living
children is the first, highest.... lot, is
worthy of all admiration and praise."
What g6spel is this?  Honor and dignity and happiness consist not in truth, integrity, self-sacrifice, self-command, benevolence, communion with God, and likeness
to Christ, but in marriage and motherhood and housekeeping! Where is
the warrant for such affirmations? Not
surely in the words of the Master. Christ
propounded no such doctrines. He had
many and devoted friends among women.
He spoke to women and of women in
public and private. He gave them instruction, advice, and consolation. His
tenderness towards them was so manly,
so divine, that even now, dimly seen
through lengthening years, imperfectly
told in a strange tongue, it falls upon




186        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
the heart like dew; but never a word
he spake that the most perverse ingenuity could wrest to the support of this unregenerate theory. He never so branded
woman with the mark of the beast. So
far as his words have any bearing upon
it, they bear against it. He looked upon
woman, he treated woman, as a human
being. Nothing that he ever said could
be construed into a concession of her
inferiority to man. He gave her equal
respect, less rebuke. His denunciations
of men were sometimes terrible. He
never spoke a harsh word to a woman.
Paul, in the glow of inspiration, uttering
truths which span the whole heaven of
the soul, nevertheless sometimes showed
in his teachings the influence of his age.
Christ shone, mildly to meet our darkened eyes, above all ages. Paul could
never quite get out of his mind the notion of woman's sphere. Into the mind




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      187
of Christ it never came. Paul admonished women to guide the house. Jesus
applauded a woman for not guiding the
house. All his intercourse with woman
was adapted to lift her up from the
level where she stood into a higher region,-to take her above the wearying,
petty cares of "her sphere," and fix her
thoughts on higher themes, - themes
that expand the mind and enlarge the
heart. It was not Martha, cumbered
with much serving, but Mary, who left
her house to look after itself while she
sat at Jesus' feet, who received his commendation.  Martha is the model woman
of men, but Jesus praised Mary. Men
at different times brought accusations
against women, but Jesus always maintained their cause. Even when they were
palpably and grievously wrong, he shielded their guilt with his own purity, and
couched his censure in such gentleness




188        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
that displeasure is swallowed up in love.
0, never man spake like this man!
I wish our grave and reverend teachers could know how deep, how thorough,
how abiding is the repugnance felt by
every woman not debased by corrupt
male influence towards those who, instead of teaching men to be so pure and
high-minded as to be worthy of becoming husbands and fathers, spend their
strength in inculcating upon women the
duty of becoming wives and mothers,
enforcing that by argument which should
only be won by grace, degrading into
a means of coarse material prosperity
that which is meant to minister the
finest spiritual succor, till all the sacraments of life seem likely to be swept
away.
How long shall men attempt to steady
the ark of the Lord by putting forth
upon it their own unconsecrated hands?




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       189
How many generations must die before
we learn that the Lord is in his holy
temple, and that the only fitting worship is for all the earth to keep silence
before him? Whenever there are confusion and disaster, it is because the people have gone aside after Baalim and
Ashtaroth. The gospel of material prosperity is very little higher than no gospel at all. It never can heal the hurt
of the daughter of my people.
How swiftly, harmoniously, and completely, during the late war, did the relations between men and women adjust
themselves! The whole country was
flooded with a sudden outburst of love,
-love of country, of freedom, and of
right. There was no quarrelling as to
who was head and who was heart. Instinctively, head and heart worked together. In the Sanitary Commission rooms,
in the hospitals, in camps, on battle



190        WOMIAN'S WRONGS.
fields, at the mammoth fairs, men and
women wrought side by side, the great
hearts of both sexes bearing down all the
clamors of incompetence, and petty, brief
authority, and never clashing with each
other. Men and women ordered, organized, and obeyed, as instinct and fitness
prompted. Their "spheres" cut across
one another without the slightest regard
to, or the smallest hindrance from, tradition. The "Boys in Blue," a book which
almost revives again the sacred fury
of those glorious days, shows again and
again how utterly false and futile are
the old dogmas of woman's sphere,-how
quickly they shrivel in the ardor of
a purpose or a passion,- how woman's
sphere comprises everything that needs
to be done and that she can do. Men
went out to fight, and women went out
to heal; and the fighting men became
women in weakness and tenderness and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       191
gratitude and love; and the healing women became men in strength and support and consolation; and both were
never more divinely themselves.  Let
me give from many stories one,-the
story of Mother Bickerdyke.
"'Mother' was the sobriquet of this
extraordinary woman throughout the entire Western army. In General Sherman's old corps (the Fifteenth) she seemed
to be the individual mother of every
man in the ranks. The prairie-plough
and the thunder-storm were needed, and
they came in the person of Mrs. Bickerdyke. A pythoness if her precious boys,
as she called them, were assaulted, she
was gentle and tender as a loving mother
to every sick and wounded soldier. Woe
be to the man, no matter what his rank,
who trampled on the rights of the'boys
in blue.' Faithful surgeons praised her,
and relied upon her skill, strength, and




192        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
tenderness. Those who were the reverse
cursed her, and clamored for her reInoval....Her efforts not only saved
unnumbered lives and mitigated untold
sufferings in her own hospitals, but, by
the example they afforded to others, became schools of instruction. Her huge
organized laundries saved hundreds of
thousands of dollars to the government
and to the Sanitary Commission, by washing what would otherwise have been destroyed, to say nothing of the health
and comfort they bestowed upon the sick.
She was herculean in strength, and indomitable in will, and possessed the most
extraordinary endurance.  She saw no
lions in the way, admitted the existence
of no obstacles,-naming what others
would regard as such'cobwebs,'- and
these she demolished with nonchalant
and invincible energy. The surgeons
admitted that she had no rival in extem



WOMAN'S WRONGS.       193
porizing, organizing, and running hospitals..... The great military men - Grant,
Sherman, McPherson, Thomas, Loganwere her firm friends, and supplied her
with facilities to carry on her work.....
She soon discovered a disposition to misappropriate sanitary stores, and raised
her first tempest in the Brick Hospital at
Cairo. A fine box of supplies had been
consigned to her at Galesburg, conspicuously marked with the name of the society that sent them. She gave a certain
number of shirts, socks, and slippers to
a ward-master to distribute. The next
morning, in going her rounds, she perceived this official wearing a Sanitary
shirt, broadly marked, while one of his
sick patients was minus his clean one.' Where did you get that shirt?' she said
fiercely.'It's none of your business,'
he answered.'I'11 see if it isn't,' she
replied; and seizing it, as he had no coat
13




194        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
on, she drew it over the head of the unfortunate wight, stunned into silence.'Now let me see your feet,' said she,
stooping and taking one in her hand.
Off came the socks and slippers in a
twinkling, to the infinite delight of the
patients. The denuded thief slunk off
suddenly, a sadder and a wiser man, and
Mrs. B. had no further trouble in this
hospital concerning Sanitary stores.....
She was matron of the large and complete hospital at Corinth, which occupied
the female academy of that place, beautifully situated on rising ground, with a
large addition of hospital tents. She
had established in the building a fine
diet kitchen and laundry, and was running the entire concern with her customary success, when the battle commenced,
and was fought, on the 3d and 4th of October, 1862. So perfect and comprehensive was the system, that, notwithstand



WOMAN'S WRONGS.      195
ing the immense and sudden influx of
wounded during the battle, and sick and
wounded Rebels left on our hands at its
conclusion, it was said that perfect order
was maintained, and every man attended
properly..... The medical staff were in
a spasm of delight over a feat she had
just accomplished. The small-pox hospital had become a charnel-house, and
there seemed none to regenerate it.....
She at once took charge of the revolting place. An ordinary thunder-storm
would be powerless here, and she created an earthquake; ran the prairieplough through the filthy grounds and
out-houses, overturning cots, and.... in
three weeks had a pure, clean hospital,
where few men died, and all were made
as comfortable as the loathsome disease
would permit..... In the spring of 1864
she came North to carry out a characteristic Bickerdyke project. She declared




196        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
the boys in hospital must have fresh milk,
and nothing but cows could give it; and
they must be solicited from the Western
farmers, and taken down to Memphis.
And then she wanted hundreds of hens
to lay fresh eggs for the sick. The Cornmission consented to the plan, and agreed
to furnish transportation for the cows and
hens.... Mrs. B. procured eighty cows
and several hundred hens, and they were
transmitted to her at Memphis..... She
remained with Sherman's army through
the entire series of its brilliant victories
and bloody fights, receiving and caring
for its wounded, running and consolidating  hospitals, superintending laundries.... She superintended the cooking of hundreds of tons of sanitary stores
and vegetables..... If in her journeys
she found men suffering with wounds
festering for lack of clean bandages, her
own clothing was torn into strips, and




WOMAN'S WRONGS.      197
her own night-dresses taken for clean
covering for the poor emaciated soldiers.... No exigencies baffled her skill
and self-denial."
I should like to see Dr. Todd tiptoeing
up to Mother Bickerdyke and telling her
that her happiness consisted in her dependence as wife, mother, and daughter!
Was she an exception to the general
rule? Were the thousands upon thousands of women who worked in the
ranks of this great army of healers exceptions?  And were the   men who
worked with them and found them
helpers exceptions?
We cannot always have a war in which
to fuse our prejudices and puerilities,
but we might learn from our experience
during this one war that wifehood and
motherhood are set within no narrow
bounds, depend upon no external conditions, but spring from the heart, inhere
in the nature. With all this glowing




198        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
past just behind us, how can men stand
up and preach their trivialities? Seeing how mightily and steadfastly love
wrought through those bloody years, why
do they not bring love to the solution
of the problem now? If it could heal
the wounds of war, why can it not heal
the wounds of peace? Why fumble
about among earth-forces and leave out
of the reckoning the one force of Heaven, stronger than all? Is motherhood
ceasing to be honored? It is because
you have robbed it of its honor, you
have plundered it of its element from
heaven, and left only the base residuum
of earth. Restore to it that which alone
can give it sweetness. Only love and
hope and joy wait upon the offspring
of love and hope and joy, and the soul
that springs from any other source is itself a monstrosity,-the guilt and shame
of the authors of its being.
To be a mother is of itself neither




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       199
great nor high. It furnishes the opportunity for much loving and large living,
but in itself it is neither the one nor the
other. Mere natural maternity is a fact
of no moral significance whatever. The
best mother shares it in common with
the worst, and with all the lower creation. It does not necessarily even improve the character. It may be absolutely bare of virtue and of grace. It may
spring from vice and crime, and end in
shame and woe. To give life to a sentient being, without being able to make
provision to turn life to the best account, - to give life, careless whether it
will be bale or boon to the recipient,is the sin of sins. Every other sin mars
what it finds. This makes what it mars.
A motherhood that exalts the nature,
that brings the soul closer to all humanity, and so interprets to it God, is worshipful indeed. A motherhood petty and




200         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
selfish, narrowing itself down to meet
only the demands and discern only the
excellences of its own offspring, separating itself from, instead of allying itself
to, its kind, is evil, and that continually.
There is more to be learned of the true
spirit, the ultimate import of marriage,
from the co-operation of man and woman
in the late war, than from all the elaborate discourses through which it has
been trailed; for marriage is a friendship
of the sexes so profound, so comprehensive, that it includes the whole being.
The inflow of the divine life,
"Bright effluence of bright essence increate,"
blends the man nature and the woman
nature into an absolute oneness, which
shapes itself ever thereafter into the only
perfect symmetry. Thus alone comes humanity in the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       201
of the fulness of Christ. Thus marriage
forever tends to its own annihilation,
not the annihilation of a stream swallowed up in desert sands, but of a river
broadening to the boundless sea. The
more perfect its substance the more
yielding its form. As it gathers power
it diminishes pomp, till, by a pathway
which the vulture's eye hath not seen
and never can see, marriage itself leads
to the land where they neither marry
nor are given in marriage.
Wherever man pays reverence to woman, - wherever any man feels the influence of any woman, purifying, chastening, abashing, strengthening him against
temptation, shielding him from evil, ministering to his self-respect, medicining his
weariness, peopling his solitude, winning
him from sordid prizes, enlivening his
monotonous days with mirth, or fancy, or
wit, flashing heaven upon his earth, and




202         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
mellowing it for all spiritual fertility,there is the element of marriage. Wherever woman pays reverence to man,wherever any woman rejoices in the
strength  of any man, feels it to be
God's agent, upholding her weakness,
confirming her purpose, and crowning
her power,-wherever he reveals himself
to her, just, upright, inflexible, yet tolerant, merciful, benignant, not unruffled,
perhaps, but not overcome by the world's
turbulence, and responding to all her
gentleness, his feet on the earth, his head
among the stars, helping her to hold her
soul steadfast in right, to stand firm
against the encroachments of frivolity,
vanity, impatience, fatigue, and discouragement, helping to preserve her goodnature, to develop her energy, to consolidate her thought, to utilize her
benevolence, to exalt and illumine her
life,-there is the essence of marriage.




WOMAN'S WRONGS.       203
Its love is founded on respect, and increases self-respect at the very moment
of merging self in another. Its love is
mutual, equally giving and receiving at
every instant of its action.  There is
neither dependence nor independence,
but inter- dependence.  Years  cannot
weaken its bonds, distance cannot sunder them.   It is a love which vanquishes the grave, and transfigures death
itself into life.
The current of human progress is undoubtedly-perhaps has always beensetting in this direction. Its motion is
slow, sometimes apparently backward,
but never permanently checked. Every
legal enactment that tends to equalize
the sexes, to give husband and wife the
same position before the law, smooths
the way for the desired end. Every elevated friendship between a man and a
woman prefigures it. All the subjuga



204         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
tions of the marriage rite and of common law are against it. Everything
which coerces that whose only value
lies in its freedom is an obstruction.
So long as the law commands subordination, it forbids the grace of a spontaneous deference.  Man never will be
truly monarch, till woman of her own
will places the crown on his brow; and
that she will never do till her will is
free. Each being in a false relation to
the other, there will be constant antagonism where there ought to be unbroken harmony. They will hinder and
irritate where they ought to help and
soothe. Man may have mastery by
strength of thew and sinew; but he
masters only thew and sinew. The fine
spirit escapes him. The subtile soul,
bruised, outraged, deformed, but defiant,
mocks him from afar.
So long as the tendencies of growth,




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        205
however feeble and awry, are to fill
out the empty shell of marriage with
true spiritual richness, we may hold our
peace.  But when our preachers and
teachers come to us and set down this
empty shell square in the path of progress, and say, "This is all, —all that
has been, all that shall be, all that God
intended ever should be," the stones may
cry out upon them. It is the very priests
thrusting God from his most holy temple.
It is the ministers of that Gospel which
emancipates woman from centuries of
servility, remanding her to her burdens.
Christ made no distinction, but opened
the door wide to woman as to man.
These restrict her to a single form of
service, while oppressing her with a thousand forms of servitude. They subordinate her best uses to her lowest functions. They degrade her into a hewer
of wood and a drawer of water, and




206        WOMAN'S WRONGS.
add blasphemy to falsehood with a " thus
saith the Lord."
And yet men in their errors are not
wholly without excuse. They have a
dim sense of the truth uttered, yet
hardly revealed, in the Hebrew Scriptures, that man was formed of the dust
of the ground, but woman was formed
of man. His origin is the dull insensate
clod; hers, the clod already vivified and
humanized. The material for his workmanship is pre-eminently the earth, hers
humanity. His diamond is in the rough,
hers has already taken its first polish.
Men, in their reiterated and wearisome
injunctions to women to be wives, mothers, and housekeepers, are following, after a stumbling and uncertain fashion,
the glimmer of this truth. Feeling, in
some blind, instinctive sort, that woman's
work is other and higher than theirs,
they know no better way to further it




WOMAN'S WRONGS.        207
than to bind manacles on her wrists, and
set her to doing what they interpret to
be her divinely appointed task. Women
will but fall into the corresponding error, if in the release from restraint, they
forget for a time that for them all
forced physical labor is but the least of
many evils. It is better to dig than to
beg; but it is only a fatal misunderstanding of needs, and a most extravagant
misapplication of forces, that reduces woman to the alternative of digging or
begging. Any coarse manual work is
better than idleness; but it is only because we have as yet so little knowledge
of real social science that any woman is
doomed to coarse manual work as a
refuge from idleness. The fields which
women alone can reap are white already
to harvest; the laborers are few, because
society is not yet clear-eyed enough to
see the fruit that ripens there.  Men




208         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
do not know there is any such harvest.
The very fields are to them but "fenceless fields of air."  So the hands that
were divinely fashioned for this doing
are set to unhandsome service. Woman
is largely occupied with man's work.
In the sweat of her face she eats bread.
It is like taking a Damascus blade to
hew timber withal.  Never can she do
her own work till man lifts from her
shoulders the burden that belongs to
his.  A large part of the labor which
he assigns her as from God is as really foreign to her "sphere" as the fieldwork which he denounces.   It matters
not whether woman be out of doors or
in; hanging on yard-arms or bending
over a cooking-stove. All wearing physical labor is unsuited to her. All enforced muscular work beyond what is
necessary to her own symmetrical development is the result of defective human




WOMAN'S WRONGS.         209
arrangement, not of perfect Divine establishment. Yet, with all their talk, so
unconscious are men of woman's true
work, that when you take away all that
does not belofig to it, all which is a
hindrance to it, most of them will think
you have left only idleness. Their eyes
are holden that they do not see. It is
so impalpable, so intangible to everything but instinct, that it defies delineation.  It is as pervasive, but also as
evasive, as religion. Its conditions are
comfort, freedom, serenity. Its antagonists are toil, weariness, anxiety. Its right
is to be ministered unto in carnal things;
its province is to minister in spiritual
things.  But it is dumb.     It has no
voice. It accomplishes all things in silence, choosing rather to die than give
a sign. Motherliness may best express
its source, but it is motherliness, not as a
biographical incident, but as an essential
14




210         WOMAN'S WRONGS.
attribute.  Let the mother's character,
the mother's work, be the true character
and work of woman; but not that narrow kind held within the mere literal
words. That is but a type, a symbol.
Wherever there is weakness to'be succored, hurt to be healed, good to be
done, grace to be shown, there is mother's
love to lavish, there is mother's work to
do. The ideal woman feels that all the
children of want,- bodily, mental, moral want, the infant of days or the man
bowed with age, - all are children whom
the Lord has given her, and over a wide
and ever-widening circle beams the radiance of her spotless motherhood. If she
has not first created the claims which
she satisfies, if she has not herself evoked
the responsibilities which she discharges,
she does but diffuse, without diminishing,
the love which would otherwise have
been concentrated. She misses the nar



WOMAN'S WRONGS.        211
rower, only to find the larger life. She
looks to no future reaping as a reward
for her sowing, counts upon no material
revenue, but finds her delight in her doing, and gathers, as she goes, abundant
spiritual harvests. Thanks, gratitude, admiration, are but the tithe of her meed.
That feeble hands stretch out imploringly to her, that blind eyes turn wistfully whenever her footfall sounds, that
fainting hearts and bounding hearts rely instinctively on her sympathy,- this
is her constant, silent blessedness. Her
world may be large or small, but she is
mother of its best manhood. She calls
forth whatever is pure, noble, tender,
whatever is manliest in    man.   Evil
shrinks away abashed before her steps.
Discord attunes itself to melody charmed
by the music of her voice. Women thrill
to her revelation of their own highest
nature. Men yield enraptured to the




212          WOMAN'S WRONGS.
spell of her sweet unlikeness. In the
large helpfulness, the irresistible attraction of her life, she bodies forth all that
woman will be to man, all that man will
receive from woman, all the honor wherewith he shall crown her in the day of
their yet distant espousals.
THE END.
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