AvlOS-ANCEUr>
O '
^-UBRARYO-r
WOMAN:
HER RIGHTS, WRONGS, PRIVILEGES, AND
RESPONSIBILITIES.
CONTAINING A SKETCH OF HER CONDITION IN ALL AGES AND
COUNTRIES, FROM HER CREATION AND FALL IN EDEN TO
THE PRESENT TIME: HER PRESENT LEGAL STATUS DJ
ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND THE UNITED STATES:
HER RELATIONS TO MAN, PHYSIOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, MORAL, AND
INTELLECTUAL: HER ABILITY TO FILL THE ENLARGED SPHERE
OF DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES CLAIMED FOR HER: HER TRUE
POSITION IN EDUCATION, PROFESSIONAL LIFE, EMPLOY-
MENT8, AND WAGES, CONSIDERED.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE,
ITS FOLLY AND INEXPEDIENCY, AND THE INJURY AND DETERIORA-
TION WHICH IT WOULD CAUSE IN HER CHARACTER, SHOWN,
AND THE BEST MEANS FOR HER REAL ADVANCEMENT
AND ELEVATION DEMONSTRATED.
BY L. P. BROCKETT, M. D.,
Author of "Woman's Work in the Civil War;" "Men of Our Day;" and other publi-
cations ; also one of the Editorial Contributors to Appletons' Cyclopedia.
ILLUSTRATED. SOLD BY AGENTS ONLY.
HARTFORD:
I> TJ B I, I S II E3 D BY I, . STEBBI3STS,
1869.
Entered according to Act of Congress (for English and German languages) In the
year 1869, by
L. 8TEBBIN8,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
District of Connecticut.
ADVERTISEMENT.
IT has been deemed desirable to illustrate this work some-
what largely, but with due reference to its high character
as a book which should be in the hands of every family.
The illustrations are some of them of historical incidents,
relating to the condition of woman in foreign countries
and former times ; some refer to existing employments in
other countries; some to the quiet beauty of a happy
home ; others to the various occupations in which woman
has been, or is likely to be, engaged ; while a few refer to
that period, which we hope is far distant, when women
will enter upon a political career, and forgetting the graces
and delicacy which now cause them to be loved, hon-
ored, and reverenced, will become brawling politicians,
greedy office-seekers, and bold, hard, unwomanly aspirants
for place and power. We have sought, in these last illus-
trations, "to hold the mirror up to nature," not in an
unkindly, but a dissuasive spirit, hoping that all sensible,
thoughtful women, seeing what unseemly creatures they
would become by plunging into a political career, might
be led to avoid the danger, and give their powerful influ-
ence against it.
THE PUBLISHES.
1703916
4 PREFACE.
WE are living in a period of moral, political, and social
upheaval. The earthquakes and volcanic eruptions which
within the past two or three years have desolated such
wide tracts of the earth's surface are but the feeble physi-
cal analogues of those mightier revolutions which, within
a half score of years, have overturned ancient abuses,
unsettled institutions which had their roots deep in the
foundations of society, have borne mankind onward in the
path of progress with the swiftness of an avalanche, and
are still threatening changes that may alter the entire
character of our social organization.
We have seen, in the last decade, slavery and serfdom
abolished, the greater part of Italy rescued from the tem-
poral power of the Pope, the Concordat overthrown, the
scepter wrested from the Bourbons of Sicily and Spain,
the democratic power greatly increased in France, the
franchise extended to a large body of the working class in
Great Britain and to the African race in our own country,
and are now face to face with two other great questions,
the solution of which involves some of the profoundest
(J PREFACE.
topics of political economy and social organization the
entire severance of Church and State in Great Britain,
and, as a corollary, the overthrow of the political ascend-
ency of the British aristocracy and the question of the
reform in the legal status of woman, as involving her em-
ployments, her wages, and her claim to the exercise of the
right of suffrage.
With the former of these questions, we, as Americans,
have only the interest of our sympathy with universal
liberty, and our common lineage. With the latter we are
deeply concerned ; for though the demand for these changes
in the condition of woman is made in other countries as
well as our own, it attains here its highest significance,
and upon our action will depend in a great degree its suc-
cess or failure elsewhere. Demands for enlarged freedom
of action, assuming to be made in the interests of that
spirit of universal liberty whose very name is so dear to us,
are in danger of being yielded without sufficient scrutiny,
and once yelded, no retrograde step, however desirable it
may be, is possible.
It has seemed, therefore, to the writer, a matter of duty
to examine this whole question of the political, social, and
economical status of woman, in a spirit of thorough fair-
ness and candor: to gather from past history and from
present laws and customs, what are the actual wrongs,
oppressions, and disabilities under which the sex suffer ;
PREFACE. 7
what are their present rights and privileges ; what is their
moral, intellectual, and social relation to man ; what ad-
vances, either in economical, political, or social life, are with-
in the limits of their capacities, and finally, what are the
V
arguments for and against their exercise of the suffrage.
In this whole discussion, it has been the aim of the
writer to avoid, alike from his high esteem for the sex, and
his regard for that high-bred courtesy which is the surest
mark of a gentleman, all resort to ridicule or sneers in the
place of argument, and all levity of treatment of a sub-
ject which he regarded as too important, and involving
too weighty interests, to be lightly esteemed.
It may be, that the conclusions to which he finds him-
self driven may not meet the views of all his fair readers,
but he is confident that none of them will accuse him of
doing them injustice, and he hopes, that in a careful second
thought, they may be convinced that his arguments are
such as their reason approves.
L. P. B.
BROOKLYN, Sept., 1869.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION pp. 2531.
The Scriptural narrative of the creation, temptation, and fall of wo-
man. Comments. Peculiarity of the creation of woman. The
joint dominion of the newly created pair. The complementary
nature of the woman. The thwarting of the Creator's purpose
in woman's independent action in her temptation and fall.
The consequences. The meaning of her sentence. This*narrativo
not a myth.
CHAPTER I pp. 3544.
History of the condition of woman in ancient times. The antedilu-
vians. The early pastoral or nomadic nations. The agricultural
nations. Hard fate of woman in these. Infanticide. Suicide.
Wooing a wife with the blow of a club upon her head. Asiatic
nations generally. Amazons. Tartars. China. The Brah-
mins. The Buddhists. The Parsees. The Hill tribes. Prev-
alence of polyandry, or several husbands to one wife. Condition
of women in Egypt. Mohammedan women. Their efforts in
propagating their faith. Native Mohammedan princesses in
India.
CHAPTER II pp. 4555.
Condition of women in European States and in Palestine before the
Christian era. Greece. Athens. The wives and daughters of
citizens. The Hetairce, Sparta. The Dorian States. Corinth.
Rome, in earlier and later times. The Jews, throughout their
history. Their comparative freedom and patriotism. The
Germans. Condition of women in Germany at the present day.
10 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER HI pp. 5666.
The condition of women since the commencement of the Christian
era. The position of Christ and his Apostles in reference to
women. The condition of woman in the early church. The
middle ages. The age of chivalry. The evils it perpetuated.
The Reformation. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cen-
turies. The eighteenth century. The nineteenth. The greater
liberty and higher development of women in the present century
in literature, science, the arts, in trade, and finally in the man-
agement of great financial and philanthropic enterprises. The
sad result in the ruined health of many of the women engaged
in philanthropic labors.
CHAPTER IV pp. 6783.
The present position of woman before the law. The provisions of the
common law of England. Sir John Doderidge's statement. Law
and Divinity shaking hands. Mr. J. Stuart Mill's statement of
the present provisions of the English laws relative to woman.
Provisions concerning the wife and the mother ; concerning sin-
gle women. Married women undertaking business in their own
names. The legal position of woman in France. Dotal and
communal law. The grisette system. ^ Legal position of woman
in the United States. Variations in statutes of different States.
Her condition in general much better here than in England or
France. Offices filled by women in the United States. Partial
grant of the suffrage in some localities. Minnesota. The
needed modifications of the laws.
CHAPTER V ' pp. 8497.
The true relations of woman to man. The opinion of Mr. Mill, that
we have no means of ascertaining the nature and capacities of
woman. The fallacy of this assertion. Mr. Mill's stand-point
an unfavorable one. The true source of knowledge on this sub-
ject. Review of the scriptural narrative. Woman the comple-
ment or help-meet for man. Distinction in the physical, mental,
and moral characteristics of the man and woman. Blustratious.
Conclusions draw.n from this review.
CONTENTS. 11
CHAPTER VI pp. 98123
Education of woman. Education of girls in Great Britain. In
France. In Germany. In the United States. Public schools
Graded schools. Colleges admitting pupils of both sexes. Dr.
Bushnell's testimony. President Mann's. Mrs. Ball's. Dr.
Bushnell's view of the advantages of this system. Female pro-
fessorships. "Why not of higher mathematics ? Normal schools.
Education in female seminaries, female colleges, boarding-schools^.
&c., &c. Description of the course of study in these. Testi-
mony of a graduate. The evil effects of this so-called education
upon all the future life of the pupils of these seminaries. Means
of remedying it.
CHAPTER VII pp. 124133
Employments of women. "Woman as wife, mother, and mistress of
the household. The model wife and mother. This relation in
general precludes any other occupation. Mr. Mill's opinion OH
this point. Cases in which the married woman is compelled to
resort to other labor than that of the household, for support of
her family. The occupations open to her. The sympathy and
aid she should receive.
CHAPTER VIII pp. 134146 '
Inequality of numbers of men and women in d'fferent countries.
Great excess of women in the older States and countries. Dis-
inclination of men to marry. Reasons for this. Extravagance
in dress. Incidents. Terrible evils resulting from it. The ef-
fects of it in its relation to marriage. Other causes why womeu
remain single. No statistics as to the proportion who are de-
pendent on their own exertions for a support. Domestic ser-
vants, and employees in manufactories. Prevalence of foreigners
among domestic servants. Evils of this. Desirableness of re-
turning to the old order of things. Ihe mistresses partly to
blame. * Colored servants. The coming Chinamen. A large pro-
portion of the employees in manufactories, foreigners.
12 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX PP. U7157
Teaching as an occupation. Success of women in it. The good old
times of the summer and winter schools. The examining com-
mittee. The change. Teaching a profession. Capacity of wo-
men for governing a school well. The way they do it. Teach-
ing in female seminaries, &c. The ability of women to become
teachers in colleges and universities. History of this subject.
Instances in our own times. The chairs they can best fill Wo-
men as preachers aud pastors. The objections to it. Paul's
injunctions. To what extent should these be considered binding.
Other difficulties. Women as public lecturers.
CHAPTER X pp. 158184
Women as physicians. Their particular sphere. The difficulties in the
way of their acquiring a medical education. Why they should
not undertake a general practice. Why married women should
not become physicians. Why they should not attempt the prac-
tice of surgery. The troubles they will have to encounter pro-
fessional and financial. Women in the legal profession. Not
qualified for advocates or judges, . but well adaped to convey-
ancing, drawing of papers, deeds, wills, &c., and to preparation
of cases for trial, &c. Other professions. Military life. Engineer-
ing. Surveying. Commanding a steamship. Being foreman of
a fire-engine, &c., &c. These not suited to woman. Agriculture
and horticulture. Market gardening. Small fruit farming.
Keeping of bees. &c. Fowls. Floriculture and nursery garden-
ing as a business. Collection and packing of flower-seeds. Chem-
ical technology. Fine arts. Painting and sculpture. Music.
Professional singers and players. No composers of high rank.
Women in the dramatic profession. Not a fit occupation for
women.
CHAPTER XT pp. 185 209
Other literary occupations of women. Authorship. Novels. His-
tory. Biography. Metaphysics. Political economy. Physical
science. Criticism. The classics. Statistics. Women as nov-
CONTENTS. 13
\
elists. As writers of juvenile books. Extraordinary success.
Poetry. Success of women as poets. Poetry seldom a means
of winning a livelihood. Novels seldom pay well. Contribu-
tions to magazine and periodical literature. The valuable and
the trashy. Women as editors ; alone, or in conjunction with
men. Lack of conscientiousness. Compensation of women en-
gaged in contributing to periodicals. The late Mrs. L. H. Sig-
ourney. Her remarkable conscientiousness, and high sense of
honor. Women as clerks in government offices. As officers in
banks and banking houses, insurance offices, &c. Advantages
of this to these institutions. Danger to the health and life of
women. Women as cashiers, book-keepers, and confidential
clerks of wholesale houses. Their employment in retail stores.
The objections against their employment not worthy of notice.
Women as telegraph operators. The work adapted to them.
Copying. Photography. Coloring of photographs. Drawing
and engraving on wood. Reasons why no more succeed.
Printing. Women as press-feeders. As compositors. Women
as ticket-sellers on railroads, steamboats, &c. Women as con-
ductors of manufacturing and commercial enterprises. Exam-
ples. Western Massachusetts. Connecticut. Delaware. Phil-
adelphia. Miss Burdett Coutts. The Widow Clicquot. Women
in Burmah. Influence of mercantile life on the character of wo-
man. Embroidery as an employment forwomen. Other branch-
es of skilled needlework. Shopwork. Over-crowding in this
occupation. Reasons for it. Unintentional injury done to wo-
men in the city, by women in the country in this business. The
fierce competition. How to be avoided. Domestic service
greatly preferable to this constant and wretchedly paid toil.
The sewing machine. Its benefits and its injuries. The re-
sult of protracted labor on it. upon the nervous systems of wo-
men. Unskilled female labor. Easy pauperization of the for-
eign element in this class. The low and unseemly avocations
practiced by foreign women of the lower classes. Chiffonieres,
scavengers, &c. Their degrading influence.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII. pp. 210224
The Social Evil. The dangerous and the criminal classes. Pros-
titutes usually reckoned among the former. The proportion of
fallen women to the whole number between fifteen and thirty in
community. The proportion smaller in the United States than in
most of the countries of Europe. Its causes not attributable to
inordinate lust on the part of women, though the morals of the
young of both sexes are corrupted by vile books, prints, news-
papers, &c., and especially in our schools and seminaries. Fash-
ionable mode of education a cause. How. Viciousness of much
of the so-called female education of the day. Love of dress and
love of ease, frequent causes. Other alleged causes. Seduction.
Women as tempters of others to ruin, in female seminaries, Sab-
bath schools, &c. Married women among the daughters of
shame. Houses of assignation. Facility of divorce, and crimi-
nal abortion among the causes. Emigrant girls, ruined abroad,
or on board ship. Advertisement for governesses, by a procur-
ess. "Large number of very young girls who have fallen in the
manufacturing towns. A worse sacrifice than that to Moloch.
The conduct of virtuous women toward the fallen ones. "What
is the right course. Two methods contrasted the old and the
new. Far greater success of the latter. Difficulties in the way
of their reformation. The untruthfulness, volatility, impul-
siveness, and intemperance of these poor girls. The terrible
temptations they have to encounter. The legal action necessary
to diminish this terrible vice. The great need of moral and re-
formatory action to aid in the good work.
CHAPTER XIII pp. 225238
No want of employments for industrious and intelligent single women.
Reasons why such women have a better chance of finding employ-
ment than men. Their employments have a greater similarity to
each other, and those are less numerous who require employment
The financial condition of the country renders their employment
genoraJly less precarious than those of men. The pumber of
women lacking employment greatly overstated. Most of those
CONTENTS. 15
who really lack it are in too feeble health to be able to work, or
too indolent or weak-minded to desire it. Sad condition of the
infirm poor. The inexorableness of the laws of trade on this
subject. The unwillingness of a certain class of poor women to
accept work, unless under precisely such circumstances as they
desire. Instances in New York. Small classes who can not at all
times find sufficient employment. The remedy for these, in im-
proving their knowledge so as to be able to perform work of a high-
er grade. Ignorance, heedlessness, and uuthrift, the causes of much
of the wretchedness of unskilled workers, and of much of their
ill-health. Difficulty of remedying their condition. Legislation
impossible and useless. Charitable relief often ruinous both to
the recipients and the tax-payers. Lodging-houses and model
tenement houses do not reach them. Education and reformation,
where possible, the best remedy. Why the wages of women are
lower than those of men. Where supply exceeds demand, the
lowest is the ruling price. A day's work of a woman, in manual
labor, a little less than that of a man. In piece-work, when done
as well, the price should be the same. Still, in view of prejudice,
it might be a question whether it would not be expedient to sub-
mit at first to a slight reduction in order to secure the work.
Remedies for low wages. Trades-unions, co-operation, better
practical education. In higher grades of employment, wages of
women nearly equal to those of men. No legislation can alter or
improve this matter ofwages. The possession of the ballot equally
inefficacious. The only persons who could be benefited by making
politics a profession, the educated class, who already command
good pay for their work.
CHAPTER XIV pp. 239-252
History of suffrage. Paternal, patriarchal, and kingly governments.
Their natural outgrowth one from the other. Gradual develop-
ment of an aristocracy. Rome. The progress and abuse of suf-
frage there. Greece. The demos. Popular suffrage. Abandon-
ment of suffrage in the Middle Ages. Feudal barons. The middle
class. Modern introduction of suffrage. Scandinavia. Switzer-
CONTENTS.
land. Hungary. The Saxon Witsnagemotc. The principle on
which suffrage was based in all the countries of Europe. The
property qualification always required. Formerly real property
only represented. Of late years personal property of larger amount
allowed a representation. The right of single women possessing
property to vote on this ground contested in England. Petitions
to Parliament. Reasons why their petition was not granted. The
views of the author of " Woman's Rights and Duties " on this
subject. The facts which give additional force to her reasoning.
The history of suffrage in the American colonies. Variety of
requirements. The Declaration of Independence. Fallacy of its
doctrine of suffrage as now understood. Improbability that its
authors ever really attached any such idea to their words. Dr.
BushnelTs view. Another possible sense. This equally untrue.
The action of the colonies on the subject of suffrage not affected
by it. " Glittering generalities." Extension of suffrage for various
causes. Probable effect of the fifteenth amendment of the Con-
stitution.
CHAPTER XV .................................... pp. 253-264
What is suffrage, and in whom or what does the right of exercising it
inhere? The savage theory of the French philosophers. Its
influence upon our early statesmen. Its fallacies. The family
the unit of society. What follows from this? All suffrage and official
action, representation. Further limitations of suffrage within the
just power of society. What restrictions it may not make. Another
class of proper restrictions. Should property as property be re-
presented ? Justice of this. Methods of attaining it. Objections to
most of these methods in the case of unmarried women and widows
possessing property. Other views in regard to suffrage. The
property qualification only. Manhood suffrage. Objections to it.
An absolute government deemed preferable by some. Suffrage
but a clumsy way of attaining a good government. The great
opportunity of frauds which will affect the purity of the election.
The Chinese method of selecting officers by competitive examina-
tion. Its advantages. Review of the argument.
CONTENTS. 17
CHAPTER XVI pp. 265-278
The variety of grounds on which the suffrage was extended in tho
United States performing military duty, fire duty, having served
as a volunteer in either of our wars. Abrogation of the freehold
qualification. The three-fifths rule in the South. Freedmen per-
mitted to vote in Southern States. The injudiciousness of this as'
a general measure. The fifteenth amendment. Its possible evil
effects. Only women and minors left. "Why the suffrage should
not be conferred on these, or more particularly on women as
women. This a different question from the English one, which
relates to the bestowal of the suffrage on women as property-
holders. Four classes of objections to woman -suffrage political,
social, intellectual, and moral. 1st. Political objections. 1. Woman
has no need of the suffrage, since she is already represented in
the municipality and the State. This representation much more
full than can be otherwise attained. No reasonable request of
women unheeded. Persona 1 .nfluence of woman on legislation.
Examples : Vinnie Ream ; Mrs. Husband ; Mrs. Cobb. 2. The
exercise of the suffrage by woman would be an attempt to make
suffrage individual instead of representative, and so against the
natural order of things. 3. By woman-suffrage women will gain
nothing, while they will lose much. What they would lose.
Women almost everywhere in a minority at the polls. Their votes
would be often perverted to evil purposes. Their unfortunate po-
sition if elected to the Legislature, or to Congress. Their inability
to control legislation as favorably as if they were not members.
4. No possible plea in justification of woman's intrusion into the
realm of political action. Possible justification for the admission of
some other classes foreigners, colored men, the disfranchised.
The case of woman different. There is no hostility to her. The
only way to produce a feeling of antagonism would be to give her
the suffrage. 5. It could not be in any case a remedy for any one
of the wrongs under which women now suffer. Not low wages,
want of employment, overcrowding hi business, Ac. What are
the true remedies ?
18 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVII pp. 279-295
Objections to suffrage on social grounds. 1. Women who would make
themselves familiar with the political issues of the day. Their
fierce, earnest partisanship. Different political views between
husband and wife. The bitterness engendered in the family circle.
Separation and estrangement a frequent result. Dr. Bushnell's
vivid description. No rest for the men or women in a political
campaign. "Women more excitable than men, and their hostilities
more bitter and enduring. The effect of these intense political
excitements will be to make them coarse and masculine in their
manners. The character of women would be seriously and per-
manently injured by their active participation in political life.
Illustration. "Women of the South in the late war. Their treat-
ment of a Union woman. Human nature much the same every-
where, and those who now loathe the thought of such conduct,
might, in the heat of political conflict, be betrayed into it. Hazael.
Nero. Effect of this excitement on the temper. Illustration.
Walter Savage Landor. Effect upon the personal attractions bane-
ful. The tragedian's beauty affected by her simulated passion.
Would be much more so were it real. The expression we may
expect in the female politician of the future. Political papers
conducted by women. What they would probably be like. One
door of hope. The whisky cure for the drunkard. The constant
infusion of politics, morning, noon, and night, into the family
might work a similar cure. Woman-suffrage in its influence upon
the lower and more dependent classes. They will not, and in the
nature of the case can not, vote intelligently. The domestic ser-
vants, especially Irish and German Catholics, will vote as their
priests direct. Antagonism of race and religion now existing be-
tween these and their employers. Instances. This would be
intensified by antagonism in politics, and would not unfrequently
lead to outrages and crimes. Girls and women employed in manu-
factories. These would vote very generally under the influence
of their employers, and sometimes, doubtless, under threats of
being discharged if they ventured to vote differently. The whole
class of unskilled and partially skilled female laborers would vote
CONTENTS. 19
for pay, and without any intelligence or conscientiousness in the
matter, for whichever side would pay best. The abandoned class
would vote " early and often " for the candidates to whom their
keepers had sold them. The pleasure of going to the polls in
such company.
CHAPTER XVHI pp. 296-319
Objections to woman-suffrage from an intellectual point of view. Re-
currence to first principles. In all free governments, the stability
of the government dependent upon the intelligence of the voting
population. If these are ignorant and venal, no government can
long endure. From this cause, no Celtic nation has been able to
maintain a republican government. To this cause is also due
the constant anarchy and innumerable revolutions of Mexico,
and the Central and South American republics. Chili, of late,
an exception, owing to its greater intelligence. The efforts of
Don Diego F. Sarmiento, President of the Argentine Republic, to
educate his people, on this very ground. The application to the
United States. Three classes who are already endangering our
national existence by their ignorance and venality viz. : the
ignorant and low voters at the North, largely of foreign birth or
parentage, and either vicious, or wholly under the influence of
corrupt politicians ; the " poor white trash " of the South, always
voting under influence and without knowledge, by whose votes
the South was lately plunged into war; and the more ignorant
and stupid of the negroes, who, however, are earnestly striving
to improve. If we should add to these the very large classes of
ignorant women of the dependent classes servants, factory girls
(of the lower grades), unskilled laborers, and the abandoned
class, our peril would be almost infinitely increased ; and if to
these were to be added the Chinese, we should go down to swift
destruction. If we must have universal suffrage, let us first
have universal education, compulsory if need be. Woman-suf-
frage from the moral point of view. Our visions of the lost Eden.
The sad sight of a pure and virtuous woman plunging into politi-
cal strife. The fall of an ingenuous and pure-minded young man.
20 CONTENTS.
"Woman, falling farther, falls faster and deeper than man. Man
would be no match for her in schemes of wickedness. The
women of Europe who have been conspicuous in politics. Their
depravity. The unhallowed influence which a female politician
would exert over her children. The moral influence of political
intrigues upon the lower classes. Servant girls would become
intolerable with the consciousness of their equal rights of voting
with their mistresses. Demoralizing effect of the corruption in
gaining the votes of the dependent classes. The immoral effect
of bringing to the polls the abandoned class. General disposi-
tion of all good governments to keep this class out of sight, that
the moral sense of the community might not be offended ; but
voting would thrust them prominently forward. Evil effect of
such a course on young children. The mother's dilemma The
presence of these bad women at the polls, not only an annoyance,
but a source of demoralization. Another phase of the question.
Office-holding and office-seeking. Daniel D. Tompkins on the
aspiration for the Presidency. Woman would be quite as zealous
as man in this pursuit. The way of securing nominations for
elective offices. The primaries. Supposed experience of a
friend of Miss Anna Dickinson who should seek her nomination
for Congress. Her attendance on the primary. Its organization.
Her canvass for delegates. "Want of success. This no over-
drawn picture. Primaries in the rural districts not as bad ; but
in the cities, nests of unclean birds. The "Western practice.
Nomination by friends. Stump-speaking in the open air. Treble
voice. The result. Injurious influence of such scenes. If a
woman were elected to any legislative office, her perils would be
great. Corruption. Other difficulties hi the way of their success
as legislators. "Women as diplomatists. Reasons against it.
CHAPTER XIX pp. 320-341
Reply to the arguments .of the friends of woman-suffrage. J. Stuart
Mill. His position of the equality of woman with man. The
conclusion drawn, that womau should have the right of suffrage
to protect herself from the oppression of his brute force. Reply
CONTENTS. 21
to this argument. Mr. Mill argues from the Deistic stand-point,
but reasons incorrectly, even from that. Illustration. The
orange. Suffrage needless for woman, because of her complement-
ary nature. Other arguments of Mr. Mill. Inconsistency with
the first. Replies. Sophisms. Unfortunate illustration. "Wo-
man-suffrage affords no guaranty of just and equal consideration
equal to that which they now possess. Other arguments. Refin-
ing and purifying influence of woman over the polls. Mr.
Beecher's position. Reply. The snow. More bad women than
good among the voters. The direction from which a real reform
must come. The emancipation of women. Emancipation from
what ? Not from men, husbands, household drudgery, fashion,
or display. Not from civil disabilities. Not from the want of
power to vote. Why. Woman-suffrage in New Jersey, from
1776 to 1807. Narrative of Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown
Blackwell concerning it. Note. Additional facts by Mra. Ball
and Mr. Whitehead. Conclusions from the narrative.
CHAPTER XX pp. 342-372.
The plea that the ballot will raise the social consideration of women,
insure them fair wages and abundant work, and rouse their ener-
gies. Absurdity of this proposition. Miss Dodge's reply to this
plea. Her answer to the other arguments of the advocates of
woman-suffrage. The clearness and force of her arguments.
Reasons for the present excitement in regard to woman-suffrage.
The heroines of the war. Their grand work. The change in
their habits of thought and feeling. The work on which some
entered. Philanthropy. The ambition of others for great reforms.
Their zeal for the ballot for woman. Their reasoning on the
subject. The* obstacles they encountered. The lessons they
have to learn. Christ not only the type of the complete and per-
fect humanity, but of the subject-condition. The work to which
these brave women are called. The new Inner Mission. Other
fields of effort : Art Music The science of dress Supervision
of education The management of charitable and benevolent insti-
tutions Religious activities Foreign missionaries Home and
22 CONTENTS.
city missionaries. The exertion of influence for good, upon
young men who are strangers in our large cities. Deaconesses.
Their work. Kaiserswerth. Strasburg. Others. English Sis-
terhoods. Sisters of Charity. Deaconesses and Sisters in Amer-
ica. Summary.
CHAPTER XXI pp. 373-392
Weakness of the arguments adduced by the popular advocates of
woman-suffrage. Effect of this frothy declaration upon the com-
munity. The "Working Women's Association in New York.
The disgust of sensible people. The Chicago Sorosis. The
organ of woman suffrage there. Miss Beecher's paper. " Gail
Hamilton's" expose. Women in general opposed to it. The
argument that if any women want to vote, all women should be
allowed to do so. Application to minors. Other forms of the
proposition. Motives in the preparation of the work. Preva-
lence of these views. Progress. Not always in the right direc-
tion. The maiden of forty years ago. The wife of the same
period. The life of the household at the present day. The
educational errors of the present day in regard to women. Ne-
cessity of physical and moral training. Of what kind shall it bo ?
Good effects of the present agitation. Indications for good.
Leave-taking.
APPENDIX A pp. 393-412
Miss Beecher's Essay.
APPENDIX B pp. 413-429
The marriage question. Reasons for not taking it up in the body of
the work. Mr. Mill's avowals. What marriage is. No mere
partnership. Views of some of the other leaders of the move-
ment. Pernicious effect of these doctrines. "Gail Hamilton's"
dangerous doctrines. The doctrine of the equality of the sexes
at the basis of these. Its errors. The able argument on that
subject by the author of " Woman's Rights and Duties."
CONTENTS. 23
APPENDIX C pp. 430-447
Recent English works on this subject. " Woman's "Work and Woman's
Culture." A series of Essays. " Ourselves." Essays by Mrs.
E. Lynn Linton. Mr. John Boyd-Kinnear on the " Social Posi-
tion of Women." Note. Mrs. Linton on " The Girl of the Period."
INTRODUCTION.
IN the investigation of any scientific question, there is no
course so satisfactory as that of beginning with first
principles ; the foundation being well settled, the rearing
of a suitable superstructure upon it is a work of compara-
tive ease.
Let us, then, in the study of the difficult and intricate
subject before us, revert to the Scriptural history of the
creation of the first pair, and see what light it throws upon
the true relations of the two sexes to each other.
In that wonderfully vivid, yet condensed, narrative of
the creation and fall of man, contained in the first three
chapters of Genesis, the following are the principal pas-
sages which refer to this subject: "And God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness : and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him : male and female created he them.
2
26 INTRODUCTION.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruit-
ful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it :
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth
upon the earth.." Genesis I. 26-28.
In the second chapter, the inspired writer enters some-
what more fully into the details of man's creation, and the
circumstances which attended the predetermined creation
of woman :
" And the LORD God formed man out of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ;
and man became a living soul. And the LORD planted a
garden eastward in Eden ; and there he put the man
whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the
LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food : the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And the LORD God took the man, and put
him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it :
for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man
should be alone : I will make him an help meet for him.
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast
INTRODUCTION. 27
of the field, and every fowl of the air: and brought them
unto Adam to see what he would call them : and whatso-
ever Adam called every living creature, that was the name
thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the
fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; but for
Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And
the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and
he slept : and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the
flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which the LORD God
had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her
unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called woman
(Hebrew ISHA, feminine form of ISH, man) because she
was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife : and
they shall be one flesh." Genesis II. 7-10, 15-24.
Again, after the sad history of the temptation and the
fall, after sentencing the serpent, as the penalty of his
crime, to become thenceforward a creeping thing, eating
dust all the days of his life, Jehovah said to the woman :
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;
in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ; and thy desire
shall be to thy husband (margin, thou shalt be subject
to thy husband), and he shall rule over thee And
Adam called his wife Eve (Heb. Chavah, Living :) because
she was the mother of all living." Genesis III. 16, 50
28 INTRODUCTION.
There are several points worthy of particular notice in
this terse, condensed narrative; among these we may
specify, first, the peculiarity of the creation of woman. In
the creation of all the inferior orders of animals, both sexes
were called into existence at the same time and from the
same material; while in the human race, man was first
created, and then, after a time, woman taken from his side
to be a help meet, or fit, for him. This intimacy or oneness
of structure indicated a more perfect unity of nature and
purpose than was possible in the case of inferior animals,
or than would be in any of the descendants of this first
pair, not of different sexes. They were henceforth not
twain, but one flesh; one body and one soul, though in
differing forms. Sprung from a common source, inspired
by common thoughts and emotions, there could be in
their case no question of equality, any more than of the
right hand and the left ; they were parts of one whole, and
neither was complete without the other.
It was a natural consequence of this unity of aim and
purpose, that, though Adam was first created, and before
the creation of the woman, gave the names to all the in-
ferior orders of animals, joint dominion over these animals
was given to the pair. Twice was the command repeated,
" Let them have dominion," &c. Together they were to
subdue the earth, together to dress and keep the garden of
Eden. But one will, but one purpose, was to animate
INTRODUCTION. 29
them both in the performance of their duties, and that a
joint, a united will.
We may justly and fairly deduce from this narrative
what was the Creator's purpose in this creation of the first
human pair ; they were to he united by the closest of all
possible bonds, that of a common origin and nature ; they
were to be parts of each other, each the other's comple-
ment ; the woman was to be a helper or aid, meet, fit, or
adapted to the needs of the man; and these preliminaries
observed, they were to be actuated by a common purpose
and aim, and to possess a common dominion over the
inferior animals, and the earth they were to subdue.
Has this purpose and plan of the Creator been thwarted
and violated ? It has, in the temptation and fall. Part-
ing from Adam, and exercising her separate will and judg-
ment, the woman fell a prey to the tempter's wiles, and,
still by the separate exercise of her will and powers of
persuasion, induced her husband, to become a partaker
with her in the transgression. What was the consequence
of this assumption of separate and individual power?
We have it in the sentence pronounced on her by Jehovah.
" Thy desire shall be to thy husband (more correctly, as
the margin has it, ' Thou shalt be in subjection to thy hus
band'), and he shall rule over thee."
It is as if he had said to the erring culprit, "Thou
didst forget that thou wast to be one with thy husband,
30 INTRODUCTION.
in thought, in counsel, and in will; thou didst listen to
this inferior creature who is henceforth to crawl abjectly
upon the earth, in fear and terror of the race he has de-
ceived ; henceforth, though the sway over the inferior cre-
ation is not taken wholly from thee, yet thou too shalt be
subject ; the dominion shall no longer be a joint one, but
thy husband shall rule over thee, as well as over the brute
creation."
Does the sentence seem severe, as compared with that
inflicted on the man? It was because woman was the
greater transgressor ; yet was it mingled with mercy. Not
only was there the dim promise of the coming Redeemer
to cheer her sorrows, and give hope of a better Eden, but
he to whom her desire was to be, and who was hence-
forth to rule over her, was bone of her bone, and flesh of
her flesh ; and one bound to her by such tender ties could
hardly be a- tyrant in his sway. Then, too, ho whose labor
had hitherto been but a joyous pastime, was henceforth
condemned to hard, wearisome, unproductive toil, and, from
very weariness, could not become a severe task-master.
It is worthy of notice in this connection, that up to this
time Adam had only called his help meet Isha, woman
henceforth she was Chavah, or Eve^ the mother of all
living.
There are those who profess to regard this narrative of
the creation and fall of man, as only an allegory or myth ;
INTRODUCTION. 31
but the fact stated by one of the ablest of living philolo-
gists * before the Royal Geographical Society of London,
that there is not, in all the East, a nation whose earliest
traditions of the creation do not include a serpent, a fruit-
tree and a woman, would seem to be conclusive that if an
allegory, it must have originated in the infancy of the
race, and have had a substratum of fact for its basis. For
ourselves, we have no disposition to discard a record which
bears upon its face such marked evidence of its truthful-
ness and inspiration.
Having then shown what was the original relation of the
sexes to each other, and how far it was modified by the
fall, we have next to learn what has been the condition of
woman in the ages which have since passed what forms
of oppression, cruelty, and wrong have illustrated the pre-
diction, " he shall rule over thee." Unworthy and dishon-
orable as this tyranny of brute force has been, and terrible
as have been, in many lands, the cruelties inflicted on its
innocent victims, a brief review of the condition of women
in ancient times and different nations, may not prove unin-
structive.
*Mr. Ferguson.
CONDITION OF WOMEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE knowledge we have of the condition of
antediluvian woman is very meager, but some
items of it are significant. In the Cainite branch,
the women possessed extraordinary beauty, and
powers of fascination equal to those which have
since made such trouble in the world. That some
of them were, also, endowed with high intellect-
ual abilities, may be fairly inferred from the fact
of their being the counselors of their husbands,
and from the energy and inventive talent of their
progeny. Polygamy was early practiced by these
bold, bad men, but there is no evidence of any
special depression or degradation of the sex in the
period before the flood. >
After the deluge, the condition of woman grad-
ually grew worse, though in some nations it was
much lower than in others. By slow degrees
men sank into the savage state, and in that condi-
tion, selfishness being the governing law, woman
was treated with greater or less consideration,
2* o
gg CONDITION OF WOMEN.
according as she could accomplish more or less of
the labor necessary for bread-winning. In the
pastoral nations, she had the care of the tent,
cooked the food, provided for the guests, and
though required to occupy a separate tent, and
in general to exhibit great reverence and respect
for her husband, addressing him always by the
title of Lord or Master, she possessed consider-
able power and authority in household matters,
and in her marriage her consent was necessary to
its validity. Polygamy as well as concubinage
was common, but usually the first wife retained
the substantial authority over the household.
In the agricultural nations, where the residence
was fixed, the lot of woman was harder, and her
authority and privileges more restricted. She
was, except in the case of the highest classes, re-
quired to perform her full share, and generally
more than her share, of the severe physical toil
necessary in agricultural life. She plowed the
soil, and among some nations, harnessed with the
ox or the ass, drew the plow. She delved in the
earth, gathered the crops, and in addition per-
formed all the menial household duties, even to
grinding the corn, slaughtering the animals for
food, and preparing the repast. In many coun-
tries, she was not allowed to partake of the food
thus prepared until the husband had eaten to
satiety, and then humbly contented herself with
what he left Women were not permitted any
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 37
control over their male children, and these, at an
early age, imitated their fathers, by treating them
with cruelty and scorn.
Hard was the fate of woman in these nations.
Her existence made wretched by excessive toil,
continued throughout the entire life, with no kind
words, no soothing attention, unloved and unlov-
ing, and devoid of hope in the future, with no
knowledge of another life, it is not wonderful that
she should destroy the lives of her female chil-
dren, lest they should experience the same mis-
eries, or that she should voluntarily terminate a
life so utterly hopeless.
From this oppression, which thus made the
woman a slave, the resort to physical violence
was an easy step and we find, accordingly, that
among some of the nations of antiquity, as among
the degraded Australian tribes, when the man
would select a wife, he crept up behind her stealth-
ily, and felled her to the earth by a heavy blow
of his club, and flinging her upon his shoulder,
strode away to his dwelling. If she recovered,
she became his wife, and this first rude assault
was but the prelude to other cruelties, which her
lord and master inflicted at his will. If she died
from the blow, there was no blame ; his wooing
had been unsuccessful, and another maiden must
undergo the same ordeal.
The Asiatic nations generally, in the early ages,
treated their wives with cruelty, the higher classes
gg CONDITION OP WOMEN.
making an occasional exception (more apparent
than real) of some favorite, who, while her beauty
and powers of fascination lasted, ruled her ruler,
and had her every wish gratified ; but when -her
beauty waned, or the capricious despot was won
by another face, was cast aside, neglected, and
often consigned to prison or death.
The power of the husband to put his wife to
death, either with or without cause, was very
generally recognized by the Oriental nations. Her
condition was more lowly and abject than that of
the slave, while it did not possess the slave's im-
munities.
It is no marvel that there should have been
occasional revolts from this oppression, or, that,
in rare instances, women should have availed
themselves of the power of association, and have
formed nations, in which no man was admitted ex-
cept in a menial capacity. These protests against
the cruelty of their oppressors were, however, in
their nature, of but brief duration, and, though
they maintained their position bravely for a time,
they eventually again came under the yoke.
The Tartars, like other nomadic and pastoral
nations, while still leading the nomadic life, treated
their women with more respect, and made their
slavery less galling than most of the Orientals ;
yet even among them the power of life and death
was in the hands of the husband and father, and
their oppression, though not physically degrading,
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 39
was hardly less complete than that of other Asiatic
tribes. .
The doctrines of Confut-see (Confucius), in
China, inculcated a more liberal and just treat-
ment of women ; but the actual condition of the
sex in China has been, except, perhaps, in the
very highest classes, in all ages, one of deplor.
able depression. The idea that they were to be
regarded as slaves, and without rights, very early
took possession of the Oriental mind ; and their
religious systems Brahminism, Buddhism, and
later, Mohammedanism, have all encouraged this
view. In the Brahrninic doctrine of transmigra-
tion of souls, one of the most fearful calamities
which could befall the believer was to be born a
female. To enter the body of an elephant, a
horse, an ass, a dog, or even a pariah, might be
endured, but to become a woman was to touch
the lowest depth of wretchedness. More de-
graded than the outcast pariah, her touch more
polluting to the high caste and devout Brahmin
than that of an unclean dog, she was made to
feel that her existence was something to be en-
dured with difficulty, and that he was to be ac-
counted happy, who, by any means, should dismiss
her from this life, and give her the possibility of
entering upon some other form of existence than
that of woman.
The Buddhists treated woman with less cruelty,
and recognized her ability to take a part in busi-
40 CONDITION OP WOMEN.
ness affairs, but they denied her the boon of par-
ticipation in the higher rites and privileges of
their religion, and declared her utterly incapable
of attaining to the bliss of nirv-vana, or the state
of absorption of all earthly consciousness in the
contemplation of the perfections of the divine na-
ture. With them the woman was, in fact, a soul-
less drudge, of whose powers of usefulness the
man was to avail himself, and whom, from motives
of selfishness, he should treat with some kindness ;
but who was, nevertheless, in all the higher rela-
tions of life, an inferior being.
One other form of religion prevailed extensively
in some portions of the East in the ages preceding
the advent of Christianity, and is undoubtedly
entitled to the claim of being a nearer approach
to the religion of the early patriarchs than either
of those we have named. It was the system of
Zoroaster, or Zartusht, as developed in the Zend-
Avesta.
The early Persians and Medes, and a part of
the inhabitants of Arabia, as well as the colonies
which went out from Persia, were the adherents
of this faith, which has been incorrectly stigma-
tized as fire-worship. They were believers in a
good and an evil spirit, the former omnipotent
and omniscient ; the latter inferior in power and
knowledge, but possessing great and malign in-
fluence over the human race. They also recognized
inferior spirits, subject to these two, active both
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 43
for good and evil. The Parsees, or Guebres, as
they were sometimes called, while assigning to
their women a subordinate position, both in power
and authority, treated them with great consider-
ation, and made them participators in all their
religious rites. Their position in the nation was,
in many particulars, similar to that of the Jewish
women, hereafter desgribed.
Among the hill tribes of India there were some
which did not give in their adhesion either to
Brahminism or Buddhism, but retained some of
the earlier Aryan forms of worship. In several
of these tribes, owing, perhaps, partly to the
excess of the number of men over the women,
polyandry was, and still is, prevalent, many of
the women having two, three, or more husbands,
and the authority and control of the home being
vested in the wife. As these hill tribes have
been for ages low in the scale of civilization, and
for the most part poor, the condition of neither
the women noi the men was specially desirable.
In Egypt, where at one time civilization had
attained a higher point than in any other country
which practiced the . worship of idols, we obtain
occasional glimpses of. the condition of woman
from the Scriptures, as well as from the hiero-
glyphic records of the people.
In the higher classes, they possessed consider-
able liberty and influence, as is seen in the case
of Potiphar's wife, Pharaoh's daughter, and later,
44 CONDITION OP WOMEN.
Solomon's wife. But as the entire population,
except the priesthood, the royal family, and the
chief nobles of the court, were slaves of the reign-
ing king, the condition of the women of the mid-
dle and lower classes might naturally be supposed
to be one of humiliation and toil. The pictorial
records, discovered by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson and
others, render it certain that this was the fact.
Women are found engaged in all descriptions of
menial labor, and the expression of fear and ab-
jectness in their faces is universal. Under the
Ptolemies, the nation had lapsed into a condition
of gross licentiousness, which made the degrada-
tion of woman complete. In no nation on the
globe was chastity so rare, or womanly virtue so
impossible.
The influence of Mohammedanism on the con-
dition of women belongs more properly to our
consideration of the period subsequent to the
Christian era ; but as most of the Mohammedan
countries are either Asiatic or African, it may,
perhaps, as well come into the present chapter.
Mohammed was, by birth and education, an
Arab, and his views of the character and condi-
tion of woman were neither better nor worse than
those of his nation generally. In denying to them
the possession of a soul, or the enjoyments of a
future life, he demonstrated how low was the Ori-
ental appreciation of women, and how little aid he
expected from her in the propagation of his new
CONDITION OP WOMEN. 45
doctrines. As, however, his religious system was
to appeal to the passions of men for its sanction,
and especially to the voluptuous tastes of the
Oriental nature, he was compelled to provide his
houris, as a substitute for women, in the compan-
ionship of man in Paradise.
The Mohammedans have ever regarded woman
as a slave, and while, among the higher classes,
she has, like other slaves, had her brief hour of
favoritism, among the lower classes her condi-
tion has been abject and depressed. The life of
the women of the harem is one of ignorance, indo-
lence, petty jealousies, and intrigues, and often
of almost unendurable ennui. Secluded from all
society except that of their own sex, and the
mutilated slaves to whose care they are assigned,
their life is aimless and wretched.
The women of the lower classes, though less
strictly guarded, lead a life of severe and constant
toil, enlivened by no hope in the future ; yet the
women are, as a rule, more violent and fanatical
in their adherence to Mohammedanism, and more
zealous in its propagation, than the men. In
those countries of Africa (in the Soudan and
Senegambia, and the oases of the desert) in
which an active propagandism of the Mohamme-
dan faith is now in progress, the efforts of the
missionaries of Islam are directed exclusively to
the conversion of women, secure that they will
prove the most active emissaries of the faith.
46 CONDITION OP WOMEN.
Mr. J. Stuart Mill speaks of it as a matter
within his own official knowledge, that in the
Mohammedan States of India, which are governed
by native princes, where, as is not unfrequently
the case, a princess is regent during the minority
of her son, the State is always much better gov-
erned than when under the administration of a
prince. This is certainly creditable to the execu-
tive ability of the princesses, but the best of these
native governments has only the negative merit
of doing less evil than its neighbors.
CHAPTER II.
THE condition of women in European States
and Palestine, before the Christian era, deserves
some notice. In Greece there were two policies
adopted, as diverse as the character of the com-
monwealths which resorted to them, yet both
springing from the same general theory of the
subject condition of women. In Athens, there
were two classes of women : the one, composed of
the wives and daughters of citizens, who were
kept under the strictest surveillance, retained at
home, or, if permitted to walk upon the street,
required to be closely veiled. They were kept
in ignorance of public affairs, and their life was
but a long and close imprisonment, with nothing
except their household duties to relieve its ennui.
The other class, the so-called hetairce, or compan-
ions, were educated and brilliant women, of fas-
cinating manners, but abandoned life, who fre-
quented the market places, the assemblies, and
the public debates of the city, and were the asso-
ciates of its statesmen, judges, and politicians.
Their life was as free as that of the others was
restricted, but it was a life of open and public
vice.
4g CONDITION OF WOMEN.
In Sparta, the good of the State was paramount
to that of the individual, and the position of wo-
man was defined with reference to the benefit of
the State. Political power was retained in male
hands, and young women were disposed of in
marriage by their parents, or, if orphans, by the
king, but in every other respect they were placed
very nearly on a footing of equality with the
other sex. Their education was public, and in-
cluded the athletic games and exercises else-
where practiced by men only ; they were encour-
aged to discuss the questions of public interest
with the other sex ; and as wives and mothers,
to foster the patriotic spirit, to inculcate prudence,
fortitude, courage, patience, and the manly vir-
tues generally. Their virtue was unimpeached,
and the influence they exerted over their nation,
in its best days, was, perhaps, more beneficial
than that of any women of ancient times.
In all the Dorian States there was greater free-
dom allowed to the women, and they took a more
active part in public affairs, than in any other part
of Europe. In Corinth and in most of the other
large cities of the peninsula, there w&s, on the
other hand, a most deplorable state of morals, and,
almost without exception, the women were the
degraded slaves of lust.
In the early periods of the Roman republic,
the Roman matrons were distinguished for their
virtue and dignity. With them the interest of
CONDITION OP WOMEN. 49
the nation often prevailed over their private
claims, and they gloried in making patriotic sac-
rifices. They were never secluded, either before
or after marriage, and they became, in many in-
stances, possessed of great wealth, and were able
to dispose of it as they pleased. They took an
active part in public affairs, and often exerted
great influence over the Senate by their petitions
and pleas for favorable legislation. Yet the early
laws gave the husband the same absolute right to
the services and even the life of his wife, as he
had to those of his slave. He could punish her
in any manner he pleased, short of death, for any
offense ; and if the offense was great, he could
summon a tribunal of her relatives, try her before
them, and if she was convicted, put her to death.
He could divorce her for infidelity, for poisoning,
and for having false keys. By the laws of the
Twelve Tables, the women were granted the power
of divorcing themselves from the men. In the
later republic and the empire, this unlimited
facility of divorce led to the most deplorable re-
sults upon the public morals. Chastity, honor,
and virtue became the rare exceptions, and the
prevalence of lust in its grossest and most degrad-
ing forms, the almost universal rule. The women
of highest rank, the wives and daughters of the
emperors and triumvirs, were the leaders in the
most horrible and degrading crimes, and yet, vile
as their characters were known to be, they ex-
50 CONDITION OF WOMEN.
erted a controlling influence over their fathers,
husbands, and sons.
The fall of pagan Rome was due quite as. much
to the terrible degradation of its women, and their
reckless thirst for scenes of excitement and blood-
shed, the natural fruit of their profligate lives, as
to the luxury and demoralization of its men.
The Jewish nation had attempted to preserve,
as nearly as possible, in their purity, the institu-
tions of their great lawgiver, but he, in compassion
to their Oriental origin and training, had permitted
polygamy and divorce, and had given to the
parents and husbands very stringent authority
over their daughters and wives. Whoever revolts
against the idea of the subordination of woman,
must find the authority for his course elsewhere
than in the laws of Moses. So far as these can
be regarded as an exposition of the sentence of
Jehovah on woman after the fall, they only add
to its severity. Yet the Jewish lawgiver was
too wise and too just not to make laws which
should protect woman from the brutal instincts of
the semi-barbarous Israelites, which should con-
firm her in the possession of property, and render
her condition more tolerable, under the liberty of
divorce.
We can not, however, regard the Mosaic law
as intended to be in this or its other legal aspects,
an authoritative development of the will of Jeho-
vah for all phases or conditions of society. It
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 51
was intended to influence, control, and improve
a semi-barbarous people, just emerging from sla-
very, of Oriental origin and ideas, and gradually
to lift them to a higher plane. Of course, rapid
progress was out of the question, and their preju-
'clices and ancient practices must be conciliated to
some extent. What would be adapted to such a
people, would in many particulars be wholly out
of place in a more enlightened and cultivated
commonwealth, in other times and under other
circumstances.
Either from these laws, or from the peculiar
condition of the Hebrew people, we find that
during the existence of the Hebrew common-
wealth, women enjoyed a very considerable de-
gree of liberty, and in exceptional instances great
authority and influence. Unlike other Oriental
nations, there was no attempt at seclusion either
of married or unmarried women ; they took a con-
siderable and almost uniformly patriotic interest
in public affairs ; in one notable instance, a woman,
and she a wife, Deborah, the wife of Lepidoth,
judged Israel for many years, and, in association
with Barak, led the national forces against the
Canaanites. In the later history of the nation we
find women taking a prominent part in the national
rejoicings, and the wives and mothers of the Is-
raelitish kings influencing and controlling their
action. Two of these queens, Jezebel and Atha-
liah, stand out in a bad pre-eminence, which indi-
52 CONDITION OF WOMEN.
cates alike their despotic power and their evil
disposition. Still later, in the Maccabean wars,
Judith, the slayer of Holofernes, and deliverer of
her people, is a commanding figure in Jewish
history.
The hope of being privileged to become the
mother of the long promised Messiah gave a dig-
nity and glory to the character of the Judean
woman, which manifested itself as well in her
moral as her physical beauty and through the
ages this blessed expectation had its share in
keeping her pure, chaste, and holy.
Yet, with all this measure of freedom, the Jew-
ish woman was, in many respects, subordinate ;
and, especially among the lower classes, her lot
was hard, her toil constant and severe, and her
task-master, who was also her husband, was ex-
acting and stern.
Both Caesar and Tacitus portray the social con-
dition of the Germans as remarkably attractive,
and describe the position of their women as one
of more freedom and equality than was found
elsewhere ; but while there has been, from the ear-
liest times, among the Teutonic tribes, a stronger
attachment for home and family than in the Celtic
nations, these descriptions are to be taken with
some allowance, both from their necessarily super-
ficial character, and from the proneness of both
writers to make history the vehicle for the incul-
cation of their own views and theories. The
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 55
Germans were barbarians, and though of a noble
and generous nature, and free from many of the
vices of barbarism, there is no reason to believe
that they abdicated their authority over the women
of their nation, or exempted them from the hard-
ships which they suffered in most barbarous na-
tions. This is the less probable since, even to-day,
when they have become a highly intellectual and
cultivated nation, and all the ameliorating influ-
ences of Christianity and mental culture have, for
ages exerted their influence in improving the con-
dition of woman, the German women of the lower,
and, to some extent, of the middle classes, are sub-
jected to greater hardships than the women of
any other nation of Europe. The farm-laborer,
the mechanic, and even the small farmer, makes
his wife or mother his drudge, and compels her
to perform the most menial and severe labors,
while he sits or walks by her side unemployed,
smoking his pipe. Within a few years, American
citizens have witnessed, in Vienna, women acting
as masons' tenders, carrying bricks and mortar up
to the walls of lofty brick buildings in course of
erection. There, as well as here, German women,
often the mothers of families, are chiffonnieres and
scavengers.
3
CHAPTER III.
THE advent of Christianity exerted a favorable
influence on the condition of women throughout
all the countries in which it was propagated. In
the mission, the sufferings, and death of the Mes-
siah, a part of the sentence pronounced on the
serpent, and the serpent's prompter, had been
fulfilled ; the seed of the woman did bruise the
serpent's head. And in the whole life and teach-
ings of the Redeemer, there was a compassionate
thoughtfulnesS for woman, an evident desire to
raise her from her lowly condition, and to confer
upon her some relief from the severity of the
sentence pronounced in Eden, which was without
any precedent in the world's previous history.
It seemed as if, in his view, woman, in bringing
into the world the second Adam, had measurably
atoned for her transgression in leading the first
Adam into temptation, and henceforth her lot was
to be less wretched, her sorrows to be diminished,
and her joys increased. Women rendered con-
spicuous services to the Saviour himself, and to
the early Church ; though never admitted to the
exercise of authority, their zeal, their labors, in
public and private, in the diffusion of Christianity,
CONDITION OP WOMEN. 57
and their abundant charity, were commended both
by Christ and his apostles, nor were they ever
censured for their Christian activity, even though
it at tim^s must have encroached on the house-
hold duties, which, then as now, were considered
by many as paramount.
At an early period in the history of the Church,
Christian women, aside from the instruction of
their households in the doctrines of the Christian
faith, taught the catechumens, prepared the love-
feasts, and made provision for the eucharist ; exer-
cised, in large measure, the duties of a hospitality
more exacting than that of the present day, visit-
ed the sick and the prisoners, encouraged those
who were destined to martyrdom, and often, with
heroic courage, refused to deny their Lord, and
suffered death in the most terrific forms which the
cruelty of tyrants could devise. For the first six
hundred years of the Christian era, or, at least, as
soon as the number of the disciples of Christianity
had increased sufficiently to warrant the organiza-
tion of Christian communities, the Christian wo-
man was practically free from the subjection under
which she had formerly been bound. Her new
ties, aside from those of the family, were to the
Church, to the care of the sick, to religious instruc-
tion, and to the cloister; for the life of voluntary
seclusion for religious meditation and improvement
had many charms for the unmarried and widowed.
The wea'thy and high-born women of the Roman
58 CONDITION OP -WOMEN.
empire gave their money and influence for the
ransoming of slaves, for the establishment of hos-
pitals, asylums for the sick, and monasteries,
which, at first, included also schools for the instruc-
tion of the poor and ignorant.
To say that there were no instances of the op-
pression of women in these early centuries, would
be to falsify history. The Roman laws, and later,
the Justinian code, were in force, and neither
recognized, so fully as they ought, the rights and
immunities of woman; but then, as before and
since, the practice of the community was materi-
ally better than the laws, and in her social posi-
tion, woman enjoyed more of freedom than at a
later period.
We may not urge it as any fault of the sex that
as the ages drew on, ignorance, darkness, and
moral degradation constantly increased. They
would have done so inevitably under existing cir-
cumstances. There were, in Southern Europe,
the dregs of the old Roman empire, which had
perished from its own rottenness ; a conglomera-
tion of nationalities, having as vet no bond of
J CJ v
union, not even the nominal Christianity which
but a part of them had professed ; a bitter strife
between the middle classes, the nobles, and the
peasants ; and a Church which was fast declining
from its high estate of purity and self-sacrifice
into a condition of hypocrisy, selfish greed, and
gross licentiousness. The monasteries and nun-
CONDITION OP WOMEN. 61
neries were no longer places of devout meditation
and Christian instruction ; but in them, gluttony,
drunkenness, lust, and murder, ran riot. The
priests, under the new regime of celibacy, were
no longer the ministers of Christ, but wolves which
debauched and destroyed the flock, and all things
seemed tending toward utter ruin and desolation.
It is to the honor of the sex, that we have to
record, that in every century of these dark ages,
there were found women who sought to raise their
sex from the degradation which seemed so inevi-
table ; daughters of nobles and princes, who, by
the establishment of schools and institutions of
learning, and by public instruction, attempted to
turn the attention of their sisters from frivolity
and dissipation ; and daughters of toil as well,
who established manufactories, asylums for the
poor and infirm, and sisterhoods for the relief of
the suffering.
The development of knight-errantry and the age
of chivalry, during this period, was a protest
against the lawless outrages of the time, from
which women were the greatest sufferers, and an
effort to establish the domination of a great reform
of morals and manners, on an inadequate basis,
and in an age which was not ripe for it. It
accomplished some good as well as some evil ;
the high-born dames whom the knights recognized
as their ladyes, were pledged to lives of purity
and good works, and their approval infused new
g2 CONDITION OF WOMEN.
courage, and incited to greater efforts, their knights;
but the excessive flatteries addressed to them by
the troubadours, and the almost religious adora-
tion bestowed upon them, tended to excite the
vanity and to raise the self-esteem of these women,
whose education was but meager, and whose judg-
ment was hardly more developed than their
intellect.
It should be remembered, too, that in the days
of chivalry, it was only the noble and high-born
to whom the knight pledged his sword, and from
whom he received his " favors ;" the wives and
daughters of the peasants, and, indeed, of the
tradesmen, had no rights which these knights were
bound to respect ; and often was the lowly home
made desolate, and the peasant-woman dishonored,
by a knight who had vowed perpetual fealty to
some proud beauty in castle or chateau.
But these dark ages could not always last. The
Reformation came, and brought an improvement
both in morals and manners. The revival of let-
ters, which partly preceded and was partly con-
temporaneous with it, had opened the way for the
intellectual culture of the sex, and in the century
which followed, we find a considerable number of
female names illustrious for scholarship ; the
new faith had its eloquent advocates among wo-
men as well as among men, though the Reformers
themselves discouraged any public ministration
of women. Luther, however, pressed women into
CONDITION OF WOMEN. (J3
service, as instructors of the young, and recog-
nized them as able assistants in many depart-
ments of Christian activity.
The power of woman, if not her freedom from
subjection, was recognized, especially in the higher
classes. In the century which followed the Ref-
ormation, more than half the principal thrones of
Europe were occupied by queens, some of them
illustrious for their virtues and abilities, others
equally conspicuous for their vices.
Isabella, of Spain ; Catherine de Medicis, of
France ; Mary and Elizabeth, of England ; Eliza-
beth, of Hungary; Mary, Queen of Scots, were
the most remarkable of these female rulers, and
whether their success was due, as has been al-
leged, to the able men they selected as counsel-
ors, or not, it must be admitted that their reigns
do not generally compare unfavorably with those
of the kings, who preceded or succeeded them.
In the following century women played a
prominent part in the government of France,
Spain, and England, but it was oftenest as favor-
ites, who ruled the kings through their passions,
and disposed of offices, places and treasure, for
the gratification of their own caprices rather than
for the good of the people.
The eighteenth century was also remarkable
for its intellectual women, some of whom have
never been surpassed in the vigor and purity of
their style, while others exhibited a grasp of in-
(54 CONDITION OF WOMEN.
telloct and a power of grappling with important
questions of finance and political economy, which
had hitherto been supposed beyond the abilities
of the sex.
The religious reformation in England, and the
organization of Wesleyan Methodism, developed
another element of womanly power. Wesley's
distinguished patroness, Selina, Countess of Hun-
tingdon, was herself active as a writer in defense
of his doctrines, and the women of the middle and
lower classes, who made up somewhat the larger
portion of the converts under the preaching of
both Wesley and Whitfield, found liberty of ut-
terance in their meetings, and often discoursed
with great power, and sometimes with considera-
ble vehemence, in behalf of the new doctrines.
It was, however, reserved for the nineteenth
century to witness the higher and much more
general intellectual development of woman, and
her advance in the attainment of those legal rights,
which, under English common and statute law,
had hitherto been unjustly withheld from her.
In literature she has achieved a high, though
hardly the highest position ; her fictions have
shown considerable creative power, and are hardly
more deficient in originality than those of the
most eminent male novelists ; in poetry she has
attained a high rank, and though still falling be-
low the great masterpieces of English verse, she
is entitled to rank with the best poets of our own
CONDITION OF WOMEN. 5
time. In science a few great names nave ap-
peared, to demonstrate the capacity of the sex for
high attainments in astronomy, mathematics, natu-
ral history, political economy, psychology, and
moral philosophy.
In the mechanic arts, though seldom inventing
any important machines, they have exhibited a
tact and skill in manipulation, in many depart-
ments, which have secured for them high positions
and great responsibilities.
In trade and commercial pursuits, women, who
have been trained to them, often exhibit decided
abilities both in financial management and in
sales.
But it was left for the Crimean war, the late
war in the United States, and the still more re-
cent war in Germany, to exhibit most fully the
remarkable executive ability of woman, in the
labors of the hospital, in the management of
depots of supplies, in the purchase of goods, the
disbursement of hospital stores, the conducting
of extensive correspondence, the erection of hos-
pitals, asylums, and homes for the wounded, the
organization and successful management of mon-
ster fairs, and the control, in general, of an ex-
penditure of nearly eighty millions of dollars.
In this great work, of the thousands who took
part in it, many fell victims to over-work and
over-anxiety ; some, as delicate as the others, but
with better powers of endurance, survived the
3*
(Jg CONDITION OP WOMEN.
great struggle, but, thoroughly disabled, sank a
year or two later into untimely graves ; and
others, recovering from the terrible strain of
brain and nerve, still live to bless the world.
It is the testimony, not grudgingly given, of the
men who were associated with them in this work,
that it was well, admirably done ; that much of
it could not have been done so well by men,
since it required womanly tact and tenderness;
and that none of it could have been accomplished
with more skill, system, and promptness, by men
trained all their lives to business, than it was by
women who had previously been the ornaments
and pets of society.
To these noble and generous-hearted women,
however, the " pace was killing ;'' the effort was
too great for their delicate and frail constitutions ;
and though there was no faltering, no shrinking
from toil, till the last invoice was made out, the
last consignment shipped, or the last patient cared
for, they went to their homes, many of them, when
all was done, only to lie down and die. To men,
under similar circumstances, there would have
come for a time intense weariness, and a craving
for rest ; but the bow, long bent, would have re-
covered its elasticity, and the power of work have
returned.
The brief review of the condition of woman in all
ages being thus concluded, let us proceed to define
what is woman's present position before the law.
CHAPTER IV.
THE greater part of the provisions of our statute
books in relation to woman have been based on
the common law of England, modified of late
years by special statutes, granting particular priv-
ileges or immunities to women in certain relations
or conditions in life. In Canada, to some extent?
and in Louisiana and Florida almost entirely, the
French laws either of the code Napoleon, or the
old communal law, prevail. What the English
common law on this subject is, has been briefly
but justly expressed in an old Black-letter volume
published in 1632, and attributed to Sir John
Doderidge, Solicitor-General, and subsequently
Judge of Common Pleas and of the King's Bench.
The book is entitled the " Lawe's Resolution of
Woman's Rights." The following passage, quoted
by Mrs. C. H. Dall in her " The College, the Mar-
ket, and the Court," contains the pith of many a
long page of Black-letter :
" The next thing that I will show you is this
particularity of law. In this consolidation which
we call wedlock is a locking together. It is true
that man and wife are one person; but under
stand in what manner. When a small brooke or
gg LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
little river incorporateth with Rhodanus, Humber,
or the Thames, the poore rivulet loseth her name :
it is carried and recarried with the new associate ;
it beareth no sway ; it possesseth nothing during
coverture. A woman, as soon as she is married,
is called covert ; in Latine, nnpta that is, 'veiled ;'
as it were, clouded and overshadowed ; she hath
lost her streame. I may more truly, farre away,
say to a married woman, Her new self is her
superior, her companion, her master." .
" Eve, because she had helped to seduce her
husband, had inflicted upon her a special bane.
See here the reason of that which I touched be-
fore that women have no voice in Parliament.
They make no laws, they consent to none, they
abrogate none. All of them are understood either
married or to bee married, and their desires are to
their husbands. I know no remedy, though some
women can shift it well enough. The common
lawe here shaketh hand with divinitye."
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his " Subjection of
Women," published in the summer of 1869, thus
states the present provisions of the common law
of England, in relation to the condition of married
women, after all the recent statutory modifications :
" The wife is the actual bond-servant of her
husband ; no less so, as far as legal obligation goes,
than slaves, commonly so called. She vows a life-
long obedience to him at the altar, and is held to
it all through her life by law. Casuists may say
LEGAL STATUS OP WOMEN. 59
that the obligation of obedience stops short of
participation in crime, but it certainly extends to
every thing else. She can do no act whatever
but by his permission, at least tacit. She can
acquire no property but for him ; the instant it
becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes
ipso facto his. In this respect the wife's position,
under the common law of England, is worse than
that of slaves in the laws of many countries. By
the Roman law, for example, a slave might have
his peculmm, which, to a certain extent, the law
guaranteed to him for his exclusive use. The
higher classes (in England) have given an analo-
gous advantage to their women, through special
contracts setting aside the law, by conditions of pin-
money, &c. : since, parental feeling being stronger
with fathers than the class feeling of their own
sex, a father generally prefers his own daughter
to a son-in-law who is a stranger to him. By
means of settlements, the rich usually contrive to
withdraw the whole or part of the inherited prop-
erty of the wife from the absolute control of the
husband : but they do not succeed in keeping it
under her own control ; the utmost they can do
only prevents the husband from squandering it,
at the same time debarring the rightful owner from
its use. The property itself is out of the reach
of both ; and as to the income derived from it, the
form of settlement most favorable to the wife
(that called ' to her separate use ') only precludes
70 LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
the husband from receiving it instead of her ; it
must pass through her hands ; but if he takes it
from her, by personal violence, as soon as she re-
ceives it, he can neither be punished nor com-
pelled to restitution. In the immense majority
of cases there is no settlement ; and the absorp-
tion of all rights, all property, as well as all free-
dom of action, is complete. The two are called
( one person in law,' for the purpose of inferring
that whatever is hers is his, but the parallel in-
ference is never drawn, that whatever is his is
hers ; the maxim is not applied against the man,
except to make him responsible to third parties
for her acts, as a master is for the acts of his
slaves or his cattle. I am far from pretending
that wives are, in general, no better treated than
slaves ; but no slave is a slave to the same lengths,
and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.
Hardly any slave, except one immediately at-
tached to the master's person, is a slave at all
hours and all minutes ; in general, he has, like a
soldier, his fixed task, and when it is done, or
when he is off duty, he disposes, within certain
limits, of his own time, and has a family life, into
which the master rarely intrudes. But it can not
be so with the wife.*
* Mrs. Ball illustrates this practical servitude of the wife, under the
English common law, by the following incident, which occurred in one of
the London courts, in 1858:
'' A delicate, much-abused woman, unmarried, but who ha<l been, in
her own phrase, ' living for some time ' with a man, brought an action
LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN. fj
" While she is held in this worst description of
slavery as to her own person, what is her position
in regard to the children in whom she and her
master have a. joint interest ? They are by law
his children. He alone has any legal rights over
them. Not one act can she do toward, or in rela-
tion to them, except by delegation from him.
Even after he is dead, she is not their legal guar-
dian, unless he by will has made her so. He
could even send them away from her, and deprive
her of the means of seeing or corresponding with
them, until this power was in some degree re-
stricted by Sergeant Talfourd's act.
" This is her legal state. And from, this state
against him for assault. Erysipelas had inflamed her wounds, and en-
dangered her life.
" ' Had she died, sirrah,' said the magistrate, addressing the criminal,
' you must have taken your trial for murder. What have you to say in
your defense ? '
" ' I was in liquor, sir,' pleaded the man. ' I gave her some money to
go to market. I told her to look sharp ; but she was gone more than
an hour, your worship ; so, when she came back, I I was in liquor,
your honor.'
fi The magistrate leaned over his desk, and speaking in the most im-
pressive manner, thus endeavored to cut short the defense :
" ' This woman is not your slave, man. She is not accountable to you
for every moment of her time. She is not,' he continued with increasing
fervor, but a growing embarrassment. ' she is not she is not '
"A suppressed titter ran through the court: for every married man
knew that the words, 'She is not your wife,' were those which had
sprung naturally to the worthy magistrate's lips ; and must have passed
them, had not honest shame prevented. The man then attempted to
defend himself on the ground of jealousy, but this was instantly -set
aside; the unmistakable impression left on the mind of the assembly
being, that the illegality of the relation was wholly in the woman's
favor."
72 LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
she has no means of withdrawing herself. If she
leaves her husband, she can take nothing with her,
neither her children, nor any thing which is right-
fully her own. If he chooses, he can compel her
to return, by law, or by physical force ; or he
may content himself with seizing for his own use
any thing which she may earn, or which may be
given her by her relations.* It is only legal sepa-
ration by a decree of a court of justice, which
entitles her to live apart, without being forced
back into the custody of an exasperated jailer
or which empowers her to apply any earnings to
her own use, without fear that a man, whom she
has not seen for twenty years, will pounce upon
her some day and carry all off. This legal sepa-
ration, until lately, the courts of justice would only
give at an expense ($4,000 or more) which made
it inaccessible to any one out of the higher ranks.
Even now it is only given in cases of desertion or
the extreme of cruelty ; and yet complaints are
made every day, that it is granted too easily. No
amount of ill-usage, without adultery superadded,
will in England free a wife from her tormentor,
that is, by a full divorce."
Well may Mr. Mill remark of such laws as
these, that the laws of most countries are far
* The husband of the Hon. Mrs. Norton actually enforced this out-
rageous provision of the law against his wife ; seizing the incomefrom her
settlement, all her personal effects, her literary earnings, and the gifts
of her frieuds.
LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 73
worse than the people who execute them, and
many of them are only able to remain laws by
being seldom or never carried into effect.
The English common law is somewhat more just
to single women, though still oppressive in some
particulars.
A single woman has the same rights of property
as a man ; she is entitled to the protection of the
law, and has to pay the same taxes to the State.
If her parents die without a will, she shares equally
with her brothers in the division of the personal
property ; but her eldest brother and his issue,
even if female, will take the real estate as heirs at
law. If she be an only child, she inherits both
the personal and real property of her parents.
Being " duly qualified," that is, possessing a
certain amount of property, she may vote on parish
questions and for parish officers.
As the English law of suffrage is based on a
property qualification, it was contended that single
women possessing the required amount of freehold
property (this was before the recent suffrage re-
form) might cast a vote for members of Parliament;
and it is a matter of record that in one or two in-
stances they have done so. The attempt by any
considerable number of women to cast a vote
under these conditions would, however, have imme-
diately caused a legal prohibition. In June, 1866,
fifteen hundred single women, property-holders,
petitioned Parliament to provide for the represen-
74 LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
tation of householders without distinction of sex,
alleging that the possession of property justly
carried with it the right to vote for representatives
in Parliament, and that their exclusion was an
anomaly in the British constitution. Though
their construction of the British constitution was
unquestionably logical, and the number of voters
to be added by such a change was not large, yet
the prayer of the petitioners was, without hesita-
tion, rejected, though defended with ability by Mr.
J. Stuart Mill, who had presented it.
The Church and all State offices are closed to
women. In rare instances they have been appointed
to rural post-offices, or made parish clerks, over-
seers of the poor, or governors of small local pri-
sons. They are not excluded from the highest of
all positions in the realm, that of sovereign ; but
there, the power, under the constitution, is much
more nominal than real, since the real sovereignty
is lodged in the cabinet. In almost all periods of
English history, women have, through court favor
or particular circumstances, held some one of the
great offices of the kingdom, sinecures, of which
there are so many in Great Britain; but these
were only exceptional cases, and the recurrence
of any one of them is highly improbable.
No single woman, having been seduced, has any
remedy at common law, neither has her mother or
next friend. If her father can prove service ren-
dered, he may sue for loss of service.
LEGAL STATUS OP WOMEN. 75
The conservative principle is so strong in the
English people, that they suffer these laws, and
others equally odious, to remain on the statute
book, when the enforcement of some of them has
not been attempted for generations, and they
could not, probably, in any given case, be enforced.
Still, it must be acknowledged that women have a
right to claim more liberal legislation, and the
abrogation of the old principle of force from the
statute book, in its application to their condition.
In England there is no provision for the pro-
tection of a married woman who goes into busi-
ness in her own name. Be her husband ever so
profligate or worthless, he has the right to seize
all her earnings and her goods, convert them to
his own use, and turn her penniless into the street,
and she has no redress.
In France the provisions on this subject are
better. The code Napoleon, it is true, resembles
the English common law in this respect; but all
parties, at their marriage, are allowed to choose
whether they will be governed by this law, which,
in its relations to the property of married women,
is called the dotal, or by another called the com-
munal law, and the choice once made can not be
revoked. The communal law makes the woman a
citizen, equally liable with her husband for the
State and other taxes, and gives her the authority
to make her own bargains and control her own
property, which is not responsible for her hus-
76 LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
band's debts. She has no suffrage; but on the
other hand, she is not liable for military service.
In France, women sometimes hold office ; they
may be post-mistresses, inspectors of schools
and public asylums, may take charge of bureaus
of wood and tobacco government monopolies
and in relation to these subordinate offices they
enjoy all the rights of the men, except the right
of promotion.
The French law, in other particulars, gives the
husband much the same personal rights over the
wife as the English common law, with the added
disadvantage, that, as a Catholic country, there is
no legal separation, and no divorce but for adul-
tery. The dread of this perpetual bondage has
been in the lower classes, among the working peo-
ple (ouvriers), students, &c., the cause of a form
of illicit connection the grisette system which
is more prevalent there than in any other country
of Europe, and which has proved subversive of
public morals to a frightful extent. The single
woman has no redress against her seducer, even
under the promise of marriage ; and in general
her position, except in the protection of her prop-
erty, is worse than in England. The French law,
in all its provisions in regard to women, seems
not so much desirous of protecting her as of
hedging her about, by laws, to protect society
against her : yet there has been progress even in
France j the position of woman in that country is bet
LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 77
ter now than it was fifty years ago, and would be
better than it is, were it not that the low state of
public morals begets a contempt for women which is
but thinly veiled in the habitual politeness of the
French people. We turn to the United States,
and ask, What is the legal status of woman here ?
Thirty years since, the English common law
was, with but slight modifications, the paramount
law in regard to the legal condition of woman ;
but changes were incorporated into the statutes of
the new States, and these were speedily introduced
in the older commonwealths, till now the greater
part of the disabilities under which they formerly
suffered are abolished. There is, however, a great
want of uniformity in the legislation of the dif-
ferent States on this subject; some going much
further than others in their enactments for the
benefit of the sex. In most of the States, the wife
is allowed to hold property separate from her hus-
band. In New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and most of the Western States, she can conduct
business in her own name, or have a partner other
than her husband, and her separate property is not
subject to seizure by him, nor is it liable for his
debts. She can receive property by inheritance
or gift after her marriage, and dispose of it inde-
pendently of her husband. In several of the States
the married woman can make a will, and bequeath
absolutely her separate property to whomsoever
she pleases. In most, she receives as her dower, at
78 LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
her husband's death, one-third of his real and one-
half of his personal estate. If they are childless,
she receives, in some States, the whole of his per-
sonal and half of his real estate, if he dies intes-
tate. She is by statute of most of the States, a
guardian of her minor children, on their father's
1 rath, except in cases of mental incompetency.
Divorce is granted for several causes in all the
States, and equally to either party ; in some of
the States it is granted for any cause, or without
cause, a facility which is productive of the worst
results.
The courts punish with greater or less severity
the brutality of the husband who treats his wife
with violence ; and wife-murder is more frequently
punished with death by hanging than the murder
of any other person. This is as it should be.
The condition of the simile woman who possesses
property, is the same as that of any other citizen.
She does not vote at any public election, State or
national; but, on the other hand, she is not
subject, either to military or jury duty ; she is
taxed both by the State and national governments,
and receives the benefit of the taxation in the
protection accorded to her person and property.
A single woman who has been seduced, can, in
several of the States, bring a civil, and, in two or
three, a criminal action against her seducer, and in
a civil suit usually obtains exemplary damages ; or
LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 79
in most or all of the States her father, mother, or
next friend can bring a suit for her.
A few offices or places under the national and
State governments are allotted to women. A con-
siderable number are postmistresses, some of them
in important cities. From five hundred to one
thousand women are clerks in the various depart-
ments at Washington. In the offices of the State
governments there are a considerable number
employed as clerks. An attempt has been made
but we believe as yet unsuccessfully, to secure for
them, in one or two instances, the position of
assessor or collector of internal revenue. A few
are employed in the Custom-house at New York,
and perhaps in some of the custom-houses in
other cities. They do not yet, as clerks, receive
equal compensation with male clerks of the same
grade ; and partly for the reason, that with some
honorable exceptions, their work is not equal, either
in quality or quantity, to that of the male clerks.
That some of them do as much, and do it as well
as the men, is undoubtedly true, and that most of
them could do so, is equally true ; but the system
of appointing these women clerks has been very
corrupt. They were generally appointed on the
urgent requests of members of Congress, and were
usually relatives or favorites of those who solicited
their appointment. They were often incompetent
for the duties of their positions, as, indeed, compe-
tency had little or nothing to do with the matter ;
gO LEGAL STATUS OP WOMEN.
they were often gay, frivolous girls, who cared
more for flirtations than work. If the Civil Ser-
vice bill were passed, and those only appointed
who could sustain a competitive examination,
there would be no difficulty in regard to salaries ;
the same work would command the same pay,
whether the clerk were man or woman.
The only approach to the grant of the suffrage
to women which has been made by any of
our Legislatures (except Minnesota), is a law
passed by the State of New York, authorizing
all persons who contributed regularly to the sup-
port of public worship in any religious society in-
corporated under a general law of the State, to
vote at the regular meetings of such society. In
Minnesota, the Legislature passed an amendment
to the State constitution in 1868, admitting the
participation of women in the suffrage, and it was
ratified by the people by a small majority early
in 1869, but no election has yet been held under
it. It is, as we have said, desirable that there
should be a greater uniformity in the legislation
of the different States in regard to the rights and
conditions of women. On some points, as for
instance in the facility of divorce, and in the case
of Minnesota, the conferring the right of suffrage,
a few of them have gone too far ; but on matters
of much greater moment, some are far behind
their true position, and in some particulars none
have fully come up to their duty. The true
LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN. gj
standard for legislation in relation to woman, can
be ascertained by regarding her as the help-meet,
the associate, the complement of man, and, as
thus, entitled to equal justice with him in regard
to her person, her property, her moral, intellectual,
and social condition. In the marriage relation,
though her duties and -her sphere of activities
may be different from that of the man, yet, if she
performs honorably and truly her duties, she
should be entitled to an equal share of the prop-
erty, and of the responsibility with the husband ;
no restrictions should be placed on her inheritance
as his widow, which would not be placed on his
as her widower ; she should be placed in the
same relation as guardian of their children, that
he would be, in the event of her death ; and in the
disposition of the property accumulated by their
joint labors, she should not be hampered any
more than her husband would have been.
In regard to education and intellectual culture,
it is rather the practice than the law which needs
reformation, and on this subject we shall have
more to say by- and -by. Meantime we may
remark, that there seems to be no good reason
why, in this country, as well as in France, women
should not, very frequently, and wherever com-
petent women can be found, be appointed inspect-
ors of schools, not to the exclusion of male in-
spectors, but in connection with them. We
believe that the public interest in the schools, and
g2 LEGAL STATUS OP WOMEN.
their consequent improvement, would be greatly
promoted thereby. There are medical schools for
women in several of our large cities, and the
course of instruction is, we believe, as thorough
in some of them, as in the medical colleges for
men. The States have authorized them to grant
medical degrees, and the, prejudice which at first
existed in regard to them has greatly abated.
The legislation on moral questions involving the
rights of women has not as yet come up to its true
standard, and will not until the principle is fully
recognized that the guilt of the man should re-
ceive the same measure of punishment and of
social reprobation as that of the woman. If the
one is to be reckoned an outcast for her offenses
against the purity of society, let the other be ban-
ished from society also ; if society receives the
one on evidence of his penitence (too often is he
now received without that evidence), then let the
erring one of the other sex, who seeks pardon
from God and man, be permitted to make an
effort for a better life, and encouraged to succeed.
Seduction should be severely punished, and the
libertine driven from society as infamous.
The progress which has been made in the last
few years in the legislation in regard to women,
indicates, that, in an enlightened Christian commu-
nity, the legislators have no intention of oppressing
women; that they are willing to do them justice,
when they understand fully their claims and their
LEGAL STATUS OP "WOMEN; gg
rights ; and though the progress of legislation may-
be slow, it will be sure in the end to give to the
sex all they can rightfully claim. We could de-
sire, indeed, that woman should not have occasion
to claim as a right, what should be freely and
promptly bestowed as a boon ; but the wheels of
legislation always move tardily. Still we are
satisfied, that women will sooner be invested with
all their rights by an appeal to the justice of men,
than they would by an attempt to obtain them
through personal legislation for themselves. We
do not despair of the millennium, because its com-
ing is delayed, when we see with each year new
triumphs of right over might, of justice and right-
eousness over ages of hoary wrong, of gentleness
and peace over outrage and bloodshed. So, too,
we may not yield to discouragement in regard to
the prevalence of that fairness and chivalric honor,
which is ready to yield somewhat more than
absolute justice, in its desire not to wrong those
who have placed their interests in its keeping
when we see such progress as the past twenty
years have witnessed, toward giving woman her
rightful place in society, and in the common-
wealth.
CHAPTER V.
HAVING thus defined the present legal status of
woman, we proceed to consider what are her true
relations to man, what the specific characteristics
of her mental organization, and wherein she differs
from man in her physical, mental, and moral
structure.
These inquiries we deem necessary to the
determination of her capacity for, and adaptation
to, the various pursuits and employments in which
of late it is deemed, by some, desirable that she
should engage.
And here, at the very threshold of our investi-
gation, we are met by the positive assertion of
Mr. J. Stuart Mill, that it is impossible, in the
present state of society, to know any thing cor-
rectly on the subject of woman's nature or capaci-
ties. Mr. Mill is a philosopher and political
economist of distinguished ability, and his dec-
larations are to be received with respect, even
where we are compelled to differ from them.
From his stand-point it may be impossible to come
at any correct conclusion on these subjects, just
as it is impossible for an observer who stands at
the water-level of the great can on of the Colorado
TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN. g5
River, to discern the character of the landscape at
the top and beyond the perpendicular wall, which
rises more than a mile above him.
But looking at the subject from a different
point, and regarding woman as created by the
Almighty for a definite purpose and end, we beg
leave to affirm, with all due respect to Mr. Mill,
that it is possible to know something of her nature,
her relations to man, and her capacities. That,
under other circumstances, she might develop
abilities which have hitherto remained latent, is
very probable, and should be taken into the account
in any estimate of what she may accomplish;
but we are more concerned at present with the
powers she has developed in the past six thousand
years, than with those which are yet in abey-
ance.
To any one who has read carefully and thought-
fully those portions of the first three chapters of
Genesis which we have quoted in our introduction,
it will, we think, be evident, that the All-wise
Creator, in the formation of woman, intended to
put her in certain peculiar relations to man which
had no parallel in the rest of his creation.
With the inferior animals, their creation in pairs
had, for its primary object, the propagation of their
several species, and any other distinction was
wholly subordinate to this ; but in the creation of
the human pair, other purposes and designs min-
gled with this, in the mind of the Creator. This
gg TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN.
is evident from the period which elapsed between
the creation of the man arid the woman ; from the
duties which he performed in that period ; from
the sense of want of a companion a help meet or
fit for him which he had experienced, and his
Maker had observed ; from the circumstances of
her creation ; from the apparently divinely inspired
declaration of Adam : " This is now bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called
woman, because she was taken out of man ;" and
from the conferring of a joint dominion upon the
pair over the animal tribes.
We can infer that it was not the intention of the
Almighty to create as a help-meet for Adam, one
who should be in all respects his peer or equal,
else would he have created another man to be his
associate, or a woman from material entirely dis-
tinct from his body, and of stature and physical
power equal to his. To have done this, would
have almost inevitably led to strife in regard to
authority and precedence, and perhaps eventually
to the division of the earth between equal and
opposing chiefs.
But the woman is taken from his own flesh and
bones. She is a part of himself, and her sympa-
thies, her affections, and -her nature, are so iden-
tical, that while she is to be his associate and
helper, she is but a part of himself. Yet this very
language of both Adam and the Creator implies,
in some degree, a subordination to the man, whose
TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN. gy
helper she is to be. With the Divine approval,
Adam assumes the right to assign to her a name,
as he had previously done to the animal creation ;
and while that name of itself implies the nearness
and dearness of the relation, it also implies that he
is the head, the ruler, while yet also the associate.
We have already noticed how this authority of
the man, and subordination of the woman, is still
more distinctly stated in the sentence pronounced
upon the woman, after her temptation and fall,
and in part, we must believe, because she had
undertaken to act independently of her associate
and head : " Thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee," or, more literally,
"Thou shalt be subject to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee."
We have shown, in our historical sketch, how
cruelly and harshly this sentence had been enforced
by the selfishness of barbarous and half-civilized
nations ; and how even the cultivated Greeks and
Romans had made woman either a drudge in
domestic life, or the slave of their lusts. We have
seen how, in the dawn of Christianity, its Almighty
Founder compassionated the condition of woman,
and though not removing the yoke of subordina-
tion, yet lightened its weight, and sought to infuse
into the hearts of men that gentleness which
should substitute the law of love for the law of
force. In the ages since, men have too often
recurred to the sentence in Eden, and interpreted
88 TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN.
it in its harsh and oppressive sense, rather than
in the spirit of Christ.
That the Creator, who understood thoroughly,
if his creatures do not, the relations which the
pair he had created bore to each other, intended
that the woman should be in some sense subordi-
nated to the man, seems evident, not only from
the circumstances of her creation, and the penal
sentence, but from the nature of things. While
there are instances in which the woman possesses
the sounder judgment and the clearer intellect of
the two, the presumption is in favor of the posses-
sion in greater degree by the man, of those fac-
ulties which go to make up the governing power.
In a family, as in the State, the control must be
exercised by a single mind, so that the design of
the Creator seems to have been that the man
should be the head, as he is so often called, and
the woman his vicegerent. To this view accords
the physical differences in the two sexes ; the man
of larger, sturdier frame, of commanding port
and presence, with a voice heavy, thunderous, and
fitted to command able to take the lead in all en-
terprises requiring strength and power of executing
the purposes he has conceived; the woman smaller
in stature, and more delicately and finely built,
her form and features attractive, with a beauty
which we are accustomed to designate as feminine /
her voice sweeter, softer, and more melodious,
except in the high notes, her whole figure slighter,
TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN. g0
and giving the impression of litheness and grace,
rather than of great strength.
Keeping in mind that woman was to be a help-
meet (or fit) for man, that is, the complement of
his nature, supplying those faculties and qualities
which were most deficient in his more rugged
nature, we turn next to her intellectual character-
istics, and find, as we might expect, that she is
strongest where he is weakest, and weakest where
he is strongest. Her intuitive faculties surpass
those of man. She leaps to a conclusion, and
usually a correct one, which he reaches only by a
long and painful process. In the elementary
studies of our schools, she easily outruns her
male competitor, committing her lessons to
memory with wonderful facility, and generally
forgetting them as readily ; unraveling with ready
skill the intricacies of the lower mathematics;
having a special fondness for the acquisition of a
long list of geographical, historical, or scientific
names, which she repeats with parrot-like readi-
ness, and a fortnight later can not remember them;
acquires a moderate but superficial knowledge of
languages easily, but very rarely has any thorough
mastery of their structure, or any acquaintance
with their literature ; is fond of rhetoric, and gen-
erally of composition ; but has a great horror of
logic, or analytical science. She is strongest in
the studies depending upon the exercise of the
perceptive faculties, and weakest in those which
4* w
90 TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN.
require the use of the reasoning or analyzing
faculty.
Woman has but little genius for invention;
she may apply or adapt an invention to some pur-
pose for which it was not at first intended, though
she does this but rarely ; but of the hundreds of
thousands of inventions which have received
letters patent, very few, and those mostly not of
great importance, are the inventions of women.
This lack of creative power manifests itself
also in her writings. Many women write well;
some eloquently. Most women describe any per-
son or thing they have seen, well ; many narrate
incidents brilliantly ; but even in the best novels
written by women, how seldom do we find a real
creation, a character at the same time life-like
and original. Grant that not all, or perhaps the
greater part, of the male novelists are successful
in the creation of men and women who are not
automatons, the fact remains, that, in our own
times, there are at least a half-score of them who
can fairly lay claim to this credit; but while
there are at least ten novels written by women to
one written by a man, it would be difficult to find
three among them all who have manifested any
creative genius. We are aware that one name
will rise to the lips of many of our readers, as
that of a novelist possessing great creative power;
but, while we honor highly Mrs. Stowe's genius
and ability as a writer, we are forced to the con-
TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN. 93
elusion by her later works, that she only de-
scribes what she has seen, drawing her pictures
with great truthfulness and beauty, but that she
has never created a character, in all her numerous
fictions.
In the fine arts, painting and sculpture, the
same defect has characterized their compositions.
They have described on canvas, and in the more
enduring marble, what they have seen, what they
have read, what they have heard or dreamed, but
so far as we can learn, they have never been suc-
cessful in putting an original conception, or crea-
tion, on canvas or in marble. We have no dis-
position to say that they can not : we have a very
high opinion of the genius and talent of women,
and would deny no possibility of their future ; but
as to the sex in general, we do not believe that
their abilities are greatest in that direction.
In their moral and social nature we find a
similar distinction between men and women as in
the intellectual faculties, so far as such distinc-
tion is possible. In woman the emotional nature
is most developed ; in man, the judgment and
will. Woman is naturally more religious than
man ; her tendencies to worship and reverence are
stronger, and her religious experience is usually
deeper and more abiding; the exaltation of her
mental faculties, under the influence of intense
religious emotion, is greater than that of man,
and hence there have been many more instances
94 TEUE RELATIONS OP WOMAN TO MAN.
of triumphant deaths among women under circum-
stances of great physical suffering, or even under
the terrors of martyrdom, than among men.
Women are usually more patient and tolerant
of suffering than men; a larger measure of it
usually falls to their lot, and they endure it with
less complaint.
On the other hand, they are seldom as perse-
vering as men ; and if the result desired is not
reached within a moderate time, they more readily
weary of the pursuit. Still temperament has much
to do with this ; there have been instances of
feminine perseverance which would do the highest
credit to either sex.
The imagination being more active in women
than men, the temptation to that form of untruth-
fulness, known as " white lying," is somewhat
stronger with them than with the other sex. This
tendency is particularly observable in that condi-
tion of the health known as hysteria, though it
would not be just to regard a morbid manifestation
as an inherent fault of woman's nature.
The sympathetic nature of woman is one of the
chief glories of her moral character. Men are, in
general, harder and more cruel than women.
Herself often a sufferer, woman has learned to
enter into the heart of the suffering, and can
comfort and console them under the deepest
sorrows. In all the Christian ages, woman has
ministered, with tender hand, to the suffering
TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN. 95
and sorrowing, to the sick and the wounded, the
prisoners and those appointed to die. In our own
time, Florence Nightingale, and her noble com-
panions in the Crimean war, the thousands in our
own four years' struggle, and Miss Safford, Madame
Mario, and their associates in the recent German
war, have demonstrated the remarkable executive
ability of woman in the organization and develop-
ment of great philanthropic enterprises.
This organizing and executive faculty is a more
general endowment of woman than has been
usually acknowledged. It differs materially from
the governing faculty, which Rev. Dr. Bushnell,
in his very able essay on " Women's Suffrage,"
contends, on somewhat insufficient grounds, that
they do not possess. The faculty of organizing
and managing affairs successfully depends rather
upon tact and the. intuitive perception of human
character, and of the fitness of things (all womanly
traits), than upon any demonstrative power of
governing. The executive officer of a ship of
war is not the commander, but one who, in subor-
dination to his chief, arranges the, details of the
ship's service, and sees that every man performs
his duty. For positions somewhat analogous to
this, our great merchants and manufacturers say
that women, properly trained, are superior to
men.
There have not been wanting instances, notable
ones, in which, though the governing faculty is
96 TRUE RELATIONS OF WOMAN TO MAN.
regarded as properly and appropriately the heri-
tage of man, women have acquitted themselves
admirably in its exercise. We will not speak of
queens, since some part of their apparent skill in
governing is doubtless due to the able male coun-
selors who constitute their cabinets ; but how can
we deny the ability to govern and control to such
women as Joan of Arc, or to the Countess Teleki
of Hungary, who, in the Hungarian war of 1848,
led a division of cavalry in three several assaults
upon a body of Austrian troops, and, twice re-
pulsed, rallied her troops the third time, and with
her helmet doffed and her beautiful golden hair
streaming in the winds, shouted the war-cry,
" Eljen Kossuth," and hurled them upon the
enemy ; and, in the words of the Austrian com-
mander, " Neither men nor devils could have
resisted that onset ; we were swept down like
grass before the mower's scytne." The beautiful
countess fell in the assault, but she had proved
her ability to command. Who could question the
faculty for command of that noble Michigan
woman, Mrs. Anna Etheridge, who, at the battle
of Chancellofsville, seeing the regiment to which
she was attached flying from the field, seized
their flag, and with a " For shame, boys ! go back
to the field ! I will lead you," checked their retreat,
and led them back into the thickest of the fight ?
Nay, do we not often find in our public schools
and academies, female teachers whose skill and
TRUE RELATIONS OP WOMAN TO MAN. 97
tact in the government of their schools enables
them to bring into willing subjection grown boys
who have proved an overmatch for male teachers ?
In this analysis of the differences, physical,
mental, social, and moral, between the two sexes,
it must be remembered that we have only dealt
in general characteristics of the sexes. There are
numerous exceptions under each, but none, we
believe, which will invalidate our general esti-
mate.
We conclude, then, that there is evidence in
the Scriptures, and in the physical, mental, moral,
and social constitution of the sex, that her
Creator intended woman to be the ally, the help.-
meet, the associate, and co-worker with man, but
so far in subordination to him, that he is to be
recognized as the head, and possess the chief
authority in the family, but always with due
regard to the wife, as his vicegerent, and next in
authority and power.
CHAPTER VI.
BEFORE proceeding to consider the employments
of women, it may be well to give some account
of the present system of education of the sex, and
to show its faults and disadvantages.
In England, aside from the dame schools and
the national schools, in which, for the most part,
only the children of the poor, of both sexes, are
taught, the only schools for the education of girls
are the endowed female schools, which are few
in number, and the female seminaries or finish-
ing schools, which are generally very expensive.
There is a provision for girls in some of the great
charity schools, such as Christ Church and West-
minster, but very few girls ever enter. The
middle and higher classes very generally employ
governesses for their daughters, giving them a
year or two at the finishing schools before they
" come out," as the phrase is.
While the education of the women of the poorer
classes in England is greatly inferior to that of a
corresponding class here, a large proportion being
unable to read or write, the girls of the middle and
higher classes receive generally a more thorough
training than the daughters of families possessing
EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 99
a competency here. The system of education is
defective, being directed largely to what may be
called "accomplishments," rather than to true
mental culture. The English girl who has receiv-
ed the diploma of a fashionable finishing school, if
she has a taste for music, usually plays well ar-
tistically on the piano and harp, and if she has a
good voice, sings correctly and with expression ;
she generally draws with accuracy, and if she pos-
sesses artistic taste, sketches from nature very ef-
fectively ; she is usually quite perfect in her French
grammar and pronunciation, and often writes
and speaks the language correctly, though she has
no considerable knowledge of its literature. In
many cases she has a fair knowledge of Italian
and German also, and an elementary one of Latin.
In English studies, the range is not as extensive,
as in American schools for girls, but they are more
thoroughly mastered. Generally, physical science
is ignored in the English schools for girls, though
a few teach the elements of chemistry, philosophy,
and botany. The range of studies taught to the
English girl is not great, and, as we have said, is
altogether too much in the way of "accomplish-
ments ;" but what is taught, is, for the most part,
very thoroughly acquired, and not readily forgot-
ten. One reason of the peculiarities and the thor-
oughness of this system probably is, that among
the middle class, and even the lower ranks of the
nobility and gentry, owing to the law of primogeni-
100 EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ture and the loss of position, office, or property, as
in the case of the families of clergymen, army offi-
cers, civil officers, &c., so large a proportion of
the daughters are obliged to teach for a liveli-
hood, either as governesses, or in the finishing
schools.
Yet the course of instruction for girls is much
narrower, and less productive of mental develop-
ment than that of the boys ; and we all know how
defective in every thing, except classical and mathe-
matical training, is the higher education of young
men in England.
In France, the education of women is conducted
on a plan which is calculated to dissipate and en-
feeble the intellect; and can never develop, suc-
cessfully, the mental powers. It makes showy
women, brilliant in their early youth, but super-
ficial, and with no desire for higher or more
thorough culture. Much of the education of girls is
conducted in convents, and is intensely superficial.
Dissatisfied with this, Louis Napoleon has caused
the establishment of numerous schools for girls, cor-
responding to the colleges or lyceums for boys in
Paris. But his Minister of Instruction, M. Duruy,
regarding, as most Frenchmen do, the female in-
tellect as greatly weaker, and less capable of
grappling with abstruse studies than that of man,
has caused a series of text-books to be prepared
especially for female schools throughout the
empire (some of them were prepared by M. Duruy
EDUCATION OF WOMEN".
himself), which are avowedly simpler and more
superficial than those in use in the colleges and
lyceums. They are, really, mere surface books,
containing not quite so much information in regard
to their respective topics as would be communi-
cated in an average popular lecture on the subject ;
and the knowledge thus imparted is so diluted and
overlaid with verbiage, that there is hardly an idea
to a lesson. A Frenchwoman, who acquires a
thorough education, must do so in the face of great
disadvantages, and deserves great credit for her
energy and perseverance.
In Germany, the education of women is con-
ducted on a more sensible and practical plan.
The training of the public schools in most of the
German States is compulsory, and the girls pur-
sue the same studies, and from the same text-
books, as the boys. In the schools of higher
education, the course of instruction, though giving
more attention to accomplishments than that of
the gymnasia or universities, still requires thorough
and exact scholarship.
Indeed, under existing circumstances, we
should regard some of the German schools for
girls as better adapted to impart a thorough edu-
cation to a young woman, than, with a very few
exceptions, any in England, France, or the United
States.
Female education in the United States needs a
thorough and radical reform. In our public
102 EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
schools, where, except in the large cities, the two
sexes receive their elementary education together,
the instruction is tolerable ; though, partly from
defective textbooks, and partly from the lack of
competent teachers, it is less thorough than it
should be. In a considerable number of the large
towns of New England and New York, and in
some of the larger cities of the South and West,
graded, high, or union schools, are established, into
which a considerable number of girls from the
public grammar schools are admitted, and have
the opportunity of acquiring, usually in connec-
tion with the other sex, a fair English education,
and, in some of them, a moderate amount of Latin,
Greek, French, German, and vocal, but not often
instrumental, music. The training, in the branches
taught in these schools, is generally thorough, and
those who have been educated in them, though
deficient in some of the " accomplishments," have
really a far more practical education than the
graduates of the most popular female seminaries.
In the West, there are now about twenty-five
" colleges," some of them hardly more than ordi-
. nary high schools, which receive students of both
sexes, and conduct their education in the same
classes, and in all respects precisely alike. The
professors and instructors in these colleges are of
both sexes, and the classes are generally very
full. In some, as at Oberlin, Ohio ; Antioch Col-
lege, Yellow Springs, Ohio; Adrian College,
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
Adrian, Mich., &c., the course of instruction is
full and tolerably thorough, and they have grad-
uated many distinguished men and women. The
plan of admitting both sexes works well where
there is a capable and efficient faculty. Dr.
Bushnell, whose qualifications for giving an opin-
ion on this subject, all will admit, says in his recent
work : " The joining, for example, of the two
sexes in common studies and a common college
life what could be more un-university-like, and
morally speaking, more absurd ? And as far as
the young women are concerned, what could be
more unwomanly and really more improper? I
confess, with some mortification, that when the
thing was first done, I was not a little shocked
even by the rumor of it ; but when, by and by,
some fifteen years ago, I drifted into Oberlin, and
spent a Sunday there, I had a new chapter opened
that has cost me the loss of a considerable cargo
of wise opinions, all scattered in loose wreck,
never again to be gathered I learned,
for the first time, what it means that the sexes,
not merely as by two-and-two, but as a large
open scale of society, have a complementary
relation, existing as helps to each other, and that
humanity is a disjointed creature, running only to
waste and disorder, where they are put so far
asunder as to leave either one or the other in a
properly monastic and separate state. Here were
gathered for instruction large numbers of pupils,
106 EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
male and female, pursuing their studies together,
in the same classes and lessons, under the same
teachers ; the young women deriving a more pro-
nounced and more positive character in their
mental training from association with young men
in their studies, and the young men, a closer and
more receptive refinement, and . a more delicate
habitual respect to what is in personal life, from
their associations with young women. The disci-
pline of the institution, watchful as it properly
should be, was yet a kind of silence, and was prac-
tically null being carried on virtually by the mu-
tually qualifying and restraining powers of the sexes
over each other. There was scarcely a single case of
discipline, or almost never more than one, occurring
in a year. In particular, there was no such thing
known as an esprit de corps in deeds of mischief,
no conspiracies against order and the faculty, no
bold prominence in evil aspired to, no lying
proudly for the safety of the clan, no barbarities
of hazing perpetrated : and so the ancient tradi-
tional hell-state of college life, and all the immense
ruin of character propagated by the club-law of a
stringently male or monastic institution, was
totally escaped and put away. What we see
recurring always, where males are gathered in a
society by themselves, whether in the prison, or
the shop, or the school, or the army every
beginning of the esprit de corps in evil is kept
under, shamed away, made impossible by the
EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 107
association of the gentler sex, who can not co-
operate in it, and can not think of it with re-
spect.
" And what so long ago was proved by this
earliest experiment, has since been proved, a dozen
or twenty times over, by other experiments under
other forms of religion, as well as under all varie-
ties of literary culture and social atmosphere*
Thus, if any one should imagine that the success
of this first trial at Obeiiin (which has now been
in existence thirty-five years) was due to the
particular, very strongly pronounced, type of re-
ligious influence there established, he may hear
(the late) President Mann, of the Unitarian Col-
lege at Antioch (Ohio), where also the two sexes
were combined in the same studies, uniting in the
testimony : ' We have the most diligent, exem-
plary institution in the country. We passed
through the last term, and are more than half
through the present ; and I have not had occasion
to make a single entry of any misdemeanor in our
record book not a case for any serious discipline.
There is no rowdyism in the village, no nocturnal
rampages making night hideous. All is quiet,
peaceful ; and the women of the village feel the
presence of our students, when met in the streets
in the evening, to be a protection rather than an
exposure. It is almost five years since I came
here, and as yet I have had no practical joke or
college prank, as they are called, played upon me,
108 EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
not in a single instance.' A very intelligent writer
in the Westminster Review* acquainted with this
and many other colleges, testifies to the decisive
superiority here in moral behavior, and puts
double honor on the name before so transcend-
ently honored, by saying, in a touch of pleasantry,
that f male students were first called gentlemen at
Antioch.' "
Mrs. Ball, who visited both Oberlin and Antioch
colleges in 1867, gives later testimony to the
success of what she calls the double system, i. e.,
having pupils and teachers of both sexes. After
a vivid description of . the success of a young
woman of color, born a slave, but a graduate of
Oberlin, in teaching the classics, winning, as she
did, the affection and confidence of all her pupils,
Mrs. Ball continues : " Everybody at Oberlin was
loud in praise of the double system ; no one
would teach now in any other sort of college.
The presence of women secured discipline. There
was no chance for hazing or any other antiquated
folly. Pupils and teachers, who had gone from
Oberlin to Vassar, both missed the pleasant ex-
citement of the old life."
Dr. Bushnell's remarks on this subject of the
higher education of the two sexes together, are so
just and admirable, that we can not refrain from
quoting them :
" The two sexes brought together in this man-
* Believed to be Rev. Moncure D. Coiiway.
EDUCATION OP WOMEN. 1Q9
ner, it is hardly necessary to say, will be rapidly
discovering their true scale of merit. It matters
little whether they are found to be equal or une-
qual in their talent of scholarship, for it does not
follow that the greatest facility of acquirement will
be issued in the greatest power, or will even be
felt as having now the greatest practical breadth
and volume. Enough that both sexes will better
understand, and more respect each other, and will
learn to take their relative places more exactly
and gracefully. That they have, in fact, a com-
plementary nature one to the other, will be dis-
tinctly felt, and all but visibly seen ; and the
college itself, in its double combination of male
and female impulse, will be only a more complete
man or humanity than it otherwise could be. The
male talent, and the female, will be a great deal
more exactly apprehended than they have been.
It will even be seen that sex is predicable of
talent as of organization, and both sexes of mind
will be receiving qualities and contributions from
each other in their cross relations, such as answer
with general exactness to the husbanding and
meet-helping of the marriage bond itself.
" Educated on this footing of equality, women
will very soon escape their unrighteous disabilities,
and obtain a place in the scale of estimation that
exactly corresponds with their personal weight
and capacity, and more than that they have no
right to ask. Employment will be open to them,
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
just according to what they are best qualified to
do, and the^r wages, like the wages also of men,
will be in the exact compound ratio of what they
can do and what they personally are. And as
what they personally are, includes a great deal of
favor to their woman's look and voice, they will
scarcely miss the full reward of their industry.
As they have been educated with men, they will
also become educators with men, and if they can
fill the highest, most responsible places of man-
agement and presiding trust, they must and will
obtain such places, and the rewards that men have
in the same. They will have professorships
allowed them such as they can more appropriately
fill not of mechanical philosophy, perhaps, or
chemistry, or metallurgy, or fortification, but of
the languages, of botany, of moral science, and
not improperly, of the exact mathematics."
In regard to this last, we doubt. The mastery
of the higher branches of the exact mathematics,
so thoroughly as to be qualified 'to teach them,
requires an analytical power, and a close, perse-
vering application, which do not seem to be con-
spicuous qualities of the female intellect. We
should be more ready to assign her the chair of
chemistry, geology, or natural history, or astron-
omy, in all of which studies, women (exceptional
cases, certainly) have distinguished themselves.
But to return to our consideration of the con-
dition of female education in the United States.
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
Aside from these colleges on the double system,
many of the normal schools, or training schools
for the education of teachers, admit pupils of both
sexes ; and their course of instruction being
intended to qualify the pupil-teachers to give
instruction in the various grades of the public
schools, the course of study is eminently practical,
and the teaching generally very thorough. In
this course very few of the so-ealled " accomplish-
ments " are included. Drawing, in its elementary
forms, and vocal music, to enable the teacher to
lead the music of the school, are among the
studies, but both are prosecuted only so far as to
enable the future teacher to give instruction in
their rudiments.
It is certainly desirable, and we hope may at no
distant day be found practicable, to have most or
all our colleges and universities receive young
women as students, to pursue the same studies
with the young men. It would, we believe, result
in great benefits to both sexes, and would in a few
years settle the vexed question of the compara-
tive intellectual abilities of the two.
At present, the education of those girls who are
able to acquire a so-called " higher education,"
aside from those who are or have been connected
with the public high schools, the colleges on the
double system, and the normal or training
schools, is only obtained in the female academies,
female seminaries, colleges for women, and board-
EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ing-schools, which abound in every part of the
country. Nearly four-fifths of the girls who
receive any thing more than a common school
education, are taught in these schools. There
are, perhaps, half a dozen, and we should include
in that number, Vassar College, Packer Collegiate
Institute, Elrnira Female College, the Troy Female
Seminary, Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, and a
seminary in Central Illinois founded years ago by
Miss C. E. Beecher, which are honestly striving
to give their pupils a thorough education; but
they all, as well as all the rest, are engaged in an
impossible task.
The years which girls devote to school life are
fewer than those which boys spend in getting
their education. The boy, after spending his boy-
hood in a public school, or academy, at about the
age of fourteen begins to fit for college ; and,
about two years later, enters. His four years'
college course completed, he is ready to study a
profession, which usually requires three years
more.
The girl, after a course of elementary instruction,
more or less full, and regularly attended up to her
twelfth or thirteenth year, but which is generally
only sufficient to make her tolerably familiar with
the mere rudiments of common school studies, enters
one of these boarding-schools, or seminaries, from
which, at the longest, she is expected to gradu-
ate in four years. In this short space of time, she
EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
is to acquire a competent knowledge of instru-
mental music, drawing, and painting in water-
colors, Latin, French, and perhaps German and
Italian, higher arithmetic, algebra, geometry,
natural philosophy, chemistry,, geology, botany,
natural history, physiology, Butler's analogy of
religion, intellectual and moral philosophy, political
economy, &c., &c. She must also keep up her fa-
miliarity, or acquire it if she had it not already,
with geography, grammar, history, penmanship,
&c. ; and must write, usually weekly, exercises
or compositions of some kind. Her musical prac-
tice must be constant, and usually from one to
two hours per day ; and amid all her mental labor,
she must find time for gymnastics, or, as it is the
fashion to call them, calisthenics. Even Sunday
shines no Sabbath day to her. What with Bible
classes, and analyses of sermons, her poor brain is
nearly as much overtasked on that day as any
other.
The boy who should attempt to master all these
studies in four years, with no more previous
preparation than the girl has, would, if he survived
the second year, be a candidate for an insane hos-
pital or an idiot asylum before he had completed
the third; and so would the girl, if she really ac-
quired any thorough knowledge of the greater part
of these studies ; but she does, in fact, merely
skim over most of them, half learning some, and
omitting others, but attaining no clear or accurate
EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
knowledge of more than one or two. At seven-
teen or eighteen, the girl has completed her
school course, and in most instances gladly aban-
dons her books, never desiring to open them again.
Of all the studies with which she has been cram-
med, during the previous four years, she has no
interest in, and hardly any valuable remembrance
of any one; even her music, which has occupied so
many weary hours of her school life, is abandoned,
or seldom practiced. She " comes out," is soon
married, and all thought of further mental culture
is abandoned.
That we have not overdrawn . the picture, the
following naive confession of a graduate of one
of these " Female Colleges," communicated to
the New York Tribune in July, 1869, amply
demonstrates :
" SIR : A thorough education in four years !
Yes, that is the tutorial cry of the country : met-
aphysics, languages, history, philosophy, mathe-
matics, zoology, &c., &c., not to mention the
modern accomplishments, so modernly indispen-
sable, of playing the piano and singing. But after
all their studying, resolving, reciting, thrumming,
and 'unparalleled advantages,' what do they
know ? That is the question, and one, too, that
may be speedily answered : They know remark-
ably little. ' But,' says some one, ' our girls
are surely bright, quick, and do study j while with-
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
out doubt our professors, preceptors, and lecturers
are all that they are represented to be !' Cer-
tainly our girls are bright, are quick but, shall I
say it, that is about all. I was a pupil at one of
the first female colleges in the country, and
being observant, I had tolerably good opportunities
of judging of the training received there. In the
first place, the girls rarely studied, they generally
1 knew ' their lessons, just by means of that same
brightness and quickness, fond father and mother,
which Julia, and Kate, and Melisse are so over-
flowing * with. The lessons were practically
6 learned ' and said off; but an hour after the
recitation, I know that nine-tenths of those girls
could not have told what their lesson was about
and why ? Because the American girl is terribly
deficient in brain. There is no mistake about it,
although it is very hard to say it, they care no
more for knowledge than a man would care to
wear a new-fashioned bonnet. In proof of this,
find me the girl, who, on leaving college, school,
or seminary, thinks her education incomplete, or
dreams of studying at home by herself. There
are none, or almost none. ' Study, indeed ! Have
I not just graduated at College ? Study !
oh, no, I am going to enjoy myself, and it's
about time, I should think !' How many times
I have listened to words like these. Poor
things, little do they know (or, I may add,
care) that the foundation of their education only
I
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
is laid. But, it is said, ' they must know some-
thing, to pass such examinations before such
learned committees !' Let me initiate you, Mr.
Editor, into the mysteries of an examination. Six
years ago I was a pupil at the college I mentioned
before, and a member of the second French class.
I did not know how to read French understand-
in gly, I could not compose a single sentence
grammatically, but I had a correct pronunciation.
Examination day grew nigh, and I was almost
frightened out of my wits by being informed that
I was to speak a long selection in French before
the august committee. I studied the allotted
piece, however, and recited it womanfully, on the
appointed day, amid the applause of delighted
spectators. I received the first honor of my class,
and was spoken of as wonderfully proficient in the
Gallic tongue. Thus were the audience duped, the
judges duped, and, I may add, that I was almost
duped myself. This is the way in which most of
our examinations were prepared for ; even the com-
positions read and lauded on these interesting
occasions were not unfrequently verbatim copies
of essays clipped from unfamiliar works recom-
mended by one of our teachers as containing
1 useful ideas on the subject you are about to
undertake, my dear.' Oh ! it disgusts me com-
pletely when I remember the paltry tricks we
were encouraged in, and that were suggested to
us there. If, as children, we went to school to
EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
be instructed in the art of deceiving, what wonder
that we are adepts in it now ? M. F. A."
How poorly qualified is a young woman who has
had only such a training as this, to enter upon the
duties of married life. Her knowledge on any
subject is the merest smattering ; she has n<x
definite or clear ideas of the structure and func-
tions of the body which she tries to adorn with
gay and fashionable clothing ; the sacred myste-
ries of motherhood, and the life and welfare of
the little one she maybe called to . cherish, are
things of which she is profoundly ignorant;
intellectually she is entirely unfit to be a help-
meet for her husband ; she knows nothing of busi-
ness matters, nothing of the public affairs in which
he, as a citizen, is interested. She can not read
any thing except the most sensational and vapid
of modern novels, or a periodical literature
equally trashy, "all sober reading is so horrid
dull," and " sober reading " includes every thing,
except fiction and fashions. Her moral culture
is equally imperfect. She may go to church, may
possibly have a class in the Sunday school, but
if so, the class is to be pitied ; for, having no re-
ligious ideas, no comprehension of religious truth,
she can, of course, communicate no knowledge to
her pupils, of the great moral principles which
underlie our earthly life, of her duty to her hus-
band, to her neighbor, to community, to God, she
5*
12Q EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
has no definite idea ; if she acts rightly and gen-
erously, it is from the instincts of her early train-
ing; if she errs in any or all her duties, she is
really as much to be pitied as blamed.
But suppose that she fails to marry, and that
some change in the circumstances of her family
.render it desirable that she should do something
for her own support. What shall she do ? She
can not teach ; she has no definite or thorough
knowledge on any subject which is ordinarily
taught; she has not even learned how to study,
much less ,to impart knowledge to others ; even
the music, on which so large a portion of her
school years has been spent, is utterly distaste-
ful to her, and she has never acquired that knowl-
edge of its principles, which would enable her to
teach others. A wealthy New York merchant,
with three grown daughters, and who had recently
married a second wife, young and fashionably edu-
cated, said to the writer : " I don't know how it
is ; I am passionately fond of music ; I have a
superb Chickering grand piano in my house, and
my wife and daughters have had. for years, the
best musical instruction in New York ; and yet I
can never hear a single tune at home ; my piano
is locked from one month's end to another, and
not one of them will touch it ; they all say they
had enough of that at school." This was per-
haps an extreme case one where the parties had
no natural fondness for music ; where the natural
EDUCATION OP WOMEN.
taste exists, it would be strange if years of prac-
tice did not enable a young woman to play a few
tunes passably well ; but it is very seldom the
case that one of these graduates of a fashionable
school knows enough of music to become, what-
ever the necessity, a successful teacher.
Shall this unwedded girl attempt to acquire
the knowledge of medicine requisite to become a
physician. She must go back then to the first
elements of education, and learn how to study ; for
the study of medicine requires thought, memory,
comparison, analysis, synthetic power, mathe-
matical skill, logical reasoning, and a capacity for
sound deduction. In all these her training has
been worse than useless ; it must all be unlearned.
Shall she seek a position as a government clerk, a
book-keeper, an accountant, a cashier in a store,
or manufactory ? Could she be more incompetent
than she is for either ? If her penmanship is not
utterly ruined by that abomination, the " fashiona-
ble handwriting for ladies," she might pass muster
on the chirography ; but the spelling how seldom
is the fashionably-educated woman accomplished
in that ! And the accounts how is she who can
scarcely reckon correctly the change she receives in
a shopping excursion, to be expected to possess any
ability for the intricacies of book-keeping ? She
is driven, perforce, to take a place as saleswoman,
or to wear out her life in the drudgery of the
needle. There is hardly any evil of our national
122 EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
life which so imperatively demands reform
as this.
This so-called fashionable education is ruining
the health and the intellects, and greatly impair-
ing the moral character of thousands of our young
women-, and it should be abolished forthwith.
Something might be accomplished by making the
course one of six years instead of four, requiring
a rigid examination and a considerable range of
attainments for admission, and then diminishing
the number of studies by at least one-half. With
these changes, and careful thorough teaching, it
might be possible for a young girl to go through
a course of study, and graduate with some knowl-
edge of the subjects of her study, some fond-
ness for intellectual pursuits, and some capacity
to teach others.
But the best and most effective system of female
education is that which trains the two sexes to-
gether, and while inspiring a moderate emulation,
develops the intellectual and moral faculties more
perfectly and harmoniously than it can be other-
wise accomplished. Still, the vested interests in
boarding-schools, female seminaries, and female
colleges are so vast, that we despair of seeing
them relinquished, or so thoroughly reformed as
they should be, in our generation. Much could be
done, indeed, by women in this matter, if they
would give their attention to it ; for a large pro-
portion of the principals and proprietors of these
EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
finishing schools are women. Not until this re-
form is completed, can woman ever hope to take
the positions to which she aspires ; for not until
then will she be so educated as to fill them suc-
cessfully.*
*See APPENDIX A.
CHAPTER VII.
IN treating of the employments of women, we
necessarily give the first place to that which is
her normal position the charge of the house-
hold, and especially her calling as wife and
mother. By far the larger part of the women of
any generation hold one or both these relations
to man.
We are not disposed to say, as some have done,
that this is the only fitting occupation for wo-
man ; or, in the words of the old monkish cate-
chism of the Middle Ages, in answer to the ques-
tion, " What is the dutie of woman ?" " Wo-
man's whole dutie is to spinne, to sew, to say her
aves and paters, and to love her husband." Nor,
on the other hand, would we scoff at this, as
menial labor, unfit for women of culture.
We have said, in a former chapter, that in
the woman the affections predominate. Woman
needs something to love and cherish, something
which shall stir the fountains of her heart, and
waken those emotions which elevate her above
common humanity. When a pure-minded, intel-
ligent, loving woman is united, not only by the
marriage tie, but by the bonds of a true affection,
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
to a man every way worthy of her, one who can
sympathize fully with her, and whose mental and
moral traits form the just complement of hers,
she enters upon a relation which is higher and
nobler than any other in this life ; and when
such a woman presses her first-born to her bosom,
the life of her life, the young immortal given to
her, to educate and rear for usefulness and activi-
ty here, and for glory hereafter, she has tasted of
as much joy as often falls to the lot of mortals.
The vocation of the wife and mother the
mistress of a household is one which, for the
proper performance of its duties, requires the
highest culture, and the best development of the
body, mind, and soul. Of the body, since activity,
strength, skill, and elasticity of constitution are
required ; no tight-laced, fashion-distorted, pale,
puny daughter of Eve can perform the duties of
a good wife, much less those of a mother, success-
fully ; pain, weariness, and nervous disorder will
make her duties burdens, her very existence a
prolonged agony. Development of the mind, for
she is to be the companion, the associate, the
help-meet of her husband ; wise to aid and counsel
him ; skillful to help him when needful in his du-
ties ; intelligent to manage affairs, when his ab-
sence may render it necessary. Mental develop-
ment is requisite also, in the early training of the
child ; the knowledge of what is best for its
health and growth ; knowledge of the best method
126 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
of unfolding its dawning capacities ; knowledge of
the way of restraining its too ardent thirst for
learning, and of the best means for the symmetri-
cal expansion of its intellect.
The highest degree of moral culture is also
desirable, to insure the observance of those rela-
tions between the wedded pair which shall make
their union fruitful in all good works and noble
deeds ; for the cultivation of those Christian
graces and amenities, which will make home most
like heaven in its serenity, unselfishness, and
attractiveness ; and desirable, also, that the mother
may implant in the mind of her child those seeds
of purity, truthfulness, conscientiousness, justice,
and liberality, which shall make it a blessing to
its parents and to the world.
Such homes there are, such wives, and such
mothers ; women who find in this home-life and
its duties ample employment for all their time,
and .the rich intellectual gifts with which God has
endowed them ; and who take more delight in
making their homes happy, in aiding their com-
panions in the performance of their duties, and in
rearing their children for lives of virtue, intelli-
gence, and usefulness, than they would in swaying
listening senates by their eloquence, winning the
applause of the world by their wit and wisdom,
or wielding the scepter of power in the empire of
the Csesars.
And if there comes, as in God's providence
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
there sometimes does, the angel of death to these
happy homes, and takes from them a husband
beloved, or removes a cherished and idolized
child, the stroke, bitter as it is, does not shut out
all sunlight from that dwelling, does not consign
that wife and mother to hopeless despair, and the
helplessness of an unavailing and indolent grief.
Bereaved and afflicted, she yet finds solace in the
household activities, and the opportunities for a
more active and extended benevolence.
To the married woman, then, who understands
her duties, and has the will and ability to perform
them, there is no occasion, and indeed, no opportu-
nity, for other employments ; she can only engage
in other pursuits by neglecting some of her home
duties, or by delegating them to others less com-
petent to perform them well ; for, if she is so
situated as to have and require servants, the
superintendence of her household, the care and
nurture of her children, if she is a mother, the
necessary time occupied in planning for her own
wardrobe and that of her family, and the claims
of society, occupy all of her time not devoted to
moral and religious duties.
Even Mr. J. Stuart Mill, the ablest and most radi-
cal of the defenders of what are sometimes called
" women's rights," admits, that " when the support
of the family depends not on property, but on earn-
ings, the common arrangement by which the man
earns the income, and the wife superintends the
EMPLOYMENTS OP "WOMEN.
domestic expenditure, seems to him in general
the most suitable division of labor between the
two persons. If," he argues, " in addition to the
physical suffering of bearing children, and the
whole responsibility of their care and education in
early years, the wife undertakes the careful and
economical application of the husband's earnings
to the general comfort of the family, she takes
not only her fair share, but usually the larger
share of the bodily and mental exertion required
by their joint existence. If she undertakes any
additional portion, it seldom relieves her fr6m
this, but only prevents her from performing it
properly. The care which she is herself disabled
(by other employments) from taking of the
children and of the household, nobody else takes ;
those of the children who do not die, grow up as
they best can, and the management of the house-
hold is likely to be so bad, as, even in point of
economy, to be a great drawback from the value
of the wife's earnings. In an otherwise just state
of things, it is not, therefore, I think, a desirable
custom, that the wife should contribute by her
labor to the income of the family." Further on,
he says : " Like a man, when he chooses a profes-
sion, so, when a woman marries, it may in general
be understood that she makes choice of the
management of a household and the bringing up
of a family, as the first call upon her exertions,
during as many years of her life as may be
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
required for the purpose ; and that she renounces
not all other objects and occupations, but all
which are not consistent with the requirements of
this. The actual exercise, in a habitual or
systematic manner, of outdoor occupations, or
such as can not be carried on at home, would by
this principle be practically interdicted to the
greater number of married women."
There are cases, as we all know, where, from
the indolence, intemperance, or inefficiency of the
husband, and the straitened circumstances of the
family, the wife and mother feels compelled to
resort to some employment, which will give her
the means of supporting her family. She is thus
placed in worse circumstances than the widow,
for she has usually the worthless husband also to
feed and support.
It is obvious that under these circumstances,
and they are such as should call forth our pity
and sympathy, the labor of the woman must usu-
ally be fragmentary, for she can seldom leave her
family for many hours at a time. This seriously
complicates the question of employment, reducing
it to those classes of occupations which can be car-
ried on at home, with frequent interruptions, or
in brief and irregular absences from home. If only
capable of physical labor, she may take in wash-
ing, may go out at times as a charwoman, may
cultivate or gather small fruits, or may sew, knit,
or drive a sewing-machine j if she is educated,
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
she may teach a small school at home, or perhaps
take a place as assistant teacher in some public
school, or she may teach music, or drawing, or
French, or German, if she can obtain pupils, or
manage a small store. This comprises about the
entire list of occupations which are within her
reach, and all are precarious and often inadequate
for her purpose, while many of them involve so
great a neglect of her children, if she has any, as
to be perilous to their future. I do not include in
this catalogue literary labor, because, although a
few married women with families do succeed in ifc,
the number is very small; the payments usually
so precarious and so long delayed, that it can not
be considered as in any respect a dependence.
Yet, bad as this state of affairs is, it is not very
much worse than that of the man, who is from
any cause, such as the care of a helpless family,
illness, or lack of continuous employment, compel-
led to devote only a fragmentary part of his time
to bread-winning labor. In either case, the prob-
ability of obtaining an adequate livelihood is not
very great, and both are just objects of the assist-
ance of those who are blessed with a larger share of
this world's goods, though that assistance should
be rendered in such a way as not to impair their
self-respect or independence. Additional com-
pensation for labor, an increase of patronage,
obtained by personal effort, supplementary wages,
an addition to supplies of fuel or winter stores,
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN. 13$
an unexpected credit of a given amount at a
store, or other ways skillfully managed, of doing
good by stealth, will often save such a wife
and mother from giving up in despair, and
infuse new life and energy into her desperate
and unequal struggle for the support for her fam-
ily. No form of charity is more productive of
good than this.
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
she may teach a small school at home, or perhaps
take a place as assistant teacher in some public
school, or she may teach music, or drawing, or
French, or German, if she can obtain pupils, or
manage a small store. This comprises about the
entire list of occupations which are within * her
reach, and all are precarious and often inadequate
for her purpose, while many of them involve so
great a neglect of her children, if she has any, as
to be perilous to their future. I do not include in
this catalogue literary labor, because, although a
few married women with families do succeed in it,
the number is very small ; the payments usually
so precarious and so long delayed, that it can not
be considered as in any respect a dependence.
Yet, bad as this state of affairs is, it is not very
much worse than that of the man, who is from
any cause, such as the care of a helpless family,
illness, or lack of continuous employment, compel-
led to devote only a fragmentary part of his time
to bread-winning labor. In either case, the prob-
ability of obtaining an adequate livelihood is not
very great, and both are just objects of the assist-
ance of those who are blessed with a larger share of
this world's goods, though that assistance should
be rendered in such a way as not to impair their
self-respect or independence. Additional com-
pensation for labor, an increase of patronage,
obtained by personal effort, supplementary wages,
an addition to supplies of fuel or winter stores,
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN. ^33
an unexpected credit of a given amount at a
store, or other ways skillfully managed, of doing
good by stealth, will often save such a wife
and mother from giving up in despair, and
infuse new life and energy into her desperate
and unequal struggle for the support for her fam-
ily. No form of charity is more productive of
good than this.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN a perfectly normal condition of human soci-
ety, the number of adult men and women should
be just about equal, and every woman in ordinary
health, and of ordinary physical and mental capa-
city, should have the offer of marriage, being, of
course, perfectly free to accept or reject it, as she
pleased. In such a state of things the number
who did not choose to marry would be compara-
tively small, and the question of occupations for
them of no great importance.
But, human society is never in a perfectly
normal state ; it is always vibrating from a condi-
tion like that of England, where there are nearly
five hundred thousand more adult women than
men, to one like that of California a dozen years
ago, or Montana and Idaho now, where there are
five or ten men to one woman, where it was said,
that in 1850, miners came from the mountains
two or three hundred miles to the Bay of San
Francisco, to get a glimpse of a woman's face.
In the majority of old and long settled countries
and states, military service, the vicissitudes of
travel and outdoor occupations, and above all,
emigration, have a constant tendency to aggra-
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
vate the disproportion between the two sexes.
In Great Britain and Ireland, this disproportion
has reached a point which is startling ; and in
most of the Eastern or Atlantic States of our
own Union, it is large enough to occasion some
anxiety. In Massachusetts, it is stated that there
are seventy thousand more women than men, and
in most of the New England States the proportion
is nearly as great. In the Middle States it is
somewhat less, though the absolute excess is large.
In the Southern States, owing to the great loss
of men in the recent war, the disproportion is
more marked than at the North.
But the equality or inequality in the numbers
of the two sexes is no gauge or standard of the
number of adult married women. A very consid-
erable proportion of the men in any community,
from one cause or another, do not seek to marry ;
and in the existing and constantly increasing
extravagance of young women in dress, especially
in our cities and large towns, and their entire
ignorance of household duties, may be found a
very cogent reason why this class is multiplying
rapidly.
" I would be very glad to marry and have a
home of my own," is a very common remark with
young men who have the making of good hus-
bands in them, "but I could not keep house and
support Grace (or Jennie, or Minnie, as the case
may be) as she is in the habit of living at home,
136 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
for less than four or five thousand dollars a year,
and as my salary (or income) is but fifteen hun-
dred or two thousand dollars, I must give up all
thought of it."
With a very large proportion of the young
women of our cities and larger towns, the idea of
marriage is one of romance merely. They expect
their home, if they keep house, or their suite of
rooms, if they board, to be of palatial elegance ;
like the lilies, they toil not neither do they spin,
and yet in the costliness and gorgeousness of their
apparel, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of them. The idea which dominates the
mind of a fashionable young married woman of
the present day, is not how she shall be a help-
meet to her husband, managing prudently, and
spending judiciously what he has earned by severe
toil ; it is not how she may accomplish the most
good with moderate means, or so order her house-
hold as that there shall be no waste, and thus
the more to be left for benevolence or thrift ; it is
not how her home can be made most happy, and
her husband, as he comes to it, worn with the
fatigues of the day's duties, find solace and joy in
her society and the attractiveness of the home
circle ; it is how she may surpass this acquaint-
ance, equal that one, or excite the envy of a third,
by the number, the splendor, and the costliness of
her dresses, and her reckless display of them, in
all weathers, and under all circumstances. Abroad
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
she is the bird of paradise, glorious in her beauty,
and the observed of all observers ; at home, the
gay plumage is laid aside, and it is much if she
does not greet her husband in soiled and disor-
dered apparel.
The sums expended on fashionable dress are
beyond the belief of those who have not inves-
tigated the matter, or had painful personal expe-
rience of them. Even among a class not wealthy,
the clerks, tellers, and cashiers of our banks,
clerks in wholesale warehouses, men just fairly
started in business, or having a moderately pros-
perous trade, master mechanics, &c., the expendi-
ture of the women of the family, for dress, fre-
quently ranges from one thousand to ten thousand
dollars each, per annum. Among the wealthy
still higher sums are expended. " My girls tell
me that they are so economical that they feel as
if they were almost mean in their dress," said a
wealthy merchant, " and yet here are bills for
over twelve thousand dollars, for the outfit of
two of them for Newport, this summer. I wonder
what they would spend, if they were extrava-
gant."
This reckless expenditure, in many instances,
ruin young men who marry, and who find that
they can not, by any honest means, pay such
enormous bills. How many of the defalcations,
bank robberies, stock speculations, gambling losses,
false entries in books, and abstractions of money,
138 EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
within the past five years in all our large cities,
have been prompted by the desire on the part of
the offenders to indulge their wives in dress,
which seemed to be the great subject and end of
all their thoughts.
But the evil does not end here. This fashion-
able extravagance having become the rule, the
young woman, whose father's purse is strained to
the utmost to provide her with the luxuries which
she insists are essential, and who looks forward
to marriage as her probable destiny, has already
fixed it in her own mind that she must have all,
and much more than all, the luxuries she now
has, in her married life. If she is cool and cal-
culating, she resolves to marry no man whose
income is not large enough to admit of her
extravagance, and she becomes a fortune-hunter ;
if she is impulsive and romantic, she rushes on her
fate without misgivings, encourages her somewhat
timid admirer to propose, and they marry, only to
find that ruin is before them. Where, as is the
case in instances unfortunately too rare, real affec-
tion and an undercurrent of good sense co-exist,
the wife may try to adapt herself to her husband's
humble circumstances; but even in these cases,
she knows so little of real economy and good
management, that an effort at the most rigid
retrenchment is almost sure to be followed by
some reckless piece of extravagance, which more
than swallows up the previous savings.
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
It is no matter for wonder that young men of
moderate means are afraid to marry under such
circumstances, and as it is almost impossible for
the young to exist without social enjoyment,
they become attached to their clubs, their drinking
saloons, and not unseldom to association with the
impure, and the acquisition of habits which drown
the soul in perdition.
If women would but be wise in these matters !
If they would remember that not all the adorning
which the modiste can bestow, will impart beauty
to those who do not possess it, and that to the
beautiful and attractive, a plain and simple dress
is infinitely more becoming than the most mag-
nificent silks and laces, the shawls of India and
Cashmere, and the most brilliant diamonds and
gems which ever flashed from crown or coronet
then might there be hundreds of happy homes
and hearts, where now there is sorrow, disgrace,
and ruin, either present or impending.
We have thus accounted for a portion of the
yearly increasing class of the unmarried ; of the
great mass yet remaining, some (we are speaking
now of women), from one cause or another, do
not desire to marry ; some do not fancy the offers
they receive, and prefer a single life to one of
possible unhappiness; some, from their health,
from hereditary tendency to disease, from their
attachment to infirm parents, or, (rarely, we
think) from lack of personal attractions, or
142 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
infirmities of temper, are not sought in marriage.
Another very considerable class of single women
are those who are widowed.
There are no statistics available to show, with
any approach to accuracy, what portions of these
are dependent upon their own exertions for a
support, and hence require an occupation or
employment.
Two large classes of working women first
demand our attention ; domestic servants, and
the female employes in the great manufacturing
establishments, cotton and woolen factories, hoop-
skirt factories, shirt and collar factories, laundries,
ready-made clothing establishments, book-binder-
ies, power presses, &c., &c.
In both classes, there are more or less married
women, but generally those living apart from their
husbands, and so, for practical purposes, to be
reckoned as single women. Domestic service has
<j
come, of late years, to be almost exclusively
occupied by women of foreign birth or foreign
parentage. It is very rare in our cities, and is
getting to be so in the country, to find a female
domestic (excepting the large class of colored
servants of whom we shall speak by and by)
who is not either of Irish, German, English,
Scotch, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, or
Spanish birth or parentage, and generally in
about the order, as to numbers, which we have
stated. There has been in this respect a gradual
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN. 143
but very complete change within the past thirty
years. While we would give all due credit to
the enterprise of these women of foreign birth, in
thus monopolizing one of the most important
departments of feminine labor, we can not but
regret that they have been able to do so. Our
families are not so well served, a very large pro-
portion of those seeking situations being new
comers, unfamiliar with our language, habits, and
customs, and having but limited and very imper-
fect notions of cleanliness and good order, and
generally unskilled in even the rudiments of cook-
ing, or the laundress' art. With a pride, which
however we may lament it, we can not regard as
wholly unjustifiable, the class of American girls,
daughters of parents in humble circumstances,
whose mothers and aunts, thirty years ago, would
have willingly accepted situations in good fami-
lies, shrink from this service, now that these ignor-
ant foreign women have crowded the intelligence
offices, because they feel that it would be a dis-
grace and dishonor to be associated with them.
We can hardly wonder at this ; for the foreigners
are, with some exceptions certainly, ignorant, rude,
bigoted, and fanatical, not always cleanly, and
often dishonest; and to be classed with them
would be, to some extent, unfortunate. Yet, in
relinquishing this calling wholly to them, our
girls of American birth have shut themselves out
of an employment which, with all that there is
144 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
disagreeable about it, is greatly preferable, in its
compensation, its healthfullness, and its social con-
sideration, to the drudgery of the needle, or the
confinement and often injurious associations of
the manufactories.
If women of good sense and practical skill in
household matters, women of good character and
intelligence, would oftener undertake these posi-
tions, they might secure to themselves kind
friends in their employers, a higher and more
confidential relation between mistress and ser-
vant, and a compensation which would be much
higher than that which the majority of teachers,
needlewomen, saleswomen, &c., receive.
The labor in this employment is not, on the
average, so severe as that in the manufactories ; it
is much less, and less injurious to health, than
needlework, or the driving of a sewing-machine.
It is service, and implies obedience to a mistress ;
but who among those, men or women, who are com-
pelled to work for a livelihood (we should rather
say, perhaps, are privileged to work), has not his
or her employer ? Who is not in the service of
some one ? And whether this master or mistress
be the head of a household, an officer of the State
or nation, the proprietor of a great manufactory, a
merchant, a judge, or a bishop, a congregation, or
the great public, the service is as often wearing
and irksome in the higher, as in the lower realms
of service. Another objection urged by Aineri-
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
can girls occasionally, has, we are inclined to
believe, more weight with them than all the rest.
It is that they do not like to be subject to other
women, and, above all, to their own country-
women. We can easily see the force of this
objection. Women are, as a rule, more exacting
with their servants than men, and amid this preva-
lence of foreign help, the fashionably educated
American woman, while herself ignorant of house-
hold duties, not unfrequently puts on a haughty
and domineering air, which none will submit to,
except those who have been all their lives meni-
als, and even they only accept the situation with
a view to revenging themselves for the insults
they receive, by defrauding or robbing their
employers.
A more thoughtful, just, and liberal course of
conduct toward their employes would secure to
mistresses better servants, and might open the
way for the return of some of those invaluable
women to service, who formerly were the hum-
ble and attached friends of the families with
whom they lived. Colored servants are much
more numerous at the South than in the Northern
States. In the latter, indeed, they are compara-
tively rare. In some instances they are very faith,
ful, trusty, and skillful, but many of them have the
vices bred of a slave life heedlessness, reckless-
ness, a lack of neatness, untruthfulness, and petty
dishonesty. In other vices, still more disreputa-
146 EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
ble, there is very little difference between the
colored and the foreign servants. The standard
of morality is lower than it should be in both.
The reign of European female servants is destin-
ed, however, to be short. Already, in California,
Chinese men have taken their place almost en-
tirely, and the same change is destined to occur
in our Eastern cities and towns. What may be the
result of this revolution remains to be seen
But if the foreign element has driven our
American women from domestic service, it has also,
to a considerable extent, done the same thing in
relation to their employment in manufactories.
Thirty, or even twenty-five years ago, in the great
cotton and woolen mills and print-works of New
England, it was a very rare thing to find a factory
girl of foreign birth or parentage. Now, the
majority are Irish and Germans. In the great
manufactories of New York, Philadelphia, Cincin-
nati, and other cities, a large (we believe the
larger) proportion are of foreign birth or parent-
age. In the large book-binderies, as yet, Ameri-
can girls are in the ascendency.
CHAPTER IX.
TEACHING is an employment for which woman
possesses some eminent qualifications. It is the
duty and privilege of the mother to give her
child its first and most indelible mental and moral
training ; and so important is this early maternal
culture, that it is a rule, almost without exception,
that a man's character, intellectually and morally,
is molded by his mother's influence. For the
instruction and management of young children,
women are more successful, as teachers, than
men ; they have more tact, more skill in interest-
ing and amusing them, and more ability to lead
them on, by the slow and short steps by which alone
most children can advance in their knowledge of
science. The exercises of the binder-marten, or
child's garden-school, were, indeed, first invented
by a man, but they have been practiced with
greater success by women than by men. The
system of object-teaching now so popular in
England and the United States, has had its
greatest triumphs in the hands of female teachers.
If, as the most eminent educators of our day
assert, the crucial test of the ability to teach
is found in the capacity for imparting instruction
6* I
148 WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
to the youngest, the weakest, and the least in-
telligent, then must the honor of being the
most successful of teachers be given to women.
In our public schools women are largely in ex-
cess of men, as teachers, having charge in the
graded schools, of the primary, and a part of the
intermediate departments, and being assistants
and sometimes principals in the grammar and
high schools. Formerly, when young men taught
school in winter, to eke out the year's wages, or
furnish the means for the prosecution of academi-
cal, collegiate, or professional study ; and young
girls undertook the summer district school to
earn some extra finery, or to procure the means
of adding to the outfit for the housekeeping that
was to come ere long, there was very little of the
professional zeal of the teacher in either, and the
vocation of teaching was at a low ebb. The
standard of qualifications required of the teacher
was low, and not very rigidly enforced. If the
young man was not conversant with arithmetic
beyond the " rule of three," or was at fault in
grammar, geography, or history, yet if the school
was small, and he would come for a. low price,
the examining committee generally thought it was
best to give him a certificate. And if the young
applicant for the honors of schoolmistress was
slightly faulty in her spelling, had very indefi-
nite ideas about the boundaries of the States,
and could not (perhaps from timidity) explain
WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
why one should be carried for every ten in ad-
dition, yet it was only a summer school, and
she would doubtless do well enough with the few
little children she would have, and so she, too,
got the certificate. These matters are all changed
now. What with normal schools, and teachers'
institutes, associations, drills, and periodicals, that
must be a very rural district which has not a
normal teacher, either male or female, or at least
one who is making teaching a profession, and
who has taken pains to qualify him or herself for
the now honored calling.
As a consequence, the candidates for positions
as teachers are generally qualified to undergo the
somewhat searching examinations they are called
to pass, and are seldom deficient in their technical
knowledge of the topics they are to teach, at least
so far as they are pursued in the popular text-
books. Whether they possess an aptness to teach,
and the knowledge how to impart instruction on
the subjects which they are expected to under-
stand, is another question. The ability of female
teachers to enforce discipline successfully, is also
somewhat in doubt.
From an opportunity of observation extended
over many years, we are inclined to the belief
that, on both points, women on the average suc-
ceed quite as well as men, and in maintaining
order and discipline, usually better than men.
The course pursued in our normal schools is very
150 WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
well calculated to impart skill in teaching, where
the natural faculty of teaching exists. As to
government, a young woman of tact -and spirit
controls her pupils quite as much by her womanly
dignity and her personal magnetism, as by any
direct exercise of authority. She rules the tur-
bulent boys in her school very much as the
wisest and shrewdest of her sex rule men outside,
by seeming not to do it. Even the clownish,
overgrown boy feels ashamed to do any thing to
vex the schoolmistress. She is such a nice little
lady, and he who would be constantly plotting
mischief against a schoolmaster, because he was
" a man of his size," becomes mild and gentle,
considerate and well-behaved, toward a little wo-
man, whom he could take up with one hand and
carry out of the schoolroom, simply because she
is a little woman, whose gentle and lady-like man-
ners have fascinated him. It is the old story of
Una and the lion over again.
In the female seminaries, French colleges, and
finishing schools, the quality of female te'aching
is, we are inclined to believe, considerably lower
than in the higher grades of public schools. Gen-
erally, music and French are taught by men,
though sometimes a French lady is employed for
modern languages ; but very much of the teaching
in other studies is of that careless, superficial,
slipshod sort, which does no real credit either to
instructor or pupil. The ^>etty deceptions and
WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
subterfuges practiced in many of these institutions,
to give the parents and guardians of the pupils the
impressidR^that the course of study is very ex-
tensive and thorough, and that their children are
paragons of learning, would disgust any really
honest teacher.
It is too late in the day to raise the question
of the capacity of woman for becoming a teacher
in the higher studies of the college or university.
In all the Christian ages, there have been a few
women, eminent alike for the soundness of their
judgment, the clearness of their perceptions, and
the extent of their erudition, who have, either
voluntarily or involuntarily, become the teachers
of their time. In the earlier centuries of the
Christian era, they taught in public, and their
lectures or expositions were largely attended. In
the Middle Ages, we find them professors in the
universities of Italy and France, and attracting
great numbers of students to their teachings. In
more modern times, they have kept up the repu-
tation of their sex, if not in direct instruction, at
least by their books, which were in many cases
models both in their style and in the thorough-
ness with which they handled abstruse topics. In
our own day, there have been a small number of
women whose attainments in the highest walks of
science have been fully equal to those of the
ablest male scholars on the same topics. Mrs.
Somerville, though now, we believe, in her nine-
152 WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
tieth year, has demonstrated the vigor of her
intellect even at that great age, by the careful
revision of her great work on physical geogra-
phy, and has called forth from Sir R. I. Murchison,
himself, perhaps, the ablest physicist of our time,
the encomium, as truthful as it is remarkable, that
she was the peer, in her extensive and profound
knowledge of physical science, of any living
philosopher. In the difficult and abstruse science
of political economy, in which so many of the
finest male intellects have failed, two women,
Miss Harriet Martineau and Mrs. J. S. Mill, have
manifested an ability second to no writers on the
subject in our time. In astronomy, Miss Maria
Mitchell has proved as successful an observer and
as sagacious a discoverer as any of her male con-
freres. In profound knowledge of the great prin-
ciples of law, Miss Hannah Bonvier was in no
way inferior to her father, one of the great jurists
of our age. The late Mrs. Hill, wife of Rev.
Thomas Hill, D. D., late President of Harvard
University, died at the age of thirty-one, the
victim of her earnest zeal to acquire such a
knowledge of the highest mathematics as is
attained by hardly one nian in a generation. We
might multiply, almost indefinitely, the number of
names of women in various departments of science
and literature, whose attainments justified them
in becoming public instructors. And these attain-
ments have been made, it must be remembered.
WOMAN AS A TEACHEB. 153
under a generally faulty and superficial system
of education. Were the opportunities for a thor-
ough and complete education of women as ample
as those of men, there can be no question that
the number of highly educated women would be
vastly greater than it now is. At present the
number qualified to fill college professorships is
small, though increasing. The education required
to fill such positions can not be obtained before
the age of eighteen, especially with those who
have marriage in immediate prospect. Neither
science nor literature allow those of their votaries,
who wish to attain the highest honors, to give
them a divided homage. Long and close applica-
tion is necessary to qualify the accomplished
teacher for her work. Yet this is a field where
prizes await those who are qualified to receive
them. In the present zeal for the founding of
new colleges, there is a demand considerably
beyond the supply for highly educated and skillful
teachers, and many of the chairs might be filled
advantageously by women.
In all the branches which constitute a liberal
education, women have demonstrated their ability
to teach successfully, but in a college admitting
pupils of both sexes, it would be desirable that
the female professors should occupy those chairs
which did not require the exercise of great phy-
sical power. Surveying, the practical branches
of geometry, fortification, mining, metallurgy,
154 WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
chemistry, and especially chemical technology,
would not, .on these grounds, be professorships
which women would desire to fill. For another
reason, viz., the general impatience of women
with the slow processes of logical deduction, logic,
and moral and intellectual philosophy in their
highest development, would seldom be topics
which women would teach with success. Usually,
a woman may be trusted (in the higher walks of
education) to teach any science, for which, from
special training, she feels herself competent.
From teaching, as an employment, the transi-
tion is easy and natural to the practice of what
are usually called the learned professions. There
are not wanting examples of women having filled
with considerable success the clerical office. One
denomination of Christians, the Friends, have
had for two hundred years and more their women
preachers, some of them of great eloquence. These
fair preachers, it must be acknowledged, have not
generally lost, to any appreciable extent, their
womanly modesty and delicacy by their public
exercises. The extreme plainness, simplicity, and
freedom from formality in the religious exercises
of the Friends, have prevented any injurious
results from these utterances. The Moravians,
too, have had for a long period their women
preachers, and, we believe, in one or two instances,
women bishops. Of other religious denominations,
the Universalists, in this country, have several
WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
ordained women preachers and pastors ; the Uni-
tarians have five or six ; and the Methodists, two
or more. There are also some among the minor
denominations. That a well educated and deeply
religious woman may be able to write a sermon
as systematic, earnest, pungent, and practical, as
most clergymen, and could perform many of the
pastoral duties which fall to the lot of clergymen,
successfully, can not be denied, yet we must con-
fess that we greatly prefer that they should not
occupy the pulpit. There is something contrary
to our ideas of propriety and womanly delicacy
in a woman's standing up before a great congre-
gation as their spiritual leader and guide. She
may be competent for the position, intellectually
and morally, but the office of the preacher and
pastor implies the power of government bear-
ing rule a thing for which we look in vain in the
history of the early Church.
We do not lay so much stress as some do, upon
the prohibitions of Paul : " I suffer not a woman
to teach ;" " Let the woman learn in silence with
all subjection ;" " Let your women keep silence
in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them,
to speak; but they are commanded to be under
obedience, as also saith the law ;" " For it is a
shame for women to speak in the church," &c.,
&c. These prohibitions were to some extent
partial, intended only for particular churches,
especially for that in the corrupt city of Corinth,
156 WOMAN AS A TEACHER
where the general gross and infamous demoraliza-
tion of the entire community, rendered special
restraints necessary, to create a sense of modesty
and refinement which had not hitherto existed.
They are also partly modified by other declara-
tions of the apostle in the same and other epistles,
which show conclusively that it was a public
teaching, and not an exhortation or testimony to
the truth to which he objected. We have our
doubts whether, as some suppose, allowance should
also be made for the apostle's natural sternness
and decision of character, and the influence which
his single life and homelessness may be supposed
to have exerted upon him, as modifying in a de-
gree the tone of the revelation, so far as he de-
clares it, inspired by God. Still, viewing the
work of the ministry, as it unquestionably
is, as one form of exercise of the governing
power, we can not but regard the entering
upon it by woman as a thing to be deplored. If,
as sometimes occurred in the Jewish common-
wealth, God calls a woman to be a spiritual
leader of his people, we believe that he will make
her call manifest by such visible signs that she
will be readily and heartily received by the
Church, and her divine mission recognized. Ex-
ceptional cases of this sort may possibly arise
but till they do, we can not help believing that
the public religious exercises of woman should be
confined to exhortation, or bearing her testimony
WOMAN AS A TEACHER.
to the truth and vital power of the religion which
she professes.
Of public speaking of a secular character by
women, now becoming very prevalent, we have
only to say, that while we have in some instances
been instructed, and in others amused, by these
feminine orations, we can not desire any consider-
able increase in the number of these speakers.
That some of them have done service to the
causes they have advocated, that some both write
and speak eloquently, is true; but that in thus
attempting to edify or amuse the public, they
almost inevitably divest themselves of something
of that maidenly modesty and delicacy which are
such essential charms in the character of woman,
is also true. There may be those who are called
to this work ; if so, let them perform it, but let
every woman who thinks of undertaking it, be
sure that it is her vocation.
CHAPTER X.
As TO the medical profession, there seems to be
no serious objection against its being undertaken
by women who are properly qualified for it. For
some departments of medical study and practice,
such as, for instance, diseases of her own sex, and
of children, and the practice of obstetrics, woman
possesses some peculiar qualifications and advan-
tages. If she has the natural abilities, and has
acquired the previous systematic and thorough
mental training which will enable her to become
thoroughly familiar with the science of medicine in
all its relations, there is no reason why she should
not be eminently successful as a medical practi-
tioner. The practice of medicine requires, how-
ever, qualities of so high an order tact, quick
perception, readiness of resource, sound judgment,
comparison, the power of discrimination, both
of the symptoms of disease and the nature
and application of remedies, and in some of its
departments, such complete self-possession, firm-
ness, control of the emotions and sympathies,
patience and thorough knowledge of the human
structure, and of the modifications in its physio-
logical action affected by disease that even its
PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
most eminent professors often feel their incompe-
tency for its practice.
The greatest difficulty which women have to
contend with, in the study and practice of this
profession, is, that their early training has been so
superficial and desultory that they are unfitted
for the severe study and close application requisite
for its mastery, and are hence strongly disposed to
take up with some of the forms of quackery, which
promise them results which can really be attained
only by careful and protracted study and ade-
quate knowledge of the subject.
There are, however, a considerable number of
women, now, as there have been some in past
generations, who have distinguished themselves
by their high attainments in medical knowledge
and skill ; such women as the Blackwell sisters,
and others whom we might name, who have
demonstrated that a woman can attain, in some
walks of the profession, an eminence equal to that
of the most distinguished physicians of our time.
Great physicians, those who rank very high in
their profession, are never to be found in great
numbers, and necessarily their number must be
smaller among women than men, since fewer
enter on a course of medical study, and many of
them have not had the preliminary training
which would qualify them to take high rank in
it ; and the facilities for the prosecution of medi-
cal study in the way of dissections, museums,
160 PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMEN.
&c., for women, are not yet equal to those for
men.
Yet there is a very considerable sphere of
usefulness opened here for brave, studious, clear-
headed women. They are especially adapted to
be the physicians of children ; the tact and skill,
the knowledge how to manage and interest a child,
which seems almost intuitive in many women, is
a great advantage, as every physician knows, in
their treatment of the little ones. ,
If women trusted each other more than they
do, and were more willing to believe and confide
in the superior knowledge of any of their sex, we
should hope to see the day when the entire
medical treatment of women and young children
was in the hands of highly educated, capable
female physicians, as those best qualified for it ;
but so long as very many women openly avow
their preference for male medical attendants,
irrespective of the question of their qualifications,
it seems to us that a long time must elapse before
women will become very generally the physicians
of their sex.
It is very seldom the case, we think, that
women, however highly qualified they may be,
desire to go into general practice, and the fact
is creditable to their good sense and sound judg-
ment. There might be circumstances, though we
can hardly conceive of them, in which a woman
would be justified in undertaking the cases of a
PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
general practice ; but there would be so much
that was distasteful and unpleasant about such a
practice, that we should apprehend that the prin-
cipal danger would be that of her abandoning the
profession altogether, in utter disgust. There is
just now a very considerable demand for women
physicians as missionaries, who could treat their
own sex, especially in Mohammedan countries,
where no male physician is admitted into the
harem under any circumstances. It is urged, and
with great truth, that in addition to their medical
services, they might become propagandists of
Christianity to these secluded women, and thus
benefit both soul and body.
A knowledge of medicine also qualifies them
the better for the position of a skillful and highly
trained nurse and attendant upon the sick, which
so many filled with such signal advantage to their
patients, during the late war. There is a wide
opening in this direction for profitable and useful
employment for women.
We have alluded already to the prevalent
reluctance of women to enter upon general prac-
tice, and the indication which it furnished that
they understood well what was their true position
in the matter. For the same as well as other
reasons, women are not well adapted to the prac-
tice of surgery, and should never undertake it.
Their more delicate nervous organization, their
more ready sympathy, and their instinctive aver-
164 PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
sion to the use of the operating knife, even where
it was indispensable, would affect alike their
diagnostic power, and their ability to operate ; and
the woman who could subdue all these emotions,
and hold herself ready to pass the trying ordeal
of performing a great surgical operation, might be
brave, heroic, skillful, if you will, but before reach-
ing this point, she must have crucified her woman's
heart, and have become that undesirable thing a
manlike woman.
For the reasons given in another chapter, it
would be unwise for a married woman, the mother
of a family, to engage in the practice of medicine,
unless in the rare case where she is the wife of a
physician, and as thoroughly trained in her pro-
fession as her husband. Even in such a case,
there would be much to annoy her and impair her
efficiency ; her household duties would necessarily
distract her thoughts, and her children, if she has
any, would very surely be neglected ; but in any
other case, though the development of the mater-
nal instincts would not be without its advantages
in many instances, yet, with the exception already
made, the practice of medicine should be strictly
confined, so far as women are concerned, to single
women or widows.
There will be, as any female physician in full
practice can avouch, full as many annoyances and
disabilities for these, as they will care to meet.
The night's rest so constantly and thoughtlessly
PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
disturbed, the midnight rides in dark nights and
over rough roads, the querulousness and peevish-
ness of hypochondriacs, the mad antics of hys-
terical patients, the deep feeling of responsibility
when a wife and mother, the cherished idol of
her husband's heart, is passing through her great
agony, or lies insensible and in imminent peril
of sudden death ; the sense of the powerlessness
of medicine, when the beloved child, the pet of
the household, is passing on, by slow but sure
steps, to the grave ; the uncertainty whether, in a
given case which has proved fatal, there may not
have been some medicine, or some method of
treatment, unknown to the physician herself, yet
within the bounds of human knowledge, which, if
resorted to, would have saved this precious life.
I speak not of any financial difficulties, of the
unwillingness which every physician finds among
a certain portion of his patrons to pay for services
rendered; of that class, unhappily too numerous, by
whom, on the recovery of the patient, " death and
the doctor are alike forgotten," or of the want of
conscientiousness so prevalent, which, unmindful of
the benefits rendered, considers the physician's bill
the last one to be paid, if paid at all. Of all these
troubles the woman physician will have her full
share, and owing to the prevalence of the idea in
the loutish minds of the unintelligent, that women's
work should not receive the same pay as men's, she
may have a few extra worries peculiar to herself.
PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
But there is a place and a need for well-educat-
ed female physicians, and they shall have from us
nothing but a " God speed them in their profession,
and give them abundant success in it."
The question whether woman should enter the
legal profession has given rise to much animated
discussion. Some of the most advanced defend-
ers of woman's rights contend that she ought to
take those places at the bar and on the bench,
which are now occupied solely by men. There
are several serious objections to this. The advo-
cate who addresses a jury, or a bench of judges
on an important case, not only requires thorough
preparation of all the law points, and a complete
mastery of the great principles on which his argu-
ment is to be based, but he must be an adept in
the difficult and often unpleasant art of cross-
examination, and he must be prepared with a
retort not always courteous for the sophistries
and subterfuges of a, perhaps, not over-scrupulous
adversary. If he is addressing a jury, he must
make a favorable impression on them, either by his
real dignity, his apparent candor and conscien-
tiousness, his clear and transparent logic, or his
tact, humor, and wit. If his plea is made before
the full bench of judges, he must present, in the
strongest light, the great legal principles which
underlie his case, must fortify it with authorities,
decisions, and precedents, must hedge it about
with logical arguments, and in the whole, there
I
PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
must be no extraneous ornament, no diffuseness
of oratory, no ad captandum appeals, or he loses
his case inevitably.
To a true woman, there would be much in both
of these branches of the profession which would
be distasteful and unpleasant. Granting the
ability, which may exist in rare instances (though
women are seldom close and skillful logicians, or
disposed to terse and condensed argument), there
would yet be many of the necessary incidents of
a trial scene which would be exceedingly painful
to a woman of sensitive and delicate temperament,
and through which she could not pass, without
detriment to that refinement and delicacy which
should ever characterize woman.
To her presiding on the bench there would be
objections of a different class. Women seldom
make good presiding officers, partly from the
fact that they do not often possess that thor-
ough self-possession, that calmness and dignity
of manner, and that thorough knowledge of par-
liamentary rules and usage, which alone prevent
confusion and discord in the assembly, and morti-
fication and embarrassment on the part of the
presiding officer. The parliamentary rules they
might acquire, but seldom or never do, and even,
with the knowledge of them, the other difficulties
would be serious. The judge requires, in addition
to these qualities, that judicial faculty, that power
of discriminating between the true and the true-
170 PROFESSIONAL LIFE OF WOMAN.
seeming, of sifting evidence, discovering perjury,
weighing precedents and authorities, and divest-
ing himself of preferences, leanings, and prejudices,
and that profound knowledge of legal principles,
all of which go to the making of the character of
the just, upright, and learned judge, and render
his position the grandest and most responsible in
the community.
In some of these qualities, woman is, we
may believe, deficient from the structure of her
mental constitution ; in others, her deficiency is
one which might possibly be remedied by long and
patient culture ; but, with the rarest of exceptions,
the function of the judge is not one to which she
would do well to aspire.
There are, however, other departments of the
legal profession which woman can fill as well as
man, and some of them among the most lucrative.
Conveyancing and its kindred branches of busi-
ness appertaining to the disposal of real property,
the searching of titles, the preparation of pension
and bounty papers, the drawing of deeds, wills,
contracts, agreements and affidavits, and generally
the consulting business of an attorney's office, can
be done as well by a woman as a man, if the
woman will but give her whole thought and mind
to it. So, too, the preparation of a case for trial,
the preparing the brief, the hunting up and
arranging the authorities under each point, are
matters within the scope of woman's powers. Our
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN. 173
great lawyers usually have partners or confidential
clerks on whom these duties now devolve, and
these partners or clerks never open their mouths
in court.
There are also the places of clerks and re-
porters of courts, which might well be filled by
women.
We conclude, then, that in some departments
of the legal profession there is room for women,
while there are others which would not be ap-
propriate for them, and which they could only
undertake, by first relinquishing that modest
and womanly demeanor which is their highest
charm.
Of the other professions introduced in connec-
tion with our military, naval, scientific, polytech-
nic, mining, and agricultural and technological
schools, which are multiplying so rapidly, there
are but few which are adapted to the physical
capacities of woman. The peasant woman of
France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland may
indeed vie with man in her ability for coarse,
hard, severe out-door labor; she may plow,
reap, mow, and dig as well and stoutly as her
husband ; she may bear as heavy burdens, and
compete with him in all rough and muscular em-
ployments ; but in so doing, she soon loses her
beauty, her grace, and her refinement of man-
ners, and becomes a clod. We have no desire
ever to see an American woman undertake any
174 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
of these employments, even if they had the
strength for them. In the case of the educated
classes, there is, moreover, a physical inability
for the greater part of these new professions.
The West Point course, for instance; granting that
a young woman, by dint of extraordinary phys-
ical ability and vigor, succeeded in passing
through it, what could she do with the education
there obtained ?
We are sure that no one, with the possible ex.
ception of the editors of the Revolution, would
contend that a "military career was desirable for
a woman. Under peculiar and exceptional cir-
cumstances, in times of great national danger,
women (one or two in a century) have, it is true,
taken the lead of military enterprises, and with
success in some cases ; but, would it be worth
while, for such a possible contingency, to educate
women for a military life ? Is the army career cal-
culated to develop the graces or amenities of life ?
No ! when the great emergency comes, if it ever
does come, when a woman is needed to lead our
forces to battle, we may be sure that a better
leader can be found among the volunteers than
we could train for the work, if we graduated a
hundred from the military academy every year.
Of the special sciences taught there, such as
fortification, military and topographical engineer-
ing, &c., there are few or none which a woman
could practice successfully. The construction of
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
forts and batteries, the laying out and building of
railroads, military roads, canals, breakwaters, &<?.,
are not avocations in which women are likely to
distinguish themselves. The duties of the sur-
veyor, superintendent, or engineer of mines, of the
locomotive engineer, the technological chemist,
the navigator, the captain or engineer of a steam-
ship, the constructor of a sewer, the foreman of a
fire-engine, the superintendent of a great manu-
factory, or manager of a machine-shop, are all of
a class which women would very seldom have the
physical strength to perform well, and which,
except in those rare cases which bid defiance to
all rules, it would be undesirable that they should
undertake.
Some departments of agriculture and horticulture
do furnish appropriate employment for women.
In the late civil war, when the draft weighed
heavily upon the farming population of the newer
Western States, great numbers of the patriotic
women of Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,
Missouri, and Kansas, the wives, sisters, and
daughters of the men who had gone to fight the
nation's battles, undertook most of the heavy
farm-work a few held the plow, and many
more " cultivated " the corn, drove the mowers
and reapers, gathered, bound and stacked the
grain, or raked, loaded, and housed the hay,
gathered, husked, shelled, and sent to market
the corn, thrashed the wheat, oats, and barley,
}76 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
and sacked and shipped them, and cared for the
live-stock, doing nearly as well as if the men had
been at home to attend to their duties themselves.
We trust the time will never come when they
will be called to such severe labor again ; though
we doubt not that it would be undertaken cheer-
fully from similar motives. But there is much
work on a farm which women may perform with
success and honor to themselves. The mother
of a farmer's family, or, in case of her absence or
inability, some other woman of the household,
will always, on a large farm, have abundant labor
and care in the management of the household
affairs. The providing meals for so large a family,
the care of the clothing and the training of the
children, and their education, which to a con-
siderable extent must come upon the mother; the
care of the fowls and small animals of the live-
stock, will keep her time very fully occupied ; if
the farm is partly or wholly devoted to dairy
products, her cares will be increased, though not
so much, in these days of cheese and butter fac-
tories, as formerly. But it is often the case that
a young, spirited, and enterprising woman under-
takes the management of a farm herself, and if
she is intelligent in regard to farm work, and
possessed of fair executive ability, she usually
succeeds well.
Bat it is especially in market-gardening, and
garden truck and small fruit farming, that women
EMPLOYMENTS OF "WOMEN. ^77
have been most successful. For many miles around
our large cities there are favorable opportunities
for these agricultural enterprises. The labor is
somewhat severe, and during the summer months
confining, but while some male help is needed,
this is an employment, which, if well managed,
will yield excellent returns. The succession of
early vegetables, strawberries, raspberries, black-
berries, cherries, green corn, tomatoes, beets,
cauliflowers, early potatoes, cabbages, plums,
grapes, peaches, pears, and early summer and
autumn apples, insures constant employment, and
keeps both mind and body active and alert.
To those who are appalled by so long a list of
products, the cultivation of the small fruits only
furnishes a pleasant and recreative employment.
The keeping of bees, the rearing of silk-worms,
and the care of some of the more fanciful varieties
of domestic fowls, and pigeons, guinea-hens, ducks,
geese, turkeys, and rabbits, all furnish employ-
ment which is both pleasant and profitable.
Horticulture and floriculture, as well as the
management of a nursery of young trees, are
employments which might be in the hands of
women to a much greater extent than they are.
At present, very few women cultivate flowers for
any other purpose than their own pleasure, or the
gratification of their friends ; but there is nothing
so abstruse in the arts of the florist and nursery-
man, and nothing so severe in the labor required,
7*
178 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
as to put either beyond the reach of a resolute
woman, and the business is one peculiarly health-
ful and refining in its character. If the enterprise
is conducted on a scale sufficiently large, the col-
lection and packing of flower-seeds is a branch
of the business which will afford great pleasure
and profit. An enterprising, intelligent woman,
with some capital, who would qualify herself for
this business and engage in it, on a large scale,
might make her own fortune and afford a pleas-
ant and remunerative employment to a large
number of her own sex.
In the practice of some branches of chemical
technology there is nothing necessarily beyond a
woman's ability, though the work would be
hardly agreeable to most women, involving as it
would, a necessity for a dress approximating to
that of a man, to avoid the perils of the flowing
dress and readily combustible material usually
worn by women. The protracted and severe
study, and the constant laboratory practice re-
quired to keep pace with the rapidly increasing
volume of discoveries in organic chemistry, would
deter most women from attempting to enter upon
the practice of general applied chemistry.
In the fine arts, especially in painting, sculp-
ture, and music, a few women have distinguished
themselves ; and if the opportunity had been af-
forded them, or they had possessed the same
resolute will, probably a considerably larger num-
), ''). *, Vail
-'/ ' ' -i -Si ' I v '
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
ber might have done so. In the reproduction of
actual landscape, or the portraiture of animals,
even in those minute* points which indicate the
skill of the artist, they have been admirable,
and their statues and busts of eminent men, liv-
ing or dead, have been, in some instances, re-
markable for their faithfulness and spirit ; but in
general they have shown very little creative
power. Rosa Bonheur's " Horse Fair,'' and her
other pictures of animal life, entitle her to rank
with Sir Edwin Landseer, in this department of
her art. Yet she has never ventured, as indeed
she had no occasion, into the ideal world for the
subjects of her paintings. There seems to be no
good reason why this creative faculty should not
be developed in women, except, possibly, that in
their mental constitution, the inventive or cre-
ative power is weaker than in men. In music,
there have been women-singers of extraordinary
power and skill, female pianists, harpists, vio-
linists, organists of remarkable ability ; but
very few composers, and generally those of only
the second or third class. In their several de-
partments of musical art, the names of Jenny
Lind (Goldschmidt), Julia Grisi, Catharine Hayes,
Anne Seguin, Anna Bishop, Madame Laborde,
Madame Parepa Rosa, Adelina Patti (Caux), Clara
Louisa Kellogg, and others, will always be remem-
bered for their powers of vocalization, and a still
longer list of instrumental performers of very high
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
rank attests the ability of women to attain to the
highest plane of musical art.
It is surprising that with voice, ear, and hand
so fully and delicately attuned to the highest
musical excellence, there should never have been
a Mozart, a Haydn, a Handel, a Beethoven, a
Mendelsshori, or a Rossini, or even a composer of
the second rank, among the women devoted to
music. Musical composers there have been
among them indeed, and some whose melodies
possessed rare sweetness, and considerable vigor
and originality ; but none who have won to
themselves an undying fame. These may, it is
true, be among the wonders of the future. To wo-
men who possess the natural talent for becoming
professional singers or players, and are willing to
go through the severe and protracted study re-
quired to attain excellence, the musical profession
offers fair rewards. As most of the eminent fe-
male vocalists have sung in opera, this naturally
brings us to speak of the stage as furnishing an
occupation for women.
There have been, in the past hundred years, a
very considerable number of estimable women
who have been connected with the dramatic pro-
fession. For the most part, women of high
character and aspirations have preferred tragedy,
as more dignified in character, and affording a bet-
ter scope for their powers than any other depart-
ment of the drama ; and a calling which has been
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
graced by such eminent names as Mrs. Siddons,
Mrs. Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, Ristori,
Rachel, Mrs. Charles Kean, Mrs. Mowatt, Mrs.
Lander, and others hardly inferior in reputation,
may perhaps fairly claim a right to be considered
among the appropriate occupations for women.
And yet, when we consider how numerous are the
temptations to which the actress is exposed, how
dissolute the society by which she is surrounded,
and how great the peril, both to her good name
and her eternal interests, we can not recommend
any woman who has any regard for her own repu-
tation, to endanger it by entering upon an actress's
career. In all departments of theatrical life
there have been, .we doubt not, good and true
women ; we can even conceive it possible, that
among the ballet-dancers, there have been some,
whose purity of life was in strange contrast with
the performances which formed a part of their
daily duties; but we only echo the opinion of one
who herself has borne an active part in theatrical
life, when we say that in the present condition of
the drama, no pure-minded woman has a right to
imperil her reputation and her hopes of heaven
by entering upon a theatrical career. The atmos-
phere of the theater is, at the present day, wholly
corrupting, and it is impossible for any one to
enter it without receiving a moral taint, which, like
the poisoned breath on the polished steel, will
corrode the heart, and impair its purity forever.
184 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
The stage, then, is not among the fit occupations
for women, nor will it be, till that time shall arrive
when it shall indeed become what it has often
been styled, but never really was, " a School of
Morals."
CHAPTER XI.
WE come next to consider the literary occupa-
tions of woman, aside from those of the teacher
and other professions. The number of women
who are engaged in authorship is increasing, but
they are mostly occupied with one or other of
three classes of works, novels, juvenile books
usually also fictions and poetry. These three
classes include a little more than two-fifths of all
the books published in any given year, but
the proportion of those written by women to the
whole number of works of which they are
authors, is certainly seven-eighths. Occasionally
a woman ventures into the domain of history, and
with tolerable, though not perfect success, for im-
partiality is an important requisite for a historian,
and no woman has yet undertaken to write his-
tory, certainly not in England or the United
States, who was not, to some extent, a partisan.
Biography is more to their liking, and some of {
the most successful biographies of modern times
have been written by women. In metaphysical
science few women have ventured, and never,
thus far, with such ability as to encourage others
to attempt it. In political economy, a few women
138 LITEEARY OCCUPATIONS.
of our century have done themselves honor. In
physical science, especially in astronomy, physi-
cal geography, botany, and zoology, they have done
well. In criticism, either in art or literature,
there are not more than one or two names of any
eminence.
The classics seem to have very little charm for
them, only two women of any note as authors in
the present century having attained such a mas-
tery of them, as to warrant them in writing any
thing worth reading on the subject, to wit : Eliz-
abeth Barrett Browning, and S. Margaret Fuller
(D'Ossoli). Nor are there any female writers in
the English tongue who have discussed with
marked ability the classical works of either
English or continental literature. The general
distaste of the sex for mathematical studies has
prevented them from attaining any distinction
in statistical works.
As novelists, women often manifest signal
ability in description and narration ; occasionally
considerable ingenuity in the conception and
management of the plot of the story ; and if they
describe from the life, their characters sometimes
stand out with a marvelous distinctness, and to
the superficial critic, seem veritable creations ;
but the great defect of all their novels is, that
the real creative faculty is wanting ; that they
can only describe what they have seen, and sub-
stantially only in the relations in which they have
LITERARY OCCUPATIONS 189
seen it. To this deficiency it is to be attributed
that among all the female novelists of modern
times (over one thousand in all), there is not one
who can claim to rank, in permanent reputation,
with several of the great novelists of the other
sex.
As writers for children, women are entitled to
a high, perhaps the highest rank. We certainly
can recall no names of male writers at the present
day, who have been more successful in writing
for the young, than any one of a score of women
in England and America, whose books are, and
will be, among the most precious treasures of
young hearts.
In the realm of poetry, women have attained to
a fair, yet not to the highest success. The creative
faculty is, so far, wanting for the production of any
of those grand epics, of which that century is but
too happy which can reckon one among its treas-
ures. Mrs. Browning has made the nearest
approach to being a great poet of any woman of
modern times. In lyric and sentimental poetry,
we can not reckon woman inferior to the other sex;
but many of the so-called " collections of poems,''
from male as well as female writers, indicate
rather facility of versification, a poetical feeling,
and a considerable acquaintance with poetical
literature, than any real poetic talent; and even
those who are not wanting in poetic concep-
tion, too often, by a culpable carelessness and
190 LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
inattention to the elaboration and artistic finish of
their poems, deprive them of much of their value.
We can not, however, reckon the writing of
poetry as one of those avocations by which
woman can earn a livelihood. Poems, the publish-
ers say, do not sell, except in rare instances, and
they will seldom run the risk of publishing them,
unless the author will guarantee the expenses. At
least four-fifths of the volumes of poems by female
writers first published within the past five years,
have proved heavy pecuniary losses to their auth-
ors or publishers. Novels are a little more profit-
able, but very few of them, unless by well known
writers, pay for the labor expended on them. Of
late years, women have become, very largely,
contributors to our magazines and periodicals,
either as essayists, critics, writers of short stories,
or novelettes, or of serial novels, generally pub-
lished subsequently in book form. In one or
other of these ways, a considerable number have
received a fair compensation for their work.
Much of this writing, it is just to say, is of very
fair quality ; not of the highest, for magazine
writing is apt to be a little slipshod. Some of it.
especially that for the weekly family papers, is
mere trash, only to be measured by the yard, and
really worth less than the pure white paper which
it mars and blots. We are not prepared to say
however, that the part of these papers written by
women is worse than that contributed by men
LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
both are bad enough, and unworthy of their
authors.
A considerable number of women have of late
years became editors or managers of monthly,
fortnightly, weekly, and we believe, in one or two
instances, daily papers. We can not honestly con-
gratulate them on their success. A few of the
monthlies have been moderately well edited, but
generally, where a woman has been the sole edit-
or, the periodicals have been failures, both in a
literary and financial sense.
At first sight it seems difficult to account for
this ; for many women undoubtedly possess some
of the qualities requisite for successful journalism :
quickness of perception, the power of ready and
rapid composition, and the faculty of discerning
the important issues to be discussed; but they
fail oftenest in their lack of logical power, and
terse, condensed argument, and in the want of
discrimination in regard to the articles of others
selected for publication. Women are often mer-
ciless critics, but their taste in selection is not
always as correct, as their criticism is severe.
Where, on the other hand, the two sexes are
united in the conduct of a periodical, especially
one of higher literature, they have generally been
more successful than either would have been
alone. At the same time, the experience of most
of those who have been associated with women in
literary enterprises is, that many of them are
192 LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
given to carelessness in the performance of their
share of the duties, to shirking the difficult parts,
and to diminishing somewhat the full quota of
work to which they are pledged. We do not
believe that all, perhaps not the major part of
literary women would do this, for many are truly
conscientious ; but too often, a woman engaged
in literary pursuits, is a little more prone to shel-
ter herself under the privileges of her sex, than
women in other avocations. We need not say
how prejudicial this general reputation is to the
real interests of literary women, nor how often it
causes their rejection from positions for which
they are eminently qualified, if only reliance could
be placed on their faithful performance of the
duties required. The late Mrs. Sigourney was
an eminent exception to this class. Whatever
pledges she made, either as to the time of com-
pletion, the quality or the quantity of her literary
work, were fulfilled to the letter, even at the
greatest personal inconvenience. She was the
soul of honor and conscientiousness ; we wish as
much could be said of some living literary women.
The literary labor of women who are employed
either as editors or contributors to literary period-
icals, is generally compensated as highly as that
of men in similar circumstances.
We have already spoken of those women who
are employed in the government offices. There
can be no question, that if the Civil Service bill
LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
were passed, and the qualifications of both male
and female clerks subjected to a rigid examina-
tion, as large a number of competent women as
of competent men would be found for the service ;
and if, as in most instances would be the case,
they could accomplish, without injury to their
health, the same amount of labor as the men, they
would undoubtedly receive, as they ought, the
same salaries as the men of the same departmental
class. The very considerable number of incompe-
tents among, the present women clerks in Washing-
ton is no indication of the inability of women to fill
these places with first-rate ability ; for those who
were not fit for the place, were not appointed on any
grounds of fitness, but simply to satisfy the demand
of members of Congress, and others, who insisted on
a place being made for their favorites. There is
nothing in most of the government clerkships,
which an intelligent and well-educated woman
may not do as well as a man.
Turning to other employments not of a strictly
literary character, yet requiring considerable edu-
cation for their proper performance, we must con-
fess that we see no good reason why women should
not be employed as clerks and tellers in banks and
private banking-houses. We might go further,
and say that there are women who possess the
financial ability to fill the posts of cashier and
president, better than they are filled in half the
banks in the country. We are not aware that
194 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
they have been employed in the subordinate
positions to any extent ; but they certainly might
be to advantage. Rapidity and accuracy in count-
ing money, the ready intuition which discovers
counterfeits, by the feel, or by a glance, and the
quick detection of forged paper, are all qualities
in which woman can, from her greater nervous
activity, her more delicate touch, and her keener
instinctiveness, excel man. That she can become
as expert in accounts as a man, has been abund-
antly proved ; and in other qualifications of a
moral character she surpasses most male appli-
cants for such position. In money matters, women
are generally more trustworthy than men ; they
have not the same temptations, of drinking, gam-
bling, evil associates, and stock speculations, as
young men, and would generally apply more
closely to their business.
For the sake of the banks and bankers, then,
we should advise the discharge of the greater part
of their clerks, and the substitution, as fast as
they can be qualified for the places, of competent
young women of high character, at the same
salaries. We believe the work would be better
done, and that there would be a far smaller
number of defalcations and breaches of trust to
report.
The same arguments will apply with equal
force to their employment in life and fire insur.
ance offices, where they would do the work much
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN.
better than it is now done, and with fewer frauds
and embezzlements.
There is another side to this question, however.
While the advantages to bankers and underwrit-
ers, of their employment would be very great,
the advantage to the women themselves might be
slight. All these confining employments, requir-
ing the brain to be constantly kept intensely
active, are very injurious to health ; and it is
a question whether the very delicacy of structure,
which would render woman so valuable in situa.
tions like these, would not speedily induce
impaired health, and cause her to fall a victim to
overwork. A continued strain of this sort tells
more severely and fatally upon woman than man,
and overwork, in our banks and insurance offices, is
killing far more men than we can afford to lose.
We can not, therefore, as a true friend of
women, commend these situations to them, though
we have no doubt of their intellectual and moral
competency for them.
In our Western cities, and to some extent in
New York, women well educated for these posi-
tions are becoming the cashiers, book-keepers,
and confidential clerks of large wholesale houses.
That they perform their duties faithfully and well,
is the universal testimony of those who have
employed them, and though they have gen-
erally been employed at a lower salary than male
clerks, cashiers, &c., of no tetter qualifications,
196 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
we have yet to hear of the first defalcation among
them.
Their employment as clerks and saleswomen in
retail stores, especially those engaged in the sale
of drygoods, fancy goods, laces, silks, fringes, &c.,
as well as in toy, confectionery, flower, bakery^
and tobacconists' shops, has been so common for
some years past, that no one doubts their capacity
for such work. It has been said, indeed, that they
lacked the physical endurance needed for an
occupation which required them to stand so many
hours ; and some have complained that they failed
in tact in dealing with their customers that they
were very apt to make errors both in the quality
of goods and in making change. But these objec-
tions, however valid they may be against individ-
uals, weigh very little against the ability of the
sex for trade. That many of them are equal in
physical endurance to the other sex can not be
denied ; and the other shortcomings only prove
that the individuals objected to had not been
trained for their work, and were not competent to
perform it properly. In general, women make
more sales than men, in retail stores where both
are employed, and though many customers prefer
to deal with men, since they find it easier to
decline purchasing from them when they wish to
do so, yet a woman will be more sure to effect a
sale to a customer whose mind is undecided, than
a man.
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
Of late years, women have been qualifying
themselves for telegraph operators, and prove
very successful in that calling. The popular
proverb about a woman's not being able to keep a
secret, whether true or false, does not now apply
in this business, since nearly or quite all the
messages in which secrecy is important, are con-
veyed in cipher, and are as unintelligible to the
operator as to outsiders. Moreover, if a secret of
any moment is confided to the telegraph without
being put in cipher, some male gossip is quite
as likely to let it out as the woman.
Another calling in which a considerable number
of women finJ a livelihood, is copying, or writing
from dictation. There is a large amount of copy-
ing to be done in the law offices, offices of patent
solicitors, and in the transcribing of badly written
manuscripts intended for the press. There are,
also, many gentlemen who, from the illegibility
of their penmanship, or from other causes, require
an amanuensis, or private secretary, as we believe
it is the fashion now to call them. Women se-
cure much of this work, and if their handwriting
was more clear and legible, and they were more
generally and uniformly accurate in spelling and
punctuation, they would obtain nearly the whole.
Photography, in its various branches, is an art
in which a few women have engaged with great
success, and more might do so with advantage.
Women have not, we believe, contributed any new
8
198 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
discoveries of importance to this art, but their mani-
pulation, when they are thoroughly familiar with
the business, is superior to that of men. Of
course, a fair knowledge of practical chemistry is
important in this pursuit. The coloring of photo-
graphs, a business requiring delicacy of touch,
taste, and artistic skill, is very largely in the
hands of women.
For a few years past, large classes have been
instructed in most of our large cities in the arts
of drawing and engraving on wood. A few sue-
a o .j
ceed well in the drawing, and a still smaller num-
ber in the engraving, while the rest never acquire
the skill necessary to enable them to do good
work ; not, their teachers say, from any lack of
natural ability, but because their minds are not on
their work. There is ample employment at re-
munerative prices for every woman who can en-
grave skillfully on wood, or who can draw well upon
the block, and there would be, were their num-
bers ten times increased ; but the skill required
can only be attained by close and constant attention
for some years. In other branches of the engravers'
art, women have succeeded, and might do so again,
if they would qualify themselves for their work.
From engraving the transition is natural to
printing, and in this business there is a field for
the larger employment of women. They have
been, almost since the invention of power presses,
employed as feeders, and have been very skillful
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN. 199
in their work. Of late years they have been ac-
quiring a knowledge of type-setting, and now the
compositors on many newspapers, and in a con-
siderable number of book and job offices, are
women. Mrs. Dall, writing in the autumn of
1867, estimates the number of female compositors
in the United States at 12,000. In this business
they are, on the average, , more accurate than,
though not quite so quick as, men. When employed
on piece-work, i. e., working at so much per thou-
sand ems, they make very good wages. Work on
the hand or treadle presses usually requires more
strength than women possess. Recently, a Women's
Typographical Union has been formed in New
York, and embraces most of the female compositors.
It will secure for them fair compensation for their
work.
Another branch of business for which women
are especially adapted, but in which they are sel-
dom engaged, is the sale of railroad, steamboat,
horse-car, and ferry tickets, and generally of
tickets to lectures and places of amusement. This
work does not require strong muscles, but only
readiness at figures and skill in judging of money,
both matters in which women can become experts
as readily as men.
We do not believe that women as often possess
the capacity for conducting great manufacturing
or commercial enterprises as men ; in part, per-
haps, because they have not been often trained to
200 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
the work ; but there is abundant evidence that
some women do possess this ability. We know
that a young, beautiful, and accomplished woman
in Western Massachusetts, whose husband was
President and chief business manager of a very
large paper manufactory, when he was cut off in
the prime of manhood, took his place, and has
now been for some years the active and capable
manager of the business. We know that in the
largest manufactory of fire-arms in the world, the
widow of the founder of the establishment is the
largest stockholder, and is constantly consulted
in its management. A large machine-shop in Del-
aware, doing a successful business, is managed
by the daughter of its founder, an intelligent
young woman, who for some years worked con-
stantly at the bench, and now can do as large a
day's work, and do it as well, as any of the men
in her employ. One of her sisters is also among
the most skillful workers in the shop. These are
only single instances, rare ones, perhaps, of the
occasional ability of women to conduct large man-
ufacturing operations. In commerce and trade
they have oftener engaged, and with signal suc-
cess in many instances. For many years, in
Philadelphia, there was a prominent book-store and
publishing-house, having the simple sign " S. HART
& Soisr." Of the many thousands who dealt there,
very few knew that the " S.'' stood for Sarah, and
that this was a firm in which a mother and son
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN. 201
were the partners. Mrs. Hart commenced busi-
ness in this firm when her son (Abraham Hart,
subsequently an extensive publisher, owner of
coal mines, and millionnaire) was but sixteen years
of age, and took an active, and long a control-
ling interest in the business, until failing health
compelled her retirement. But larger enterprises,
commercial, mercantile, and financial, than this
have been and still are in the hands of women.
Miss Burdett-Coutts is as successful in her busi-
ness operations, the conducting of her great bank-
ing-house, and the management of her vast estate,
as she is liberal and noble in the dispensing of
her princely charities. In Paris, and indeed on
the continent of Europe generally, some of the
largest commercial houses have women at their
head.* In New York, in some instances, where
the experiment has been tried of a joint manage-
ment of a mercantile business by husband and
wife, and has failed, its subsequent management
by the wife alone has proved successful. The
number of women engaged in business in their
own names in all our large cities is already great,
and is constantly increasing. Few of them, as
yet, engage in wholesale trade, but those few,
as well as the retailers, have generally been suc-
cessful.
Rev. Dr. Malcom, who about thirty years ago
* The name of Veuve Clicquot (the widow Clicquot), one of the
largest manufacturers of champagne, will occur to many of our readers.
202 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
traveled extensively in India, Burmah, and Siam,
says that in Burmah the women are the sole
merchants and traders, and that they always ac-
cumulate property. They act invariably, he says,
upon the cash principle, buying only what they
have the money to pay for, and giving no credit.
More than one of the merchant princes of England
and of the United States has given to a favorite
daughter a thorough business training, and has
subsequently found his account in this instruction,
when her clear intuition has enabled her to fore-
see and suggest a means of escape from threatened
disaster, or to discern in the immediate future a
wave of prosperity, for which, but for her, he
would have been unprepared.
But while admitting the business ability of
women, we do not believe that mercantile life
exerts a favorable influence on their characters.
The assurance, coolness, keenness, and hardness,
which are almost inevitably developed in the mer-
chant, and more distinctly, perhaps, in the retail
trader, than in the wholesale dealer, stamp their
impress more deeply upon the heart of woman
than man, and in this rough attrition with the
world, too often the down is rubbed off the fair
and luscious peach the delicate blush of maiden
modesty gives place to the calm, cool, self-pos-
sessed expression of a woman who has become hard-
ened to the stare, and indifferent to the opin-
ion of those with whom she is brought into
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN. 203
contact. The change is not alone in the seeming.
The woman has become hard and worldly, and
desirous of gain, and she is more of the earth,
earthy, than she would have been in her home, or
in some pursuit which did not call out so fully the
more groveling elements of her character.
We come next to consider those employments,
which, while they are undoubtedly feminine in
their character, are sadly overcrowded, and hence,
in many cases, do not yield an adequate livelihood
to the sad and worn toilers in them. Embroidery,
though an art requiring long and patient training,
and in some of its varieties the exercise of much
skill, is wretchedly underpaid ; in part because the
workers are brought into competition with the
convent work of Mexico, South America, and the
continent of Europe, which is very cheap, because
the labor of the nuns is unpaid ; and partly be-
cause this trade is mostly in the hands of
Jews, who manifest great skill in obtaining needle-
work at a very low price, and -selling it at a very
high one. It is almost impossible for the most
rapid embroiderer to earn enough at her very try-
ing and wearisome work to support herself in any
comfort. How must it be, then, with those less
skillful?
Other branches of skilled needlework pay bet-
ter. A really good needlewoman can usually
make a fair livelihood by her needle, either as
milliner, dressmaker, or tailoress. And, though
204 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
in our cities, the great increase which has taken
place of late in the production of ready-made
goods, of women's as well as of men's wear, has
somewhat reduced the price paid for fine sewing,
yet the more abundant supply of this description
of work in part compensates for this. The trade
in women's goods is now in the hands of
men of a higher class, who are disposed to
deal more fairly by the women they employ
than the shirt-makers, and ready-made clothing
manufacturers of goods for men's wear, have
hitherto done.
But as we leave the class of skilled needle-
women, and come among those who have the
ability only to make up in the plainest and cheap-
est way the slop-work of the low-priced shops,
we find again a fearful amount of overcrowding.
Shirts and vests, overalls, and cheap linen coats
made up at from fifty cents to one dollar and
twenty-five cents per dozen, the sewer finding
thread and needlesj do not furnish employment so
lucrative that we should suppose there would be
much competition for it, and yet let any dealer
advertise for hands, even at these pitiful prices,
and he will have hundreds of women applying for
work before twenty-four hours have passed. It seems
impossible to keep soul and body together on such
a pittance, even by the most active and unflag-
ging industry, and yet we know that not a few
do manage to exist, we can not say live, on the
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN. 205
few pennies earned by incessant toil. Poor crea-
tures, they believe themselves bound down to this
single form of industry, and their struggle to win
an existence for themselves and their little ones
by it, really rises to the dignity of heroism.
In this kind of work, or rather in that a grade
or two above it, which would otherwise come into
the hands of these poor toilers, women in the
country and in towns adjacent to our large cities?
unconsciously often, do their poor sisters of the
city a great wrong. The stout, healthy farmers'
daughters, or the wives and daughters of well-to-
do mechanics in the country villages, rinding them-
selves not fully employed, at some seasons of the
year, take large quantities of this slop-work to
make up at their homes, and board and home
not being taken into the account, they are able
to make considerable additions, even at these
wretchedly low prices, to their spending money.
If they once realized that every piece of work
made up by them not only reduced the price paid
to the poor sewing-woman in the city, but often
deprived her of work, they would turn their at-
tention to other and better ways of earning a few
dollars. Still, the beggarly price paid for this
class of work is in great part due to the fierce
and excessive competition of this great body of
sewing-women for work. The unskilled laborer
is said by political economists to be the most
helpless, and the least provident of all classes of
8* M
206 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
society ; yet even the unskilled female laborer,
the charwoman, the cleaner and scrubber, the
cJiiffonniere and the scavenger, fare better than
these half-skilled sewing-women. Yet, if they
but knew it, three-fourths of them might have
good homes, comfortable food, beds, and air, and
fair wages, if they would go into domestic service,
either in city or country. The life they are now
living is more abject, involves infinitely more suf-
fering, and exposes them to sorer temptations
than they would experience in service, and it is
not counterbalanced by any enjoyment or liberty
which the servant-girl does not have.
The sewing-machine has been, in some aspects
of the case, a great blessing to woman; in others,
an injury. The enormous increase in the amount
of needle-work required in this country within the
past fifteen or twenty years, has rendered its use
indispensable, and while the number of operators
has increased, they have been able to earn much
better wages with the sewing-machine than they
ever could have done without it. Skillful sewing-
machine hands, can, if in full work, earn from
seven to twelve dollars a week, and a few, possi-
bly, even more, and they will tell you, generally,
that they do not work any harder, perhaps not so
hard, as they would have done with the needle,
had there been no sewing-machines.
But here comes in the operation of that law
which is constantly reminding woman of her
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN. 207
weaker physical nature, and which, in this case,
demonstrates the injurious effect of the sewing-
machine. It has been definitely ascertained, that
not one woman in a hundred can work steadily 0:1
the sewing-machine for three years, or four years
at the furthest, without a complete prostration
and shattering of the nervous system, so severe
as to terminate either in protracted illness, help-
lessness, or death. The higher wages, the greater
comfort in living, and the feeling of independence,
are purchased at a fearful cost. The improve-
ments in the manufacture of the machine, securing
greater ease of motion, more speed, and less fre-
quent delay from breaking the thread, imperfect
tension, &c., may do something toward protracting
the period in which they can be used by one
operator ; but the fact that, where the machines are
driven by steam power, and it is only the sewing
which the girls are required to direct, they break
down almost as soon, shows the severe effect of
this kind of work upon the delicate nervous organ-
ization of woman.
When we come, finally, to the class of unskilled,
or but slightly skilled female laborers, we find a
helpless class, indeed, and one more helpless from
the exposures and hardships of their occupations ;
in prosperous times earning a scanty and preca-
rious livelihood by their toil, and in times of busi-
ness depression, almost wholly without employ-
ment ; yet this class, with their lower intelligence,
208 EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN.
are less sensitive to the misery of their position,
and accept alms without hesitation, and in the
cities and large towns come to regard the city
aid for the poor, or the almshouse itself, as their
natural refuge, subsiding into it without any feel-
ing of degradation, on the approach of winter.
This ready acceptance of the pauper's life and
fare is not a characteristic of our women of
American birth and descent. However deeply they
may have sunk in poverty, the poor-house is their
dread, and they will often struggle almost till the
agonies of death are upon them, to avoid so sad a
fate. But the women of the lower classes of
foreign birth or parentage have none of this feel-
ing. To them, it seems the most natural thing in
the world, that if they are not able to support
themselves, the community should support them,
and their easy confidence that it will, often saves
them from much of that sorrow, which, to a sensi-
tive heart, is almost unendurable. The great
influx of immigrants from Europe has introduced a
very considerable number of avocations for women
of the peasant classes, which are still, and it is
hoped may always continue to be (if they are to
be followed by women at all), practiced solely by
women of foreign birth. Among these are those
of the chiffonnieres, or rag and bone-pickers, scaven-
gers, swill-gatherers, collectors of broken victuals,
hucksters of small wares, costermongers or vege-
table peddlers, &c., &c. It seems such a profana-
EMPLOYMENTS OP WOMEN. 209
tion, such an outrage on all our ideas of woman, to
see her engaged in such employments, that we
have often turned away with a shudder, as we
have seen some poor old creature bent down under
her load of bones, papers, rags, and trash, and
exploring each box or barrel of garbage for new
treasures. We could not imagine a countrywoman
of ours engaged in such work.
CHAPTER XII.
THE dangerous and the criminal classes, to
which all writers on ethics assign the vicious and
depraved portion of all large communities, com-
prise, in the criminal division, not merely those
who have been arrested and punished for crime,
but the bold villains who, though constantly prey-
ing upon society, have as yet gone unwhipped of
justice. Among the dangerous class are included
petty thieves, vagrants, the uncared-for children
of the streets, and those of a lower grade roughs,
rowdies, gamblers, habitual drunkards, and prosti-
tutes of all ranks. These persons are all danger-
ous to the well-being of society, because they
subsist on the product of their crimes, or are con-
stantly engaged in practices which are hostile to
good order and the interests of community.
It is with but one section of this dangerous
class that we have to do in this work. No treatise
on the condition and rights and wrongs of women
would be complete, which failed to consider the
condition of fallen women, and the causes which
have led to their ruin. It is a sad and terrible
thought that, taking not only our great cities, but
our manufacturing towns and villages, our sea-ports
THE SOCIAL EYIL. 211
and our commercial centers, of the women between
the ages of fifteen and thirty, one out of every
twelve (some very careful statisticians say, one
out of every ten) is a thing of shame. And this
in an enlightened, Christian nation, in the latter
half of the nineteenth century, and despite all our
efforts to promote purity and holiness ! To what
causes shall we attribute a state of things so
deplorable ? The question is a difficult one, yet
it admits, we think, of an answer which will indi-
cate most of the influences which induce prosti-
tution.
We may remark in the beginning, though that
is but a small consolation, that this vice is no
more prevalent here, but somewhat less so, than
in Great Britain or the continental States of
Europe. In some of the continental States, espe-
cially in the south of Europe, among the lower
classes, illicit love is the rule, and chastity the
rare exception. We are not arrived at, we do
not even approach, this depth of degradation,
though the great influx of European immigrants of
the lower classes has had its ill effects on the
families of the poor in our large cities and
manufacturing towns.
All the testimony, and it is voluminous, on the
subject, indicates that the prevalence of this evil
is not due, to any considerable extent, to inordi-
nate or uncontrollable passion on the part of the
sex. In the profligate and degenerate days of the
212 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
later Roman empire this may have been, as
Roman satirists alleged, a cause. It certainly is
seldom one now.
Yet the minds of the young are corrupted, and
the barriers of virtue weakened to a greater
extent than most parents are aware, by the circu-
lation, in secret, of vile books and prints in a large
proportion of our female seminaries.*
But, aside from these minor sources of evil, the
most prominent causes are not far to seek.
The fashionable mode of education has much
to answer for in this regard. Developing the love
of display as the chief end to be gained, teaching
directly or indirectly the practice of deception,
imparting little or no useful practical knowledge,
and stimulating the love of admiration rather than
the love of right, it fits the graduate to regard
self-indulgence, physical indolence, the love of
dress and show, as the prime objects for which a
woman should live, and deception as perfectly
justifiable.
* We have not, perhaps, in the text, expressed so strongly as we
should, our deep abhorrence of this Satanic method of corrupting the youth
of both sexes. We have it from undoubted authority, that there are
very few academies, female seminaries, high schools, or boarding-schoola
in the country, in which these abominable books and pictures are
not industriously circulated, sometimes by emissaries of the wretches
who publish them. Recently the publication of vile newspapers, illus-
trated with great skill, but with the worst purposes, has been made an
additional means of corrupting the young. That these evil seeds do
often spring up and bear fruit, in the ruin of young people of both
sexes, in soul and body, we have abundant and distressing evidence.
THE SOCIAL EVIL. 213
To young women thus educated, when adverse
circumstances have driven them from the life of
ease they had planned, the siren voice of vicious
pleasure offers an indolent, easy life, ample oppor-
tunities for display and costly apparel, gems and
ornaments in profusion, as the price of their virtue.
Pressed by temptation at the very point where
they are weakest; they yield, after a brief strug-
gle, and enter, covertly at first, perhaps, on a life
of sin.
The culture of the intellect, the harmonious de-
velopment of its great powers, is a boon to human-
ity ; but that education which does not strengthen
the moral nature, and bring the conscience as well
as the intellect into full activity, is a curse and a
bane ; and it is a question which every parent
should ponder, whether much of the so-called
fashionable education of the day, does not to all
intents and purposes ignore the moral nature of
the child.
But while the ranks of fashionable vice are
largely recruited from these graduates of a false
system of education, who, after a brief and bitter
experience of the hollowness and wretchedness of
a life of sin, sink down to a lower depth of degrada-
tion, and thus make room for others of their own
class to enter upon the downward road, consider-
able numbers are led to begin a life of shame
from other though somewhat similar motives.
The country girl, whose great ambition it has
214 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
been to become a resident of a great city, and
who has come thither on the promise of employ-
ment, with a fresh, young, and perhaps handsome
face, is cast among associates of doubtful or
positively evil character, and if she has a love of
dress and display, and perhaps, also, a dislike for
hard work, she soon hears, how " a single smile
may bring her better fare and finer dresses than a
month's wages," and though, at first, her soul
revolts at the thought of the horrible price of such
finery and ease, yet, as the love of dress urges its
claims, she begins to parley with the temptation,
which comes at first in its most innocent form,
and yielding by degrees, she falls a victim, like
her more fashionable sister, to the love of dis-
play.
There are some, doubtless, though the very
careful statistics which have been collected on
the subject do not indicate that the number is
large, who have succumbed to temptation under
the pressure of starvation ; but of those who have
maintained their virtue up to this point, the
greater part, by far, have nobly preferred death
to dishonor. It is, we are well aware, a common
occurrence for abandoned women to attribute
their fall to this cause, but their habitual untruth-
fulness makes their statements less probable, and
the investigations made by Dr. Sanger, Dr. Ryan,
and others, prove that in many cases these stories
were merely told for eifect. That in some in-
THE SOCIAL EVIL. 215
stances a young mother has sacrificed herself to
procure food and clothing for her child ; or daugh-
ters, to procure comforts for an invalid mother ;
sisters, for a sick and dying sister, is probable :
but if the ranks of vice received no recruits but
such as these, our great cities would soon become
marvels of morality.
Many are doubtless victims of the seducer, who
tempts as often by the promise of luxury and
ease, as by the promise of marriage. Very many
lost women become themselves tempters, and lead
others to ruin. Procuresses and publishers of
vile books have been known in some instances to
send young girls, already ruined, to fashionable
boarding-schools and female seminaries, as pupils,
to infuse poison into the minds of their associates,
and in more than one instance those engaged in
this nefarious traffic have entered Sabbath-schools,
procured situations as teachers, and used their
position to 'drag innocent souls down to perdition.
This terrible evil does not seek its victims
alone in the ranks of the unmarried ; very many
wives, in city and country, fall a prey to the
tempter, and the houses of assignation which
abound in our great cities offer a covert to thou-
sands of " silly women, laden with sins, led away
by divers lusts." The fatal facility of divorce
greatly increases the number of women who lead
an abandoned life ; the boarding life in the great
hotels of the city is full of perils to young wives ;
216 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
and those who have been prompted by love of
ease or dislike of care, to the fearful crime of the
murder of their unborn babes, have already trodden
the downward road so far that their falling into
this sin also, is hardly matter of surprise.
The concert-saloons, dance-houses, and low dens,
are largely supplied from young female emi-
grants, who had lost their virtue in their own
country, or were ruined, as so many are, on board
ship. That the supply from all these sources is
not always equal to the demand, appears from
the fact that a noted New York procuress, last
year, advertised in an English paper for fifty
English governesses, for whom she promised to
find situations on their arrival here, but whom
she intended to use as fresh victims for her dia-
bolical sacrifices. Whether she was successful in
luring any to ruin is not known. Horrible as is
every thing connected with this loathsome subject,
the worst remains to be told. In our manu-
facturing towns and cities, a large proportion,
some say a majority, of these daughters of shame
are girls between the ages of ten and fifteen years j
mere children, yet lost to virtue, to their families,
to society, to God.
The people of Canaan and the Israelites, at
some periods of their history, following their ex-
ample passed their children through the fire, in
the worship of Moloch but what were the tor-
tures they endured in the arms of that red-hot,
THE SOCIAL EVIL. 217
brazen image, to the writhings of these lost souls
in the agonies of the world of woe ?
It has long been a question with the moralists,
whether the course pursued by virtuous women
toward these erring, fallen ones, was in accordance
with the spirit of the Gospel. Other sinners,
great criminals even, if they repent, are forgiven,
and, on evidence of their full reformation, are
often restored to society and to the privileges
they had forfeited by their misconduct ; but to the
fallen woman, until recently, there was, in the view
of women, no place of repentance or forgiveness,
neither in this life nor in the life to come. Her
doom was sealed.
In defense of this course on the part of virtuous
women, it was urged that the sin against chastity
was a graver, deeper sin, than any other; that the
white robe of innocence once soiled, could never
again be restored to its former purity ; that the
stain was too deep ever to be effaced.
It was claimed, also, that womanly purity was so
delicate a thing, that the slightest breath would
injure it ; that any contact with the impure, even
for purposes of mercy, marred its immaculate
whiteness ; and that there was no safety for wo-
man, however pure and holy, but in shunning all
manifestations of sympathy or pity for the fallen.
To such an extent has this view been maintain-
ed, that a mother has been known to drive from
her door a once beloved daughter, who, penitent
218 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
and perishing, came to seek forgiveness and hope
from the mother that bare her; sisters, to turn
coldly and haughtily from a sister once dear, who
implored them, for Christ's sake, to hear and help
her ; and even a daughter has been taught to shun
a mother who had once cherished her tenderly,
but who had since sinned and repented.
But is the purity of a virtuous woman so much
more spotless and precious than that of the Divine
Redeemer, that she should hesitate, for fear of
soiling her purity, to follow where He has led the
way ?
To Him "the woman of the city, that was a
sinner," but who sought with deep, penitential
sorrow, relief from the burden which crushed her,
did not apply in vain for pardon ; and while proud
Pharisees and scornful Sadducees turned away in
contempt, and with bitter hatred, from these
daughters of shame, who were, perhaps, after all,
no greater sinners than themselves, He declared,
in " words such as never man spake," to the
truly penitent, that their sins were forgiven. It is
matter of rejoicing that so many women of the
highest character and the most unsullied reputa-
tion, have of late, both in Great Britain and J;he
United States, sought to rescue their fallen sisters
in the spirit and temper of their Divine Master.
Abhorring the sin, they are yet tender and kindly
pitiful toward the repenting sinner ; and their suc-
cess has been in proportion to their zealous and
THE SOCIAL EVIL. 219
patient labors. More than two thousand of this class,
hitherto considered so utterly hopeless, have been
reclaimed and restored to society within five years
past. To them the dark and sinful past will ever be
a bitter remembrance, and its shadows will darken,
as its impurity has fouled, the sweet, bright cur-
rent of an innocent and joyous life ; but they are
no longer tempters to sin, but, having themselves
suffered, seek to pluck others from the fire ; and,
in many cases, their humble, penitent life has
restored them fully to the confidence and friend-
ship of their sex.
In some cases, as in the midnight meetings, and
occasionally in the management of the Magdalen
asylums, good men have participated in this work;
but, for the most part, women have achieved the
greatest success in it.
Asylums for the reformation of abandoned women
are not, it is true, a new thing ; they have existed
in Europe for two hundred years or more, and in
the United States for forty, but have not generally
appealed so directly to the hearts and sympathies
of the fallen women, as to bring many of them to
repentance and thorough reformation. The asy-
Uim has been, to some extent, a prison ; the treat-
ment, formal, stern, and forbidding, and the poor
women, instead of being encouraged to banish
from their minds all recollection of their life of
shame (to which no allusion should be allowed),
and exhorted to begin, in humble trust in a
220 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
Saviour's love, a new life, were daily reminded
what terrible sinners they had been, and what
mercies they enjoyed, in being permitted, vile as
they were, to be under the care of those who
were so much holier and purer than they could
ever hope to be.
This was, in many instances, the old system,
and there need be no wonder that it very gener-
ally failed. The design of the managers was good,
but they approached their work in too Pharisaic a
spirit, and in utter ignorance of the laws which
govern mental and moral action. The constant
reminding of a sinner of his misdeeds, and their
heinousness, will either depress unduly, or harden
the partially penitent offender ; and the contrast
drawn between the impurity of these poor fallen
women, and the immaculate virtue of those around
them, could only breed a feeling of despair on
their part ; while the reflection on their past life,
under these depressing circumstances) would tend
only to recall its fleeting pleasures, and tempt
them, viewing themselves as irrecoverably lost, to
return to the life they had struggled to abandon.
Very painful is it to read in the annual reports
of many of the old Magdalen asylums, that so
many often nearly one-half of those discharged
as reformed, had returned to their evil courses
again.
Very different, and very much wiser, is the
course now pursued in the reformation of the fallen.
THE SOCIAL EVIL. 221
The door of the "Home" expressive word, as
indicative of the changed method of treatment,
as it closes between them and the street, shuts out
their past life of sin, to which no reference is
ever made, and they are treated just as other
young women needing employment and mental
and moral training would be ; employment is fur-
nished them as soon as they are able to undertake
it, and while they are made to feel that every
thing around them is pleasant, and breathes the
spirit of love and kindness, they are yet
taught that labor, and often protracted and weari.
some labor, is the prerequisite to an honest life.
Every thing which can recall the incidents, the
gayeties, or the terrible wretchedness of their past
life, is carefully kept out of their way. Kindly,
sisterly advice is given in regard to their reading,
during the time they have for that purpose, and
no harbor is given to sensational stories, either in
newspapers or books. The efforts to bring them
under the influence of religious principles are not
made in any Pharisaic way, but the kindly voice
of a sister speaks of the love of Christ, of his
compassion and tenderness, and gently leads tha
erring one to trust in a Friend so sympathizing
yet so powerful. The women thus reformed do
not relapse into evil ways.
And yet it must be acknowledged that, of all
classes needing reformation, abandoned women are
the most difficult to be successfully reached and
222 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
permanently benefited. The difficulty exists, to
a great extent, in the mental and moral charac-
teristics of the women themselves. Some of
them have been brought up from infancy in an
atmosphere of vice ; they have never known what
purity was ; and their whole thoughts, and the
language they use, have become so depraved, that
even the most harmless words have to them an
evil suggestiveness. For this class, there is a
complete renovation of the entire mental as well as
moral faculties necessary ; and they are so utterly
devoid of truthfulness that it is very difficult to
ascertain when they are really changed.
But the greater part of these women are girls
whose vanity and love of dress and display,
indolence and giddiness, have been their ruin.
Generally in these, there is no fixedness of pur-
pose, no perseverance ; they are impulsive, and
while the fit of disgust at their former life is on
them, they resolve to reform, and continue in
their purpose, till some temptation, or some
refluent wave of remembrance of their old career,
carries them off again into the vortex of destruc-
tion. Very few of these have the moral courage
necessary to enter upon and steadfastly pursue a
new life. The almost universal practice of indul-
gence in intoxicating liquors, which these women
say they find indispensable to drown recollection
of their happier past, is also a powerful obstacle
to their reformation.
THE SOCIAL EVIL.
Those emissaries of Satan, the procuresses, are
ever on the alert to draw back to perdition those
women who are struggling up out of the depths
to life and hope, and evil men are ready to help
them. As a general rule, therefore, these reform-
ed women are safest when far away from the
scene of their temptation and fall, and amid the
quiet and retirement of the country ; but, alas !
the country is none too pure, and the Serpent
who tempted our first mother, amid the beauty
and glory of Eden, has his representatives even
amid the fair landscapes of the country, and the
quiet and peace of rural homes ; and finding there
the dove, whose plumage has once been soiled,
and whose wings are drooping, they pounce upon
it, and too often lure it back to sure destruction.
It is not within the power of human legislation
to change the human heart, or to suppress the
fires of passion and sin in the minds of the de-
praved ; but much might be done by judicious
legislation to diminish the carnival of hist, which
threatens to destroy our nation. The existing
laws against the publication and sale of vile books,
prints, newspapers, jewelry, &c., might be en-
forced more rigidly, and the great sources, as well
as the tributary rills of this villainy, be broken up ;
the acting of obscene plays, whether in opera,
opera bouffe, or the ordinary drama, prohibited ;
other laws might be enacted, making the keeping
of a house of ilkfame or assignation a felony, pun-
224 THE SOCIAL EVIL.
ishable both by fine and imprisonment ; punishing
the leasing or selling a house or furniture for
such purposes by fine and forfeiture ; punishing
seduction, especially of girls under twenty-one
years of age, with great severity, and making the
finding of girls under eighteen years old in these
houses prima facie evidence of their abduction, and
so punishable by fine and imprisonment. Such
statutes as these could be enforced even in our
largest cities, for this foul and loathsome disease
on the body politic, this so-called " social evil,"
is making its blighting influence felt in all ways
upon the physical, intellectual, and moral life of
our people, and it must be crushed out, or it will
bring upon us swift and sure destruction as a
nation.
After legislation and the vigorous a-dministra-
tion of the law has done all it can to suppress
this vice, there will still remain enough of evil
which the law can not reach, to give ample em-
ployment to most devoted reformers, and to make
the prospect of a millennium remote.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE rapid review we have given of occupations
now open to women, will, we think, convince any
candid mind, that whatever may have been the
case in the past, there is now no lack of employ-
ments for women, and that in one or other of
them, a single woman (either unmarried or widow)
of good health and fair intelligence, should find
no serious difficulty, if she is industrious, in
earning a livelihood.
There is this difference to be noticed between
most of the employments of men, and the greater
part of those of women, that the former require a
longer and closer apprenticeship than the latter,
and hence that there is greater difficulty in a
man's changing his business, than in a woman's
entering upon a different employment. A man
who has learned the trade of a mason, finds it
difficult, if not impossible, when work is dull in
his trade, and he can not find an engagement, to
take up the business of a house-joiner, a black-
smith, or a tailor. But a woman who has been
an operative, for instance, in a hoop-skirt factory,
can, with but slight training, find employment
equally profitable in the manufacture of under-
226 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
garments, in a ready-made clothing establishment,
or in a printing-office as press-feeder. This is not
due so much to the greater facility of adaptation
of women to varied occupations, as to a certain
family resemblance, which very many of the occu-
pations of women have to each other.
There ought not to be so much difficulty in find-
ing employment for all women whose circum-
stances require it, as for men, for another rea-
son : if we deduct boys under fifteen, and old
men too infirm for work, nine-tenths of the remain-
der of the males in any community have, or require
some employment, some business which they
follow with considerable regularity, and on
which they place more or less dependence for a
livelihood.
In the case of women, after deducting the two
classes named, girls under fifteen and old women
too feeble to labor, we must deduct also the great
body of married women, whose employment, with
occasional exceptions, is the care of their families
and households, and that other very considerable
class who scorn all labor or toil except that of
dressing themselves for public inspection, and
walking, riding, or shopping. Leaving these two
classes out of the account, and we find not more
than forty per cent, at the utmost, of women of
adult age requiring employment.
In the more than one hundred distinct occupa-
tions in which women have engaged in this coun-
LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 227
try with success, there certainly should be, and
there is, a sufficiency of employment for the com-
paratively small number who need it, and in one
or other of these so readily interchangeable, there
ought to be no difficulty, in almost any season, in
an intelligent woman, in tolerable health, finding
business ; while men, in many of the mechanical
trades, are very much at the mercy of the finan-
cial condition of the country. When money is
scarce, business dull, and materials high, the
builder will not erect houses, and, consequently,
the mason, the joiner, the painter, and the plumb-
er, are thrown out of employ ; when the publisher
finds no demand for his books, and hence sus-
pends publishing, the papermaker, the compositor,
the pressman, the bookbinder, and the packer,
are out of work. These vicissitudes of trade do
not so much affect the employments of women.
" But," the ultra advocates of women's rights
reply, " all this talk of what ought to be, does not
alter what is. Everybody knows, or may know,
that every year many thousands of women in our
great cities are reduced to the verge of starvation
for the want of remunerative employment. What
will you do with that fact ?" Softly, fair friends.
Your " many thousands," under the careful and
rigid scrutiny of the visitors of the associations
for improving the condition of the poor, and the
city authorities, dwindle to a few hundreds, and
of these the greater part lack employment for one
228 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
of two reasons : either that they are in too feeble
health to be able to work, or that they are too
indolent or weak-minded to desire it.
Infirm health is a great misfortune, especially
to the poor, who must depend upon their labor for
their daily bread. It is bad enough when the
father of a family is prevented by illness from
earning the means of supporting his family; it
is worse when the poor widow is afflicted by it,
and can not do work enough to supply with food
and clothing the little ones whose only earthly
resource she is. For all such, we feel the profound-
est sympathy, and would willingly extend to them
our aid, as far as possible.
But the laws of trade are inexorable. If man
or woman is too ill to do the work they are accus-
tomed to do, the work must be done, and, except in
rare instances, the pay received, by those who are
able to do it. So obvious a law of political econ-
omy as this can not be subverted, however hardly
it may bear on the infirm. For them, some other
provision must be, and generally is, made.
Take the other class, those who are in sufficiently
good health to be able to work, but who, neverthe-
less, fail to find employment. We have said, that
in most cases, this failure was the result of indo-
lence or weak-mindedness. This may seem to be
censorious, but it is true. At four different peri-
ods, within the past twelve years, benevolent
persons, connected with either the public or pri-
LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 29
vate charities of New York City, roused to anxious
concern for the welfare of the unemployed poor,
and especially of unemployed poor women, by the
statements made in the public prints concerning
their sufferings, have attempted extraordinary
measures for their relief. In each case there has
been no lack of funds to carry out any desirable
measure of relief; for the citizens of New York
do not lack a charitable spirit.
The complaint made was, in each case, that
they could not find work ; that they were
willing to do any thing, and to go anywhere,
if they could find employment which would sus-
tain life. The first instance to which we refer
occurred in the autumn and winter of 1857, after,
the terrible financial panic of that year.
Several of the charitable organizations of the
city, deeply impressed with the apparent suffering
of the season, and finding that employment in the
city could not be had for all, offered to take, at the
cost of the societies, as many single women as de-
sired to go to the West, and procure good situations
for them ; stipulating, of course, that they should
have testimonials of good character from their
pastors, or other persons of known respectability.
Greatly to their surprise, very few applied for the
opportunity of going; and when those who had
been complaining of the want of employment were
questioned as to their reasons for not exchanging
starvation and wretchedness for comfort, their
9*
230 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
reply uniformly was, that they thought they could
get along somehow ; they didn't want to leave the
city. Their "getting along somehow," consisted,
in most cases, in receiving pauper-relief from one,
two, or three sources ; and, in some, unquestionably
the wages of unrighteousness. The few who did go,
were hardly better than those who stayed. Most
of them, though presenting certificates of good
character, had already fallen, and, though excel-
lent situations were obtained for them, within six
months the greater part were found in brothels in
the Western cities, one of them having actually
established a house of ill-fame, and employed sev-
eral of those who had gone West with her.
The subsequent experiments of 1861, 1866, and
1869, were too similar to need repetition. In all
instances, women bound by no strong ties to New
York, and, according to their own representation,
starving there, very generally refused to leave the
city for comfortable situations in the country, and
very often also refused situations in the city or
its suburbs, on the frivolous grounds that the
work was too hard, or it was too far off, or that
they preferred a different class of work. This
was the result of hundreds, and in some instances
thousands, of applications. Is there not reason
to think that, in these cases, either indolence or
weak-mindedness was at the bottom of their re-
fusal to accept work ?
There are cases, doubtless, of married women,
LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 231
or widows with small children, and, perhaps, of
single women who have parents or young brothers
and sisters dependent upon them, who find, in
some seasons, difficulty in obtaining the sort of
work which they are capable of doing; but
these are, almost without exception, those who
are unskilled, or only half-skilled laborers ; and
with these, as with the same classes of the other
sex, there must be always periods when there is
little or no work. Their only resource is to ac-
quire a higher degree of skill, or sufficient knowl-
edge to enable them to rise to a better grade of
work, for which there is always a greater demand
and fewer laborers to supply it.
It is hard to say it, perhaps, but it is the truth,
that this class of unskilled or but partially skilled
laborers, of both sexes, owe their abject condition,
in great part, to their own ignorance, heedlessness,
and unthrift. It is true, that sickness, either of
the bread-winner himself (or herself), or of some
of the family, may occasionally aggravate their
misery ; but even this is often but another result
of their thriftlessness. It is really but little
harder for a young man or young woman to
acquire a trade or learn a business which will give
them a good livelihood, and in which their ser-
vices will always be in demand, than to jog on,
doing the lowest kind of drudgery, and receiving
the very lowest wages, even in prosperous times,
because of the competition which is fiercest in the
232 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
lowest kinds of work, from the great numbers who
do not know how to do any other ; in dull times,
the competition grows more intense, as the work
is less abundant, since the number of mouths to
be fed is not diminished, and the scarcity of em-
ployment leads to underbidding, till wages are too
low to sustain life. These very low wages compel
this class of the very poor to shelter themselves
in the closest, filthiest, and most unhealthy tene-
ments that can be found, because they are unable
to pay the rent of any better rooms, and often
they are obliged to herd together, all ages and
both sexes, in a way which a decent herd of swine
would resent. There follows from this, sickness,
physical prostration, and a moral degradation
which sinks them still lower in wretchedness.
Now, in this condition of affairs, there is very
little chance of improvement. Legislation can do
nothing to improve it, for there is no possibility
of regulating the price of labor otherwise than in
accordance with the laws of supply and demand,
and any attempt at fixing a minimum price for any
description of work, would inevitably result in
wide-spread disaster ; it is impossible to increase,
to any considerable extent, the amount of work
which unskilled or partially skilled laborers can
perform, in times of financial depression ; indis-
criminate charity only defeats its own purpose, by
pauperizing a large class, capable, ordinarily, of
supporting themselves in some sort, and even th
LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 233
most skillful administration of relief increases so
enormously the number of the dependent class,
that (as Great Britain has found of late) it
threatens to swamp all the smaller tax-payers.
The multiplication of lodging-houses, and good,
but low-priced tenements for the poor, which has
been attempted on a large scale in London, and to
some extent, in Boston, New York, and Philadel-
phia, benefits a class of the poor, but not this class ;
the lower grades of the skilled laboring classes,
not having lost all ambition, secure these tene-
ments, and gradually begin to better their condi-
tion ; but this class will continue to occupy their
miserable kennels, even at the same rent which
the others pay ; or if, which is very rarely the
case, they do occupy one of these better tene-
ments for a little time, they soon render the rest
uninhabitable by their untidy and degrading
habits, and their morbid dread of cleanliness and
pure air.
There seems to be no resource for them, except
by some process of education arid reformation, by
which their capacity for a higher and better paid
class of work can be increased ; and the greater
part of them, it is to be feared, are too old to
learn.
There is great complaint among the ultra-ad-
vocates of women's rights, of the low rates of
wages and compensation for labor allowed to
women. Some of these complaints are just, while
234 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
others are grossly unjust. In the lower grades
of skilled labor, and in all unskilled labor, women's
wages have been, and still are, much lower than
those of men engaged in the same classes of em-
ployment. The discrimination has been greater
than it should have been, but the causes of it
were these : that women possessed less physical
strength than men, and consequently could not
perform as much, or as severe labor in a given
time ; that generally they were less skillful in
their trade or business than men, and consequently
did not do their work so well ; that they did not
give their whole minds to their work, but were
occupied with other thoughts and objects, and
hence made more blunders, involving losses to
the employer ; that in those kinds of work where
the supply of labor was equal to, or greater than,
the demand for it, women, for the sake of pro-
curing work, would underbid each other, and thus
reduce the price of labor by a disastrous competi-
tion; and finally, that those employers who offered
the lowest prices had the most applications from
working-women, and, owing to the low prices they
paid for work, could undersell their competitors
in the market, who paid better prices to their
employes. That some of these reasons indicate
hardness and lack of sympathy on the part of
some employers is undoubtedly true ; but we must
take men as we find them, and must remember
that all trade and business is governed by certain
LOW "WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 235
absolute laws, and that one of the most inexorable
of these is, that where the supply of any thing
(labor as well as any thing else) equals or ex-
ceeds the demand, the lowest price at which it is
offered will, other things being equal, be the ruling
price.
Yet, except in the case of unskilled or partially
skilled labor, the women have the remedy for
this in their own hands. In most descriptions
of manual labor, a woman's work is not worth
quite as much as a man's would be, where the
payment is to be made by the day or the week,
for the same reason that a boy's work, though it
may be as well done, is not worth as much, viz. :
because the greater part of this manual labor re-
quires, for the accomplishment of the greatest
amount in a given time, greater physical strength
than either the boy or the woman possess. Where
the work can be done by the piece, if it is as well
done, it should receive the same pay. The same
rule should apply to clerkships and the like em-
ployments ; where the work performed is the same,
and as well done by one sex as the other, the pay
should, in justice, be the same. Inasmuch,
however, as there exists in the minds of many
employers a prejudice (unfounded, we admit)
against the employment of women in places of
trust and confidence, it is worthy of a question
whether some slight concession in salary, suf-
ficient to turn the scale and secure them the
236 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
position, might not be advisable, at first, as a mat-
ter of policy.
The remedy which we would have women em-
ploy to prevent the reduction of the wages of
skilled working-women, is that which male me-
chanics have tried with such success for a few
years past that of trades-unions or associations,
which should regulate the prices to be required
for work in their several employments, and provide
for the support of those thrown out of employ
when it was necessary to resist an attempted re-
duction of wages.
The great obstacles to the increase of women's
wages have come from themselves ; their ruinous
competition, their underbidding, and the taking of
work at low prices by women in the country, to
occupy their spare time. Trades-unions would
remedy these evils to a great extent, if women
would unite in them and be true to each other.
Co-operative societies and organizations might
also do much for them, if rightly managed ;
the cost of food and of clothing, the two great
items of expenditure among the poor ; and espe-
cially with poor women, would be greatly reduced
thereby.
Finally, the material comfort of working-women
would be greatly promoted by the increase of
their practical education. In the lower grades of
intelligence and skill there are always crowds and
intense competition; as the working-woman rises
LOWWAGES AND THEIR REMEDY. 237
higher in the scale, and becomes capable of bet-
ter and more skillful work, the wages increase,
and the competition decreases, till at last she
reaches a point where the supply of labor is not
equal to the demand, and can sell her labor at her
own price. In most of the higher grades of em-
ployment the salaries of women are nearly equal
to those of men, especially if we take into account
the greater strength, and more uniformly good
health of men.
Teaching is frequently spoken of as an excep-
tion, and the reports of the superintendents of
public schools in the different States adduced as
proof. Yet here the difference is more apparent
than real. In California, the wages of female
teachers average the same as those of male teach-
ers. In several other States they approximate
very nearly ; and in those States where the differ-
ence is considerable, it is usually due to the fact
that women are employed, much more largely than
men, in schools of a low grade, or as assistants,
where the wages would be lower, without refer-
ence to sex.
Wherever women competent to fill first-class
positions are employed in those positions, their
salaries are generally Equivalent to those paid to
men under the same circumstances. In St. Louis,
for instance, where a part of the High Schools
have women for principals, and the remainder
men, the salaries are the same for each. The rule
238 LOW WAGES AND THEIR REMEDY.
in teaching, as in every thing else, is, that first-
class qualifications will command first-class prices.
In all these employments it is absurd to sup-
pose that legislation could accomplish any thing
in the way of regulating the prices of labor, or in
any way ameliorating the condition of working-
women.
We shall show presently, that the possession
of the ballot would be equally ineffectual in pro-
ducing any such result. We may add, now, that
even were any considerable number of women to
make politics a profession, those who did so would
be drawn from the intelligent class, who have no
difficulty now in obtaining a livelihood, and not
from the poorer classes, who are the only ones
who need relief, but who do not possess either the
education or the skill to enter upon such a career.
So far, then, as the appeal is made to struggling
and oppressed working-women to demand the bal-
lot as the panacea for all their woes, we must de-
nounce it as utterly unworthy of those who make
it, and, in fact, the merest demagogism. They
can not be in any way benefited by it, and the
leaders of this suffrage movement know it, 01
should know it, if they do not.
CHAPTER XIV.
BEFORE proceeding to consider the propriety of
conceding the suffrage to women, it may be well
to devote a little space to a history of suffrage,
its origin and progress in past ages, and ascertain
whether there is an inherent right of suffrage in
any class or body of men or women.
In the early ages of the world's history, the
patriarchal form of government, an evident out-
growth of the paternal, prevailed universally. The
father of the family, and in process of time the
patriarch of the tribe, was the supreme authority,
and from his decision there was no appeal. Un-
der this form of government, continued to this
day among the pastoral and nomadic tribes of
Asia and Africa, there was no thought of suf-
frage, and no occasion for it. By and by, when
cities and towns began to be built, and the nomads
became citizens having fixed habitations, some
man possessing greater bravery, mechanical skill,
or power of control than the rest, became the king
of a given territory, and the people, awed by his
superior qualities, gave him their allegiance, and
obeyed his commands as implicitly as they had
previously done those of the patriarch. In the
240 HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
case of Nimrod, the kingly quality was his ability
as a hunter, and very possibly, also, as a warrior ;
in the case of the first Hadad, king of Damas-
cus, it was his skill as a smith, the most practi-
cal of the arts of that time ; in Saul, his gigantic
stature and his regal bearing.
These kings were absolute, as are most of the
Oriental monarchs to this day, and the people had
no means of redress from any injustice of the
monarch, except by revolution or a change of
dynasty.
As the ages rolled on, the chief men of some of
these nations began to claim a right of participa-
tion in the government, and finally obtained it, in
one way or another. Sometimes they formed a
council, or parliament, to which they required the
king to submit his more important measures, and
which he could only execute when a majority of
them sanctioned them ; sometimes they only exer-
cised an advisory power ; at others, they became
subordinate rulers, and convened in council at
long intervals.
In Rome, the kingly power was abrogated, and
consuls, chosen by the senate (the assembled
body of nobles or patricians, who were nominally
selected and appointed by the quaestors), governed
under the general title of the Senate and People
of Rome. These patricians exercised some pow-
ers of suffrage in virtue of being the governing
power of the republic j but, really, they were
HISTORY OP SUFFRAGE. 241
only so many kings, exercising a joint authority.
Through all this period of consular and senatorial
authority, the plebeians had no voice in the gov-
ernment directly, though the tribes, organizations
of the people, who were invested under certain
restrictions with the right of Roman citizenship,
voted for tribunes, an inferior class of officers,
who yet acted as checks on the power of the
consuls and the senate. The privilege of citizen-
ship, which conferred this limited right of suffrage,
was highly prized ; and where it had not been
granted to a family for services rendered to the
State, was often purchased at a high price. Until
after the Roman commonwealth had begun to de-
cline, even this limited suffrage was not by any
means general among the male inhabitants. Great
numbers had never been invested with the privi-
lege of citizenship ; the slaves, who numbered, at
times, as many as five or six to one of the citizens,
never exercised the right of suffrage, and for many
years the freedmen (those who had been slaves
but had been emancipated), did not share this
privilege.
Under the later emperors, the soldiers were
actually the governing power ; they made and de-
throned the emperors at their pleasure ; and the
right of suffrage, after it was given to the masses
of the male population, was barren of any good
influence, or any potential authority. They were
ignorant, brutish, and careless of any thing except
242 HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
the public distribution of food and the excitement
of the public games (joanem et circenses\ and they
voted en masse for the demagogue who would
promise them these in the greatest profusion.
Thus pauperized and demoralized, the Roman
voters only hastened the ruin of the empire, by
their universal suffrage, and the voting places
were the scenes of the most infamous crimes and
outrages.
In some of the Grecian States, the experiment
of general suffrage had been tried, with not much
greater success. The demos, i. e. the people, who
took part in voting, never comprised, however, a
majority of the male population ; yet it was a
fickle, easily influenced mass, readily won to any
enormity, cruelty, or injustice, by the artful
harangues of the unprincipled aspirants for power.
The form of government was almost constantly
changing, and if by any chance, a wise and just
man, such, for example, as Aristides, was elected
to a high position, he was speedily deposed, by
the jealousy of the fickle populace who had pre-
viously voted for him.
It is not strange that, with such examples be-
fore them, the people of Europe, in the Middle
Ages, went back, with something like contentment,
to a despotic and absolute government ; and that
they preferred the tyranny of a single ruler, to
the variable whims of an excitable and fickle pop-
ulace.
HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE. 243
The first revolt from this was not in the direc-
tion of suffrage, but in the attempt of the feudal
barons to wrest from the despot a portion of his
power; and the necessity, on his part, for courting
what were called then the common people, but
were really what we now call the middle-class ;
'he traders, ship-owners, and small but independ-
ent landholders.
It was long before any suffrage was thought of,
except that of the nobles, or patrician class, in
which were included abbots, bishops, who held
large domains, and the higher clergy. The ballot,
as a political institution of modern times, was first
established, we think, in Scandinavia, though pos-
sibly some of the cantons of Switzerland might
have voted in the small way, quite as early. In
Hungary, it was in use earlier than in England,
after the Norman conquest. Under the Saxons
there was an assembly of notables (the Witenage-
mote), which was elected from the freeholders.
Through all the countries of Europe, however,
the principle has constantly prevailed, that the
suffrage was only to accompany the possession of
property. The argument has been, that it was
only the man who possessed property which was
liable to taxation, who had any claim to partici-
pate in the election of the representatives who
were to act in voting, levying, and expending the
moneys raised by taxation. In different coun-
tries there were differing views relative to the
244 HISTORY OP SUFFRAGE.
amount of taxable property necessary to consti-
tute a vote; in the Scandinavian States it was
smaller than elsewhere, but in all, until recently,
it must be real property, i. e. houses or lands.
Within the last forty years, in several of the
European States, the possession of personal prop-
erty from which an income is derived, or the pay-
ment of a certain amount of annual rent, varying
in different countries, and in Great Britain, in
town and country, has been accepted, to some ex-
tent, as a substitute for the possession of raal
estate.
There are instances in all these countries, where
single women, unmarried, or widows, possess large
landed estates. In Great Britain, these women,
possessing all the other requisite qualifications for
voters, except sex, have, in some instances,
claimed the right to vote, or, as was the case two
or three years since, petitioned Parliament to de-
clare their right to the ballot. That, in a few
instances, during several centuries past, women
have voted on this ground is certain, but Parlia-
ment declined to sanction their use of the suffrage,
although their petition was respectfully received.
From the English point of view, we must con-
fess that it is somewhat surprising that it should
have been refused. They had the qualifications
of voters, and it could hardly be claimed that
their property was fairly represented in Parlia-
ment by the votes of those of their male relatives
HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE. 245
who might, or might not have a contingent inter-
est in it ; and voting in England did not necessa-
rily require personal attendance at the polls, or at
least, provision could have been made to avoid
this, in the case of the limited number of female
voters who would, at that time, have come under
the provisions of the Reform law of 1832.
There must have been, in the minds of the
British legislators, some reasons why they believ-
ed the privilege of voting on the property they
possessed would be fraught with evils to these
women, which 'would more than counterbalance
any benefits which might be derivable from it to
their property.
That these reasons existed also in other minds
we know from the fact that there has been,
and still is in England, a wide-spread feeling of
dislike to the exercise of the suffrage by women,
on the part of some of the most accomplished and
intellectual women of the nation.
The author of " Woman's Rights and Duties," *
herself a woman of high social position, and the
most thorough culture, says, vol. I., page 390, of
her work on this subject :
" A question has occasionally been raised, and I
believe by more than one writer, whether the right
of voting be not unjustly withheld from women.
* " Woman's Rights and Duties considered with Relation to their
Influence on Society, and on her own Condition." By a Womaa
In two volumes. London: John W. Parker. 1840.
10
246 HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
But it seems an almost conclusive objection to giv-
ing them the franchise, that by the very principle
upon which it is bestowed, women are unfit for
it, being always under influence. There are, no
doubt, some cases of exception to that rule, but so
there are to every other rule, by which persons are
excluded from the right. Perhaps no other rule is
so extensively true, as that women are under in-
fluence. But further, women have no political
interests apart from those of men. The public
measures that are taken, the restriction or taxes
imposed on the community, do not affect them
more than male subjects. In all such respects,
the interests of the two sexes are identified. As
citizens, therefore, they are sufficiently repre-
sented already. To give them the franchise would
just double the number of voters, without intro-
ducing any new interest ; and far from improving
society, few things would tend more to dissever
and corrupt it.
" But the disabilities or oppressions to which
they are subject as women, could not be in any
degree remedied by possessing the franchise. In-
terests of that description being exclusively
female, would come into collision, not, as in other
cases, with- the interests of a class or a party,
but with those of the whole male sex ; and one
of two things would happen. Either one sex
would be arrayed in a sort of general hostility to
the other, or they would be divided among
HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE. 247
themselves. Than the first, nothing could possi-
bly be devised more disastrous to the condition
of women. They would be utterly crushed ; the
old prejudices would be revived against their
education, or their meddling with any thing but
household duties. Every man of mature age
would probably stipulate, on marrying, that his
wife should forswear the use of the franchise,
and all ideas connected with political influence, or
the coarse and degrading contentions of the elec-
tions.
" If each sex were divided among themselves on
particular questions, unprincipled men would en-
deavor to secure their election by creating female
parties. Men of such character now disguise
their personal interests, by affecting to adopt
some measure popular with the mob, or suited
only to the partial interests of some locality.
They do not always desire to forward such meas-
ures ; but they delude and corrupt the people by
using them as pretexts. If women had the fran-
chise, men would address themselves to the worst
part of the sex, the 4 most clamorous, and those
least restrained by female decorum. The pre-
texts made use of to delude them would proba-
bly be injudicious, as measures, and condemned
by the informed and reflecting of their own
sex.
" It has been maintained throughout this work,
that the interests of women can be served chiefly
248 HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
through opinion, though without denying that
some legal enactments might also be required for
certain special hardships. Can it be seriously
imagined by any dispassionate woman, that those
legal changes could be as well brought about by
the power of now and then forcing an advocate
into the legislature, as by their general influence
in society, won through their own moral and
mental deserts, and identified in men's minds with
the influence which justice must always retain
over their feelings ?
" Conducted as elections now are scenes of
violence and tumult women would be subject to
every species of insult. It may be imagined that
a remedy might be found for that ; but what rem-
edy would be found for the inflictions no law
could reach or define, and which thev would suf-
/
fer at home for that exercise of their right which
was opposed to the interests or prejudices of their
male relations ? Can it be supposed that the bal-
lot would give any security ? Surely not. In-
timidation and bribery, already so mischievous,
would be far more dangerous to the timidity and
comparative poverty of women than they now
are to men. And, educated as they are, their
most honest decisions would be worse formed,
even, than those of the other sex, defective as
the political knowledge of the greater number is
still allowed to be."
The force of this reasoning will be the better
HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE. 249
appreciated, if we remember that at that time, in
England, there was a strong pressure in favor of a
limited female suffrage, and that it was this lim-
ited suffrage, based on freehold qualifications, and
not comprising, probably, 30,000, or at the utmost,
40,000 votes in all, which she regarded as likely
to prove so injurious to the women themselves.
The same feeling has been manifested of. late, on
the subject, by women of high rank and position,
who would have themselves been entitled to the
suffrage, even before the passage of the recent
Reform law, which, though still requiring a pro-
perty qualification, has greatly enlarged the num-
ber of voters.
But suffrage in England, as in all the countries
of Europe, rests on an entirely different basis
from that which obtains in the United States.
In the early history of this country, various qual-
ifications were required. Among many of the
colonies, at first, a religious test, more or less
strict, was established. In the Quinnipiac, or
New Haven Colony, no man could vote who was
not a member of the church ; in Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut, and, we believe, New
Hampshire, voters were required to be members
of the parish, that is, nominally, and perhaps
really, attendants upon the established church of
those States (the Congregational), as well as free-
holders. Maine and Vermont were not then dis-
tinct colonies. In Rhode Island they were only
250 . HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
required to be freeholders. In New York there
was a property qualification, and, for a time, a re-
ligious test, also. Pennsylvania required the
freehold, as did Maryland and Delaware. Vir-
ginia only granted suffrage, with some vexatious
exceptions, to those who were members of the
Church of England, and were also proprietors.
In the Carolinas the property qualification was
high, and the number of voters small. In Geor-
*
gia, from the beginning, there was a larger liberty,
though a small property qualification was at first
obligatory.
The principles enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence, had they been understood as they
now are, would have led at once to the establish-
ment of universal suffrage, inasmuch as the asser-
tion that "governments instituted among men
derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed," if it means any thing, affirms that the
consent of all the governed, those possessing no
property, as well as those having an interest in the
stability and righteousness of the government, is
necessary to the existence of a rightful government.
Taken in this sense, the proposition is not true
of all governments, or of any one government now
existing, or which ever did exist. As Dr. Bush-
nell has well said, " No fifth part of our own
people, in fact, ever consented to the government,
whether formally, or by implication. No new
statute passed, ever had the consent of more than
HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE. 251
a very small fraction of the people. Minors,
women, invalids, absentees, voters of the opposing
party take away all these, and how much of con-
sent is left ? If the major vote of such as have
the ballot supposes general consent, then it must
be by a legal fiction so great, that it would scarce-
ly be greater without any vote at all."
Nor, can this affirmation of the Declaration be
understood in that other sense often put upon it
that, " the consent of the governed " implies the
surrender of individual rights to society as a
return for its protection ; for this view, besides
being directly opposed to the sentiment which the
authors of the Declaration were seeking to impress
upon the people, is wholly untrue in point of fact,
since the rights and powers of society were not
in any sense the powers of individuals.
In neither sense did it exert any considerable ef-
fect upon the colonies which adopted it ; no mate-
rial changes being made in their suffrage laws for
many years after, and, when made, being the
result of other causes and influences. It was, in
short, one of those " glittering generalities '' of
which the late Mr. Choate was accustomed to
speak, and which Mr. Jefferson was such an adept
at incorporating into his appeals, protests, declara-
tions, and addresses, to tickle the popular ear, and
give utterance to an apparent truth, when really
only announcing a plausible fallacy. For a variety
of causes, and with a remarkable lack of perception
252 HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
of the ultimate results of their action, the suffrage
has been granted to one class after another, until,
in some of the States, there are now only women,
minors, Indians not taxed, convicts, aliens who
have not been naturalized, idiots and lunatics, and
transient persons, who are not permitted to exer-
cise it. In some of the States there still lingers
the ghost of a property qualification ; in others,
there is an educational qualification, but so low
as to be nearly worthless.
Under the pending (fifteenth) amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, negroes and per-
sons of African descent will gain the right of suf-
frage in those States where they do- not already
possess it ; and, should the decision be made in
our higher courts, that the Chinese and Japanese
are citizens and liable to taxation, they will form
a large addition within a few years to our voting
population. That we have been injudicious in thus
extending the privilege of suffrage, and should, if
it were possible, restrict instead of further enlarg-
ing it, will appear, we think, when we have con-
sidered what suffrage is, whether it inheres in any
class or classes of men, and from whence comes
the power of conferring it.
CHAPTER XV.
IN considering what suffrage is, we must first
look at the constitution of society; for on this
depends the necessity or propriety of suffrage.
About the period of the American Revolution, the
political ideas of Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, D'A-
lembert, and other European democrats, were pro.
mulgated, and exerted a powerful influence on the
minds of the statesmen of the new republic, then
just emerging from its colonial condition. Their
theory was, in substance, that the perfection of
human liberty and equality was to be found in the
savage state, and that, in that condition, all
human beings, or at least all men, were in a con-
dition of perfect equality no one possessing any
greater rights than another ; and that it was pos-
sible to rear a State which should have for its
basis this condition of the perfect equality of all
men ; and, that this State being made up of the ag-
gregation of individuals, each of whom relinquish-
ed a portion of his prerogatives to the State, it thus
acquired the power of government and control,
through the consent of all the governed. This
theory imbued the minds of our early statesmen,
and led them to seek the establishment of a new
10* P
254 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
republic on these newly-discovered principles
but they soon found that their theories were im-
practicable, and contented themselves with stating
them in general terms, while following in actual
practice other, older, and sounder doctrines.
This theory contained two great fallacies, which
it surprises us to know were not detected by the
clear and vigorous intellects of those days, viz.,
that of considering the individual the unit of
society, and ignoring the family, the true unit of
both society and government, from the creation to
the present time ; and that of asserting the equal-
ity of all men, in any other sense than that they
were equally human beings, when even those who
uttered this declaration, would not have admitted
that, either in civil, political, or social rights, the
savage Indian, the degraded Hottentot, or the still
more degraded Bushman, or Andaman Islander,
was his peer.
The great truth, that the family, and not the
individual, is the unit of all human society and of
all government, has a wider significance than has
generally been bestowed upon it ;* for it follows,
that both society and government being formed by
an aggregation of families, and not of individuals,
* For an able and satisfactory development of this doctrine, see " The
Law of Love, and Love as a Law." By Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D.,
President of Williams College, pp. 282, et seq.
The writer takes great pleasure in acknowledging his obligations to
-Rev. Dr. Hopkins, not only for his suggestions on this but on other sub-
jects connected with this work.
THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE. 255
the latter, as individuals, do not relinquish,
and can not have any distinct rights, of which the
government or community takes possession ; and
it also follows, that, in all governmental acts,
whether voting, holding office, making or execut-
ing laws, arresting, trying, and punishing, or
acquitting those charged with crime, those per-
forming these various duties must act in a repre-
sentative capacity, doing these things for those
whom they represent, as guardians, trustees, or
deputies. Applying this principle to the exercise
of suffrage, it is plain that each family needs, at
the utmost, but a single representative, its proper
head and father, who represents the entire inter-
ests of the family, including himself, his wife, and
his children, if he has any. Should there be
adult sons, they may have a constructive right to
a vote, since they are making preparations to be-
come themselves heads of other families. Adult
daughters can have no such claim, since, if they
remain at home, they are sufficiently represented
by their father ; if they marry and leave their
former homes, they can be represented by their
husbands, the heads of new families. The case
of single women, living in households by them-
selves, and possessing property, is exceptional, but
might be provided for by another arrangement,
of which we shall by and by speak. But society,
as thus constituted, has the right, unquestionably,
to limit suffrage still further, though with cer-
256 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
tain restrictions. It may require, for instance,
that no head of a family, or prospective head of
a family, shall become a voter till he has arrived
at the age of twenty-one years ; that no one shall
exercise this right, who is under the influence or
control of others ; no one who has been convicted
of crime ; no one who is an idiot, or who is insane ;
no alien, who has not signified in such way as it
may prescribe, his intention of becoming a citizen,
or who has not resided a prescribed period in the
country; no person who does not possess the
ability to read the language of the country, and
its fundamental laws. The justice and propriety
of such requirements will be obvious to all ; with
the exception of the mental disqualifications,
these conditions are all within the capacity of
every good citizen to attain, either sooner or
later.
But taking this view of the subject, society
would not be justified in excluding a head of a
family from the suffrage on the ground of his
poverty, unless there had been a fully understood
compact from the beginning of its organic ex-
istence, that there should be a fixed limit of prop-
erty as the minimum, which should entitle the
representative of a family to a vote ; it would be
still more unjustifiable, if the privilege of voting
should be confined to those possessing landed
estates only ; or to those professing any particu-
lar form of religious faith j or to those of a particu-
THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE. 257
lar color or race, when they possessed the other
requisite qualifications.
There is another class of restrictions, whose
justice will be evident to all. Where the votes
of a community or State would decide the ques-
tion of the propriety of declaring war with some
other State or nation, it would be obviously unjust
that those should turn the scale by their votes
who could not do the fighting, or furnish the sin-
ews of war ; on a question of heavy taxation of
property for some specific purpose, even were that
purpose for the benefit of the majority of the
community, it would not be just that those who
had no property to be taxed, should, by their
votes, overpower the tax-payers, and take their
property from them against their will. Again, it
would be unjust that those who have manifested
and still entertain hostile sentiments toward the
government, and desire its overthrow, should be
permitted to vote.
There is still another question in regard to suf-
frage, viz., whether property and vested rights ought
not to be represented, as property ? There are large
amounts of property, especially in our large cities,
in the hands of non-residents, aliens, minors, sin-
gle women, and widows, which is taxed but not
represented ; there are, also, colleges, universities,
and other institutions, trust companies, banking
and insurance companies, and other corporations,
which have no distinct representation, though
258 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
obliged to pay taxes. In regard to the latter
classes, it may be claimed, indeed, that they have
their paid advocates in the municipal or legislative
bodies, who attend to their interests, sometimes
to the detriment of their other constituents ; but
there is quite as much reason for the representa-
tion of property, as such, as for the representation
of families ; and in the large cities quite as much
danger of unjust and oppressive taxation of this
unrepresented property, as of unjust and oppressive
legislation in regard to families.
Various modes of remedying this evil have
been suggested ; one is, the permission of proxy
votes for the unrepresented property; another,
the admission of a certain number of representa-
tives of this property and these vested rights,
into the municipal councils and legislature ; a
third, the making the representation of property the
ground of the election of one branch of the legislature
or municipal government. Whether either of these
plans would answer the purpose, is doubtful. In
the only case, which specially concerns us in this
connection, the lack of representation of the prop-
erty of unmarried women and widows, the number
is so small, that, except in the event of a distinct
election of one of the branches of the municipal
or State legislature by the property vote alone,
they could not exert a sufficient influence in favor
of any one candidate to put him under any especial
obligation to protect their interests. They would
THEORIES OP SUFFRAGE. 259
be as safe, so far as their property was concerned,
in the hands of legislators elected without their
vote, but whose constituents they would be, and
over whom they might be able to exercise a strong
personal influence.
There would be also a reluctance on the part of
educated and refined women to proclaim their
possession of property by coming to the polls,
associated as they must be there, with many men
of the rougher classes, not numerous enough them-
selves to make their influence felt as a restraint,
and subjected, as they would be, to discourtesy
and insult.
It would be manifestly unjust to grant this
property suffrage to one class of the now unrepre-
sented property-holders, and withhold it from the
others, who are equally sufferers from the want of it.
If it be wrong that single women possessing prop-
erty should not be allowed to vote, it is equally
wrong that the property of non-residents, aliens,
minors, and other classes, should continue unrep-
resented. Yet it would be a difficult matter to
arrange a satisfactory mode of representing all
these classes, which would give them any really
potential voice in the imposition of taxes.
In thus advocating suffrage on the double basis
of the family and of property, we are aware that
we have advanced beyond the position occupied
by many able writers on political science. Some
contend that property alone should have the right
260 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
of representation, or in other words, that those
only should have the suffrage who have a proper-
ty interest in the preservation of good government.
It must be confessed that there is much force in
this position. Whether it should be so or not, it is
a well-known fact that the possession of property
gives a man the strongest possible interest in the
maintenance of a just and good government ; and
those legislatures chosen only by the votes of men
possessing a freehold qualification, have been uni-
formly of a higher character, and more just and
careful of the interests of all the classes they
represented, than those who were chosen by a pro-
miscuous rabble of voters, not one-third of whom
had any interest whatever in the preservation of
good government. " Manhood suffrage," as it is
termed, the permission for every man, not an
idiot, lunatic, or criminal (and these are not
always excepted), to participate in the work of
choosing our rulers, legislators, and judges, is not
a measure which commends itself to good and
thoughtful citizens. Why should an ignorant,
drunken brute, who has no interest in the govern-
ment, unless it is to enable him the better to
escape the just reward of his crimes, a foreigner
perhaps, and entirely destitute of any knowledge
of our country, its laws, or its institutions, be per-
mitted to participate in the election of a judge, a
legislator, a governor, or a president? He has
no property to be protected, no interests which
THEORIES OP SUFFRAGE. 261
will suffer from bad government, and he is influ-
enced and controlled in his vote, by the keeper
of the liquor-shop where he obtains his whisky,
or by the demagogue in whose pay that liquor-
dealer is.
Other political economists insist that that is
the best government where there is no voting ;
that, given an able and just ruler, with an admin-
istrative council, composed of good men, intelli-
gent, and desirous of doing right, and the right
of petition bestowed upon the people, a govern-
ment would be better administered, and all classes
better cared for, than in a so-called free g'overn-
ment.
There can be little doubt that, admitting these
conditions, the community generally would be
happier and better; but the risk that, when
intrusted with absolute power, the ruler ^and his
council might not be so just and upright as they
were supposed (since the possession of irrespon-
sible power so often results in tyranny and op-
pression even in men of the best intentions), is
so great, that few would be willing to exchange
their present freedom for it.
But that suffrage, either limited or universal,
is the best means of electing or controlling the
officers of a government, is not so certain, after
all. Its machinery is necessarily cumbrous in a
great State ; its results uncertain, and liable to be
influenced by demagogues and designing men,
262 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
who seek control for their own evil purposes.
Where it is universal, or what we term so, em-
bracing about one-fifth of the entire population,
viz., all males of adult age, except aliens, idiots,
lunatics, and convicts, the vote of the lowest and
most worthless, vagrant, who is marched up to the
polls to do the bidding of his political master,
weighs just as much, and often neutralizes, the vote
of the worthiest and most respected citizen. More
than this, it has proved hitherto an impossibility,
in our large cities, to prevent fraudulent voting,
both in the way of the same voter casting his bal-
lot at several polling-places, and of persons voting
under false names, or when they were disqualified.
It does not admit of a doubt that, at the last
Presidential election, from ten to fifteen per cent,
of the vote was fraudulent, in some of the States.
The further extension of the suffrage would only
aggravate this already terrible political evil.
The method of selecting all officers of govern-
ment by competition, adopted in China, would
seem to be, under proper regulations, decidedly
preferable to that by suffrage. All persons who
are desirous of attaining to any position in the
State, enter, in youth, the public schools or uni-
versities, and are promoted, according to their
attainments in literature, science, art, and morals,
from one school to another, by rigid and careful
examinations by papers ; when, by successive pro-
motions, they have reached the three highest
THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE. 263
schools of the empire, they enter into competition
for any vacancies in positions under government,
and from these are promoted still higher by suc-
cessive competitions. The adoption of such a
course for the selection of all our State officers,
legislators, officers of the general government, &c.,
would secure men of high qualifications, and
would not be liable to the same objections which
exist to our more clumsy and corrupt method of
suffrage.
Let us now briefly review the positions of this
chapter, since their bearing is so important on the
question of suffrage.
We have, we think, demonstrated that the fam-
ily, and not the individual, is the unit of all organ-
ized society and government ; that this being the
case, there is no such thing as an individual right
of suffrage, as no one individual, male or female,
has contributed any thing or relinquished any
right to society, which gives him or her a claim
to a vote as an equivalent. That if suffrage is a
right at all, it inheres in the head of a family, as
the representative of that component of society ;
that it might, by a liberal construction, be ex-
tended, also, to the adult sons of the family, inas-
much as they are, prospectively, heads of other
families ; but not to the wife or adult daughters,
inasmuch as, if they remain at home, they are
represented by the husband and father, as the
head of the household j and if the daughters
264 THEORIES OF SUFFRAGE.
marry, they are represented by their husbands
as heads of other households. We have also
attempted to show, that if there be any other
right of suffrage than this, it must inhere in such
property as is unrepresented by male heads of
families, such, for instance, as the property of sin-
gle women or widows living by themselves, aliens,
non-residents, minors, and persons under the care
of trustees, and perhaps, also, corporations. We
have suggested several ways in which such prop-
erty might be represented effectively, have shown
that there were serious difficulties in the way of ac-
complishing such representation, and that in the
case of women holding property, unless there
were a separate branch of the State or municipal
legislature, elected solely by the property vote,
their participation in a general election would be
unfair, and unproductive of sufficient advantage
to compensate for its trouble and annoyances.
We have also considered other theories of suf-
frage, and have shown what a cumbrous and im-
perfect measure it is, and how liable to fraud and
abuse ; and have briefly described the method of
competition by examination for office as prac-
ticed by the Chinese, as an available and desir-
able substitute for suffrage. The bearing of these
several points on the question of woman-suffrage
will be more fully seen as we continue the dis-
cussion of that topic.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE suffrage laws of the United States seem
to have been based on no well-defined principle,
but to have been the outgrowth of circumstances,
without any clear comprehension of the character
of the liberties they were granting. In some
instances important franchises have been conferred
on classes not qualified to use them judiciously,
merely to appease a popular and unreasoning
clamor. The suffrage, originally, in the older
States, the privilege of freeholders only, was
subsequently granted to those who performed
military duty, and, in some States, to those who
were members of a volunteer fire department, if
of suitable age. It was next conferred on those
who had served as volunteers in the war of 1812,
the Mexican war, and later, the recent civil war,
where they were not, on other grounds, voters.
In a fit of democratic generosity, the freehold
qualification was swept away in most of the States,
and all white male citizens, natives of the country,
or naturalized under United States laws, which
required five years' residence and three years'
declaration of intention, except convicts, lunatics,
and idiots, were permitted to vote under certain
266 SUFFRAGE IN THE UNITED STATES.
restrictions of residence. A provision was made
by the Constitution in regard to the Southern
States, by which a Congressional district should
be deemed to have the requisite population, when
the white and free colored population were added
to three-fifths " of all other persons " (the consti-
tutional euphemism for slaves), to make up the
necessary number to entitle the territory to a
representative. Thus, in one sense, the Southern
vote was increased by three-fifths of its slave
population, although these cast no vote, and
literally, none was cast for them. The late civil
war abolished this method of increasing the con-
gressional representation of the South, by abolish-
ing slavery. A considerable number of former
voters at the South were at first disfranchised in
consequence of their participation in the insurrec-
tion, but by successive amnesties they were nearly
all restored to their civil rights, and by the action
of the constitutional conventions of the recon-
structed States, most of them were permitted to
vote and hold office again. The emancipated
slaves had in many instances contributed all in
their power to the success of the national govern-
ment; nearly 300,000 of them had borne arms,
and others in various ways had given aid and
comfort to the national soldiers. It was proposed
to grant them the suffrage as a compensation for
their patriotic sacrifices ; and so earnest and loud
was the popular clamor to grant this privilege to
SUFFRAGE IN THE UNITED STATES. 267
all the adult men of color in the South, that an
amendment to the Constitution was passed by
Congress and ratified by the States, and provision
made to this effect in all the new constitutions of
the reconstructed States. The measure, though
prompted by the best of motives, was injudicious ;
there was some reason for according the privilege
to those colored men who had been in the Union
service, either as -soldiers, teamsters, or servants,
though even they were scarcely qualified by their
intelligence for the exercise of so important a
right ; but to extend the same privilege to all the
plantation negroes, before they had acquired any
knowledge in regard to the government, or were
able to understand the Constitution, was exceed-
ingly unwise. They were, of course, very liable
to be influenced, in regard to their vote, by
designing men, one of the worst evils of a free
suffrage. It might be said, indeed, in partial
justification of this measure, that they were gen-
erally very nearly as intelligent as the poor whites
of the South, who already possessed the right of
suffrage, but two wrongs do not make one right,
and the remedy should rather have been the
establishment of an educational test, and the
refusal of the privilege to all, black or white, who
did not come up to it.
But the popular heart was still unsatisfied, and
now the cry was for the abolition of all distinc-
tions of race or color, as a ground of withholding
268 SUFFRAGE IN THE UNITED STATES.
the privilege of suffrage throughout the Union.
The amendment to the Constitution prescribing
this will undoubtedly be ratified. So far as the
negroes in the Northern States are concerned, the
measure is not seriously objectionable, while such
facilities exist for conferring the privilege upon
ignorant and often degraded foreigners, as the
negroes are generally the better citizens of the
two ; but, with the near prospect of a vast influx
of Chinese, mainly of the lowest class, who can, in
five years at the most, become citizens and voters,
we must think this further extension of the fran-
chise should have been better guarded.
The advocates of universal suffrage in the
United States have now only women and minors
left upon whom they can confer the right ; and
there are those who argue that, having swallowed
and digested every inch of the camel, we should
not so carefully strain out the gnat.
To this reasoning we can not agree ; if we have
done wrong in the past, if we have conferred
privileges on those who were unworthy of them,
or who, if not unworthy, were not entitled to them,
it does not follow that we should continue to err
in the same or any other direction. If there is
but little left to contend for, that little, if right,
should be as valiantly defended as if it were more,
since it is all that we can retain.
We are prepared, then, to consider the reasons
why, in this country, suffrage should not be granted
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE 269
to women, as women ; a different question, be it
observed, from that which agitates the public mind
in England, the question there being, whether the
suffrage should be granted to some women, not as
women, but as holders of property.
These reasons may be divided for convenience
sake into four classes : those concerning the polit-
ical, social, intellectual, and moral relations.
Beginning with the political aspect of the ques-
tion, we may remark, in the first place, that
woman has no need of the suffrage, since she
is already represented in the legislative bodies?
whether State or municipal, as well as by the
officers of the State and nation. The family basis
of representation, which, however unwisely it may
be extended, is the true basis, makes the husband
and father the true representative of his entire
household, and the intelligent American voter gen-
erally feels that the responsibility appertaining to
this representative character rests upon him. The
members of our municipal, State, and national leg-
islatures forgetful, as they too often are, of other
interests confided to them, or of duties required of
them by their constituents, are seldom, we might
almost say, never, unmindful of the wants and
requirements of the women whom they represent
quite as truly as they do the men of their respective
districts. Whatever may have been the case in the
past? it is certain that, at the present day, wooien
makes no reasonable request of our legislators which
11 Q
270 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
passes unheeded ; on the contrary, the danger is
rather that of excess in their liberality in grati-
fying the wishes of woman than of denying her
what are her just rights. In all directions in
which it is in the power of a legislature to improve
the condition of woman, she has but to ask to
receive. This general sentiment of tenderness and
regard for the sex on the part of men, both in
high and in low station, is invaluable to women.
It is their greatest protection and safeguard, and
it would be the greatest of misfortunes to them
were it to be, by any means, blunted and lowered
in its tone.
But there is another power which women exert,
independent of this general deference which they
command, the power of personal influence, not
only over voters, but over their elected representa-
tives. An earnest, determined woman, possessing
those graces of person or intellect, which fit her to
influence and control men, can carry almost any
measure on which she has set her heart, over
every obstacle, in either the State or national
legislature. Take the case of Miss Vinnie Ream,
who is engaged in making a statue, for the Capitol,
of President Lincoln. Miss Ream may prove a
sculptor of remarkable ability, and her statue may
be, when completed, the eighth wonder of the
world, as a work of art ; on this point we have no
right to express an opinion, since it is not yet
completed; but whether it be so or not, one thing
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 271
is certain, that it was not the consideration of her
extraordinary abilities as an artist which led to
her obtaining this commission, for she had done
nothing worthy of note, and of the few busts or
figures in plaster which she had executed, the
members of Congress, either senators or represent-
atives, had generally no knowledge, and many of
them were incompetent to judge, if they had seen
them. No ! it was her daring, young girl as she
was, in proposing to undertake such a work ; her
determined personal canvass of the members of
Congress for their votes, and the magnetic in-
fluence of her powers of fascination over grave
and venerable senators, and intelligent representa-
tives, which enabled her to procure an order for a
statue, more liberal in its terms and more remark-
able for its perfect confidence in the, as yet untried,
ability of the artist, than any commission of the
sort in modern times. Instances of this power of
woman's personal influence in political matters
are innumerable. Who has not heard of the bene-
ficent efforts of Mrs. Husband, during the war, in
procuring from President Lincoln the commutation
of sentence, and often the pardon of, soldiers con-
demned to die under the barbarous military laws ?
Who does not know of the success of the infamous
Mrs. Cobb as a pardon-broker during the late
administration ?
In the second place, the exercise of the suf-
frage by woman would be an attempt to make
272 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
suffrage individual instead of representative, and
so against the natural order of things. The other
extensions of the voting privilege, to which we
have referred, however injudicious they may have
been, did not materially interfere with its repre-
sentative character, as based on the family as the
unit of society ; but this would inaugurate an
entirely different principle ; the right of the in-
dividual, as such, to participate in the govern-
ment, a claim incompatible with the organization
of society, and subversive of its best interests. In
all large communities and States, the principle of
representation must obtain in the government.
The executive represents and is responsible to,
not merely the party which elected him, but the
whole people of the State or community. The
member of Congress, or of the State legislature,
represents all the people of his district, and it is
his duty to further their interests so far as is
compatible with justice; and every voter who casts
his ballot, represents, on an average, five people
who do not and can not vote. Abrogate this princi-
ple of representation, and let each voter represent
only himself or herself, and you loosen the bond
which holds society together ; the male voter will
say at once : " I have no need to consider anybody's
interest but my own ; my wife, my sister, my
daughter, may desire to see a certain man elected,
or a certain measure voted for, which will prove
beneficial to their interests ; but they must vote
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 273
for it themselves ; I shall consult my own interests
solely." The representative elected by the votes
of those who exercise the suffrage solely for the
gratification of their own whims, will cease to
regard his representative character as essential ;
he has no longer to look upon the families of his
district as his constituents, or to feel a responsi-
bility to them. They are merely an aggregation
of individuals who cast their votes for him, be-
cause he was nominated, and not because they
expected to hold him accountable for his acts,
and he must make the most of his opportunity, for
he may not have another. Hence will come rings,
corruption, public plunder, and subserviency to
great corporations, to an extent far beyond that
which has already awakened the indignation of the
public.
In the third place, by woman suffrage women
will gain nothing, while they will lose much.
From what we have already said, it will be seen
that they will lose all the advantages which they
now possess from the representative character of
the suffrage, all that chivalric regard for their
interests, which now prompts our legislators to
grant all their reasonable and some of their un-
reasonable requests, as a matter of course ; all
that their personal influence is now able to effect,
and all that is gained now from family, in the
place of individual interest in the ballot.
Women would be, in almost all communities, a
274 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
minority at the polls; there would be so many
who could not, and so many who would not,
vote, that it would be remarkable if their vote
ever exceeded that of men. It would hardly
be possible that, in any case, even in matters
concerning their own interests, they would all
vote alike. They would be likely to be divided,
as their husbands, brothers, and fathers were
between the two parties, perhaps unequally, but
never to such an extent as to enable them to rule
or control either party. Generally, they would
have to vote for men, often for men whom they
greatly disliked, for legislators, or State, or national
officers. They might, and doubtless often would,
contribute to place in power some unprincipled
demagogue, but very rarely would they be able to
rally votes enough to succeed in electing an up-
right and honest man ; they might, at times, be
allowed, as a special favor, to elect one or two
of their own sex to the legislature, or to some
petty office ; but such an election would prove
any thing but a favor to the unfortunate candidate ;
in a hopeless minority, so far as any action in
relation to her sex was concerned, all her prestige
as a woman gone, without influence or position,
yet expected to do for her sex what chivalry
had previously prompted men to do, it would be
strange if the poor representative of women's suf-
frage did not very early resign her seat, in an
uncontrollable fit of home-sickness.
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 275
Naturally enough, the measures which concern-
ed women would be referred to them in a legislature
in which there were a few (there never would be
many) female members ; but their power to effect
their passage would be infinitely less than if they
were not members of the legislative body. In
such a body, and as a member of it, the most elo-
quent of women would find her oratory out of
place, and her pleas would fall cold and dead. All
legislation in the interests of women would be
paralyzed, and their progress in the attainment of
their legal rights arrested, and postponed for a
full half-century.
In the fourth place, there is no possible plea in
justification of woman's intrusion into the realm
of political action. The admission of some of the
classes which have latterly received the privilege
of the suffrage might be justified as an act of self-
defense ; the foreigner, after a certain period of
residence and naturalization, might plead in favor
of his admission to the suffrage, that he had prop-
erty to protect, that the attitude of the native-
born citizens toward him was one of hostility, and
that he must have the ballot for his own protec-
tion. In like manner, the men of color might ask
for the suffrage to protect them from the encroach-
ments and oppressions of the whites, and the
disfranchised citizens of the South might seek it
to save them from apprehended aggressions on the
part of the blacks.
276 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
But the relations of men and women can never
be, to any extent, such as under ordinary circum-
stances to array them in hostility to each other,
or make one fear the aggressions of the other.
Mother, wife, sister, or daughter; one or other,
and perhaps more than one, of these relations
every woman holds to the men around her ; and, if
he would, man can not make any laws or take any
measures seriously detrimental to their interests.
They are bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh ;
and if he is made their representative and trusted
to act for their interests, he will, from the sheer
selfishness of relationship, do his best for them.
But separate the two sexes; let man understand
that woman is determined to stand for herself, and
neither desires nor needs his assistance, and how
soon would an antagonism be engendered, which
many waters could not quench. All such inter-
ference with the laws of nature, and the relations
in which the All-wise Creator has placed his crea-
tures to each other, can only be productive of evil
and misery.
In the fifth place, the exercise of the privilege
of suffrage would not be, and, in the nature of the
case, could not be a remedy for any one of the
wrongs or evils from which women now suffer.
We have all heard of the pope's bull against the
comet, and we remember how the comet kept on
its way undisturbed by the fulminations of his
holiness. The comet moved in obedience to
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 77
natural laws, over which the pope's missives could
have no control. Precisely similar is the case of
the principal wrongs of which women complain,
and which are, undoubtedly, real wrongs : low
wages we might say, starvation wages too many
hours work in the day, want of employment, over-
crowding in many branches of business, and, per-
haps, also, more stringent enactments against broth-
els, seduction, &c.
In a former chapter we have shown that the
evils complained of in regard to employments
were not, in any respect, subjects for legislation ;
that the laws of supply and demand must regulate
the prices of labor as of every thing else, and that
they must be remedied, if remedied at all, by an
increase of intelligence which should lift up a con-
siderable number to a higher plane, where the
demand was greater than the supply ; by trades-
unions, which would enable women to control the
price of their labor; by the suppression of the
practice of underbidding, both by the poorest class
of partially skilled working-women in the cities, and
by women in the country, who, having homes and
food furnished, undertake this kind of work to
supply themselves with a little pocket-money j
and by co-operation, which should enable them to
obtain food and rents cheaper, and, perhaps, to be-
come their own employers. It is obvious that the
suffrage is not required for any of these purposes.
As to the legal enactments sought, is it not plain
11*
278 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
to every thoughtful mind, that the probability is a
thousand-fold stronger of obtaining the desired
legislation speedily, by appealing to existing or
soon-to-be-assembled legislatures, and asking for the
enactment of such statutes as are needful, on the
ground of good order, good morals, and the moral
and social rights of women, than by attempting,
what would prove a perfect failure, the election of
a sufficient number of women to any legislature,
to pass, by their votes, the desired enactments ?
The arguments which we have adduced will, we
believe, be sufficient to show the inexpediency of
women's suffrage as a political measure.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE objections to woman-suffrage on social
grounds are numerous and important. If women
are to vote, they must either be conversant with
the political questions of the day, and able to form
an intelligent opinion on them, or they must vote
under the leading and guidance of others, and thus
become the dupes and prey of selfish and unprin-
cipled politicians. In the one case they will be-
come partisans ; zealous, earnest, indefatigable in
their way, but, alas, too forgetful of that womanly
modesty and grace which is the highest ornament
of womanhood. If now it should happen, as it
often would, that the wife should, from conviction
or from prejudice, adopt the views, principles, and
candidates of one party, and the husband those of
another, and both were positive and decided in
their opinions, what bickerings, what acrid debates,
what bitter feelings would be engendered in the
family circle ! How unseemly would be such con- *
tests in the presence of their children, if they had
any ! And, how often would it break up the peace
of families, and lead to separation, or, at least, to
permanent estrangement ! Again, as Dr. Bush-
nell has well observed : " The struggle (of a great
280 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
political campaign) is a trial even for men, that
sometimes quite overturns their self-mastery, and
totally breaks down the strength both of their
principles and their bodies. And yet if we en-
large the contest, as we must when we bring in
women, it will be manifold more intense than now.
Hitherto, it has been an advantage to be going
into battle in our suffrages with a full half, and
that the best half morally, as a corps of reserve,
left behind, so that we may fall back on this
quiet element or base several times a day, and
always at night, and recompose our courage and
settle again our mental and moral equilibrium. Now
it is proposed that we have no reserve any longer,
that we go into our conflicts taking our women
with us, all to be kept heating in the same fire for
weeks or months together, without interspacings
of rest or cooling times of composure. We are
to be as much more excited, of course, as we can
be, and the women are, of course, to be as much more
excited than we, as they are more excitable. Let
no man imagine as we see to be the way of many
that our women are going into these encounters
to be just as quiet or as little nerved as now, when
they stay in the rear unexcited, letting us come
back to them often and recover our reason. They
are (to be) no more mitigators now, but instigators
rather, sweltering in the same fierce heats and com-
motions, only more fiercely stirred than we.
What we take by first-hand impulse, they take by
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 283
exaggeration. And, accordingly, it will be seen,
that where we are simply at red-heat, they are at
white ; that where we deprecate, they hate ; that
where we touch the limits of reason, they touch
the limits of excess ; that, where we are impetu-
ous in a cause, they are uncontrollable in it. We
know how, as men, to be moderated in part by
self-moderation, even as ships by their helms, in
all great storms at sea. For the other part, we had
women kept in moderation by their element, even
as ships in harbor lie swinging by their anchors ;
but now we get even less of help from them than
they do from us. I do not mean by this, that
women do not show as brave self-keeping often as
men, but that going more by feeling than men,
they feel every thing more intensely, and with more
liabilities to excess. They make more of their
idols, too, than men do, raise more false halos
about them, and even have it as a kind of virtue
to bear defeat badly in their cause. Hard pushed
by adversaries, they almost certainly count them
personal enemies. It is not that some hysterical,
over-delicate women are prone to such exaggera-
tions of sensibility, but that, like our Southern
women, or the tough city mothers of Sparta, they
too commonly allow their passions to get heated,
and call it their righteous sentiment. To conceive
our whole popular mass, both male and female,
seething at once in the same vortex of party com-
motion ten women taking hold of one man, to at
284 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
once possess and dispossess him in their higher
key of excitement is no pleasant thing to con-
template. But the specially sad thing of it is, not
that men will be heated and put to a strain, and
made coarse, possibly violent, but that women
will be. Men are made to be coarse, after a cer-
tain masculine fashion, but there is no such mas-
culine fashion for women."
These storms of passion, which must come very
frequently in the life of every woman of the edu-
cated class who gives herself up to politics, can
not pass without leaving their sad traces both on
her social character, and on her countenance.
There is no hatred so implacable, especially with
women, as a political hatred, no bitterness so in-
tense as that which is gendered by political strife.
How fearful must be the effects of this upon
neighborhoods, where old friends will no more
speak to each other, but pass those whom they
formerly loved with a scowl of hate, or a look of
contempt, and where often they will seek the
injury of those once dear to them as the apple of
their eye.
That we are not exaggerating these results,
will be evident, if we recall the conduct of women
of the highest social position in the South, during
the late war. Women there did not vote, it is
true ; but they became fully absorbed in the politi-
cal questions at issue, and entered into them with
such a violent spirit, that those who had formerly
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 285
been the most gentle and amiable of their sex,
manifested a temper almost fiendish in its bitter-
ness, and this, not only toward the soldiers and
the people of the North, against whom it might be
supposed that their wrath would be most natu-
rally directed, but they were even more bitter and
vindictive toward Southern men and women who
espoused the side of the Union. Women, formerly
gentle and refined, gloried in wearing charms,
rings, &c., made from the bones of the hated
Yankees slain in battle, or murdered by guerrillas ;
they often expressed their desire, which some of
them put in practice, to kill some of them for
themselves, and the Southern gallant could bring
no surer passport to the affections of the woman
whom he sought to win, than the evidence that
he had killed a Yankee.
Toward Southern Union women, this bitter hate
manifested itself in all possible ways. We have
now in mind the sufferings of a noble Christian
woman in one of the Southern cities, a lady
whose wealth, culture, refinement, genial manners
and large-hearted liberality, had enabled her to
maintain for years the highest social position. To
be on terms of intimacy with her, had been long a
privilege for which the best families of the city
were ready to strive ; but at the beginning of the
war she was unflinchingly loyal and Union-loving ;
and very soon all her old friends, with but two or
three exceptions, fell off; her house, once thronged
286 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFKAGE.
with visitors, was now deserted; as she walked
along the streets, her former friends passed her
with averted gaze or carefully drew aside their
clothing, lest it should be tainted by contact with
her; scurrilous and abusive notes, penned by
female hands, were constantly sent to her, and
attacks upon her character and reputation of the
most cruel nature were made by female contribu-
tors to the public prints. The fences and walls
of her dwelling were covered, night after night,
with the most outrageous abuse, and her life was
more than once in peril. She persisted, however,
in her tender care for Union soldiers, sick, wound-
ed, and in prison in the city ; but even since the
war, the old hatred ever and anon breaks out, and
of all her professed female friends before the war,
she can now scarcely number one whose attach-
ment has been unfaltering. And this was but one
instance of hundreds occurring throughout the
South.
Does the picture disgust and shock you, fair
sisters ? Remember that human nature (and
woman nature) is much the same everywhere, and
that under the influence of ungovernable political
passion, in the heated contests that are coming,
you, too, much as you may now loathe the thought
of such a thing, might be betrayed into similar
excesses. Hazael (2 Kings, viii. 7-15) was horror-
stricken when Elisha told him of the terrible
cruelties he would commit, and exclaimed, un-
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 287
doubtedly in the honesty of his heart, " Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"
And yet he was even more brutal and cruel than
the prophet had predicted he would be. Nero,
according to Roman historians, was, in his youth,
of so gentle and amiable a disposition, that he
wept and shrank back from signing the death-
warrant of a notorious offender ; yet such was
his subsequent career of cruelty and crime, that
his name has become the synonym of infamy.
The effect of these terrible excitements, these
whirlwinds of passion, upon the general temper,
can not be other than evil. The human heart
thus torn and rent by the tempest never regains
its former serenity. The temper will be fitful,
and at intervals of constantly increasing frequency ;
outbursts of passion will occur which will cause
intense suffering to all around them, as well as to
the unhappy victims of passion themselves. Wal-
ter Savage Landor, the poet and essayist, united
to an almost womanly tenderness and gentleness
this tendency to be betrayed into fits of ungov-
ernable passion, and with increasing years these
paroxysms grew more frequent, till he became a
terror to all his friends. Nor will this life of
intense excitement, with its coarse and brutalizing
influences, be less marked in its effect upon the
face, the air, the voice, and the manner, of the
women who have been subjected to it. As well
might we expect the oak, scarred and blighted by
288 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
the lightnings of heaven, to show no traces of the
thunderbolt's course, as that faces, once fair, but so
often visited by the fiery storm of passion, should
retain no marks of the tempests that have passed
over them. The face of an actress, especially of
a tragedian, speedily shows the traces of the
passion she has successfully simulated, and it
requires all the resources of the cosmetic art to
prevent them from becoming so manifest as to
impair her capacity for her profession. How much
more difficult will it be to hide the wave-marks
of real passion !
The charm of beauty, that grace of features
which we call fair, will disappear very speedily
under the cares and violence of political strife,
and women will acquire a bolder, and, at the same
time, a more care-worn expression ; they will have
a sharper, more wiry voice, modulated upon a
higher key, and that " lean and hungry " look
which has been the characteristic of politicians
since the time of Cassius.
The blush of modesty, the timid, half-frightened
expression which is, to all right-thinking men, a
higher charm than the most perfect, self-consciou.
beauty, will disappear, and in the place of it we
shall have hard, self-reliant, bold faces, out of
which all the old loveliness will have faded, and
naught remain save the look of power and talent,
blighted like that of a fallen angel.
Were women to vote, they would feel a neces-
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 289
sity to have political papers of their own, devoted
to the feminine side of political life, and these, of
course, of differing politics to suit the differing
tastes of their patrons, and, of course, edited by
women. Our present political papers, in the heat
of a party conflict, are none too decorous ; their
gross personalities, slanders, and diatribes on the
candidates and their supporters, often make a
man of any sensibility regret that he ever learned
to read ; but, judging from the few political papers
hitherto edited by women, as well as from the
tendency of the sex, when enraged, to indulge
in the most severe and abusive language, we
may safely conclude that the worst specimens of
the political newspaper hitherto, would be models
of decency, when compared with the sheets which
would then grace our tables.
There would be, indeed, one door of hope. It
has been proposed, and it is said the experiment
has been tried with success, as a cure of habitual
drunkenness, that the drunkard should be shut up
in a room saturated with the fumes of alcoholic
liquors, that his clothing and bedding should be
soaked with whisky, and all his food and drink
so thoroughly permeated with it, that, for the
space of, say two weeks, the stench of it should be
constantly in his nostrils. By this treatment, it
is said, that the poor wretch comes very soon to
loathe the vile drug so utterly, that he can never
again be persuaded to take a drop of it Some-
290 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
thing of this sort might be hoped for from this
constant din of politics which would occur in our
more intelligent families. Where husband and
wife were both voters and partisans, especially if
they happened to be on opposite sides, the dis-
cussion would go on unceasingly, morning, noon,
and night; there would be no rest, and if the
debate were to be enlivened by choice passages
from such political papers as we have described,
there would soon come, we believe, such a feeling
of nauseation with politics, that the subject would
be tabooed for ever.
Thus much we have thought it needful to say
of the social aspect of woman-suffrage among the
more educated and intelligent classes. Let us now
glance at it in its influence upon the social rela-
tions of the lower and more ignorant classes.
That these would vote intelligently, or from any
conviction of right or wrong in connection with
their vote, no one can believe who has any knowl-
edge of these classes.
The great body of domestic servants, especially
those of Irish and German origin, and of the Cath-
olic faith, will follow the dictation of their priests
unquestioningly, and we say it with no disposition
to find fault with the priests, the entire vote of
this class would be thrown at their bidding, and
almost wholly in one direction. But bad as this
would be, and we regard votes given at the dicta-
tion and under the influence of others as among
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 293
the sorest evils of free suffrage, there are other
evils to be dreaded, in a social point of view, worse
than this. The feeling of antagonism which
exists between the more ignorant of the Irish
Catholics and their Protestant employers is much
stronger on the side of the Irish than we gener-
ally imagine. Occasionally a lightning-flash, like
that of the great riot of 1863 in New York City,
shows it in all its intensity, for a brief period ; we
see then that those who have been confidential
servants, long trusted and regarded as humble but
true friends, are ready, under the influence of
excitement, to plunder and destroy our own prop-
erty or that of our friends, if we or they belong to
the class against whom their anger is roused. In
the political strife, it will often happen that these
servants will be enlisted on the opposite side from
their employers ; and when the contest is a warm
and exciting one, what warrant have we for
believing that Biddy, in her enthusiasm for the
cause, which her priest has told her is the right
one, may not resort to some measures to nullify
her employer's vote, which would not bear a legal
scrutiny ? Or, believing that the end would
justify the means, that she might not participate
in some riot or foul play, which would endanger
the life or property of her employers ?
A very large proportion of those women and
girls who are employed in manufactories, espe-
cially in our great cities, are of foreign birth, and
294 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
would be subject to the same influences as the
servant girls. There would be some danger of
influence being exerted in the case of these in
another direction, as objectionable as that of the
priests, viz. : the threats of employers to dismiss
them, in the case of their voting in opposition to
the employer's views. Intimidation of this sort
has been largely practiced in the South, in regard
to another dependent class, the negroes; and
human nature is so much alike everywhere, that
it might naturally be expected in the case of
factory girls.
The whole class of unskilled and partially
skilled female laborers will be, if woman-suffrage
prevails, in the market with their votes. Too
poor to afford to spare the time for voting, except
for pay, they will, almost without exception, be
ready to accept the best offer. They are, with
but slight exceptions, too ignorant to have any
intelligent ideas on political questions, and hence
will have no conscientious scruples against voting
for the side which pays best.
There is still another class who will be found
at the polls " early and often," and to whom the
election will be a gala-day, since then, of all days
in the year, they will be the equals of the best
women of the community. Whoever else fails to
be at the polls, when woman-suffrage is permit-
ted, the prostitute will not, and her vote will be
given as the keeper of the den of vice in which
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 295
she dwells may direct. Corrupt men, desirous of
office, will secure the votes of these poor wretches
for themselves, by a bonus to their keepers, and,
when it can be done, will cause them to repeat
their votes in one precinct after another, till they
have registered votes enough to attain their
purpose.
Will it be pleasant for modest, refined, Chris-
tian women, to go to the polls in the company of
these daughters of shame ? Will the loud laugh,
the boisterous behavior, and the drunken leer of
these poor creatures (who are, after all, to be pitied
almost as much as they are to be blamed), cause
them to feel any more proud of their sex, or more
certain of the great advantages to be gained from
woman-suffrage ? Would it not be a nobler and
better object to attain, to rescue these poor souls
from the bondage of sin, to emancipate them from
the service and oppression of the devil, than to
succeed in bestowing on woman a gift of such
doubtful value as suffrage a Pandora's box, whose
evils would prove innumerable ?
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN discussing the objections to woman-suffrage
from the intellectual point of view, it is necessary
to recur, for a moment, to the first principles of
government. In all governments of the people,
and for the people, the intelligence of the voters,
who are, in the ultimate resort, the ruling power,
is the all-important consideration. If they are
lacking in this, whatever the wealth or enterprise
of the nation, whatever its advantages of position,
soil, or commerce, it is destined to speedy decay.
If its voters are ignorant, and accustomed to
vote at the dictation of others, or for pay, the
government soon becomes the prey of corrupt
aspirants for power and heartless demagogues,
who will use it for their own base purposes, and
having secured their own wealth and power by
its means, will aid in its overthrow. It is owing
to the ignorance and venality of the masses of
voters, that no Celtic nation, neither the French,
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Irish, have ever
been able to maintain a republican government;
and to the same cause is it due, that Mexico and the
Central and South American republics have been,
ever since their independence, in a state of anarchy.
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 97
Bad men have always been able to rally round
them, for an insurrection, a sufficient force of
voters whose influence in their favor has been
gained, either by plunder already seized and dis-
tributed, or by promises of money to be gained by
revolt ; and hence these countries have been kept
in a constant state of revolution. In Chili, which
has been the most stable of the South American
republics, there has been far more widely diffused
education, and though too many of the voters are
venal, they are generally capable of understand-
ing the political questions at issue. In the Argen-
tine Republic the enlightened President, Don Die-
go F. Sarmiento, has become so fully convinced of
the absolute necessity of intelligence to the pre-
servation of the national existence and the pro-
motion of the nation's prosperity, that he is
making the greatest possible efforts for the educa-
tion of his entire people.
Just at this point is our nation in its greatest
peril. We have three classes of voters who are
every year endangering our national existence by
their ignorance, venality, and the facility with
which they may be influenced and led by evil and
designing men. These three classes are : the low,
brutish, often depraved, and always ignorant class
of voters at the North, mostly, though not entire-
ly, of foreign birth or parentage, the shoulder-hit-
ters, plug-uglies, dead rabbits, repeaters, and bum-
mers, and, with them, a still larger class of sim-
12
298 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
ilar origin, who, though ordinarily peaceable and
quiet, yet always vote according to the orders of
their fugleman, who is generally a pot-house poli-
tician, though, sometimes, an aspiring demagogue,
like Fernando Wood or Captain Bynders. A sec-
ond class is the " poor white trash " of the South,
intensely ignorant, brutish, and prejudiced", who
will vote every time according to the instructions
of their file leaders, and by whose votes, out-
weighing those of more intelligent and patriotic
citizens, the South was lately plunged in civil war.
Great efforts are now making to educate and ele-
vate this class, and they may be successful with
the children, but there is hardly much hope for the
parents. A third class are the more ignorant and
stupid of the negroes, who are at present very
much under the control of others, and incapable
of intelligent and thoughtful action on political
subjects. Their earnest zeal to acquire knowledge
amid the obstacles which two hundred years of
slavery have engendered, gives us good reason to
hope that, in a few years, they will not be the
lowest class in point of intelligence. We have
shown already, that, while a portion of the edu-
cated and intelligent class of women would prob-
ably vote, if woman-suffrage were granted, by far
the larger part of the votes would come from
domestic servants, factory girls, unskilled or par-
tially skilled female laborers, and the depraved
and vicious classes, all of whom, with but few
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 299
exceptions, would either vote under the influence
and at the dictation of others, or for the party or
politician which would pay them best. This addi-
tion of so vast a body of unintelligent and pur-
chasable voters many of them, it is to be feared,
from the facility with which they could disguise
themselves, voting several times at each election
to our already excessive number of this class,
would be certain to swamp the nation in speedy
ruin. No government on earth could exist a score
of years with such masses of easily influenced
and venal- voters. And the evil is likely to be
still further aggravated by the speedy influx of
immense numbers of Chinese, both men and
women (the latter having the worst possible%ep-
utation for depravity), who would, in the event
of the passage of an amendment to the State con-
stitutions permitting woman-suffrage, become voters
at the end of five years after their arrival, and
would inevitably cast their votes for pay, and so,
almost necessarily, for the most corrupt politicians
to be found.
If we are to have universal suffrage, let us by all
means have, first, universal education, compulsory,
if need be, to fit our prospective voters for their
duties. Universal suffrage, where each voter ful-
ly understood the issues to be voted upon, and
acted conscientiously, might not be attended with
many serious evils ; but universal suffrage, where
three-fourths of the voters could be purchased or
300 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
influenced by men devoid of principle, would be
the ruin of our country.
The objections to woman-suffrage from the
moral point of view are numerous and weighty.
There is among the acquaintances of almost
every upright and true man, some woman (per-
haps more than one), upon whom he looks as upon
a vision of the lost Eden. Her purity and inno-
cence, her exemplary fulfillment of all the
sacred duties of wife and mother, her genuine
piety and modesty, fill his soul with respect and
admiration. Such pure and excellent women in
these days of fashionable education, frivolous
accomplishments, and extravagance in dress and
display, are unhappily less numerous than they
once were ; but enough are yet left to make this
world a desirable dwelling-place. Who would be
willing to see such a woman descend into the arena
of party political strife, and enter upon its intrigues,
its heated partisanships, its perilous depths of
wickedness ? It would be like drawing an angel
from heaven, to plunge him in the world of woe !
Yet this is what would happen often if women
entered upon a political career. We have all seen
an ingenuous youth, the soul of honor, resolute in
his integrity and virtuous purposes, plunge into
politics as his life employment. How long was it
ere he had learned to palter with words in a
double sense, to make promises which he could
not fulfill, to first endure, then sanction, then
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 3Q1
advocate those devious courses for the sake of
party, which, under the specious plea of accom-
plishing ultimate good by the success of 'party
measures, make politics inconsistent with honesty,
and the very name of politician odious to all true
men ? If such a wreck of character and integrity
in man has made us sad, how much more would
it distress us to see a pure, good, and true woman fall
into the same snare ? Woman, when she falls away
from integrity and truth, has further to fall than,
man, and by a law of moral gravitation, she falls
faster and sinks deeper.
The affectional and emotional nature is so much
stronger in her than in man that, in whatever she
becomes interested, her whole soul is engaged. Let
her once become occupied with politics, and the
craft, the policy, the subterfuges, the ignominious
party tricks, in which male politicians have engag-
ed, would not satisfy her for a moment. Down-
ward, and still downward she would plunge, till
she would astonish and confound her male associ-
ates by her daring and reckless audacity in the
contrivance of party schemes.
In most of the monarchical countries of Europe,
though women have not voted, some of them have,
at one time or another, mingled largely in political
matters, and never without going more deeply
into the mire ; proposing and audaciously carrying
through measures of greater iniquity and injustice,
and prompting others to grosser sins, than any
302 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
man would have dared. Yet some of these women
in their youth were virtuous and pure-minded, and
were dragged down from their lofty position
more by the corrupting influences of a political
life, than by the temptations of a profligate one.
We need not name the succession of mistresses
of the fourteenth and fifteenth Louis of France,
who hastened the downfall of the kingdom, and
made the horrors of the French Revolution possi-
ble ; the favorites of the worthless Charles the
Second of England, and his equally worthless
successor ; the coarse, vicious women, whom the
first, second, and fourth Georges made their
confidants and advisers ; nor such restless poli-
ticians as Christina of Sweden, Catharine II. of
Russia, Christina of Spain, and the Countess of
Lansfeldt in Bavaria. Such corruption seems an
inevitable result of an active participation in poli-
tics ; and what a blight would it cast upon families
now reared in purity and innocence ? How could
a mother, whose whole heart was absorbed in
political strife, teach her children those lessons of
integrity, modesty, and truthfulness, which would
come most appropriately from her lips, were they
untainted by political corruption ?
In its effects upon the morals of the more de-
pendent classes, woman-suffrage seems still more
objectionable. Power without knowledge is always
an evil, and the consciousness on the part of the
ignorant and prejudiced servant-girl, that she pos-
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 3Q3
sessed a privilege which made her in some sort
the peer of her mistress, would so stimulate her
pride, self-sufficiency, and impertinence, that a
class already almost intolerable from these quali-
ties would become entirely so, and a social revo-
lution would ensue. The intrigues for the votes
of these dependent classes would tend greatly to
their demoralization, for where all regard to
truth, honor, and right is banished from their
action on political questions, and the party ascend-
ency is achieved by the most unscrupulous means,
the whole moral sense is weakened, and virtue in
all its relations becomes only a name.
As to the abandoned class, their very presence
at the polls will be an outrage on the public
morals. It has always been, and very properly,
too, a rule with our civil authorities, if they were
unable to suppress houses of prostitution, at least
to keep their inmates from practicing their voca-
tion, or tempting others, on our public streets ; and
though they have not wholly succeeded in this,
yet they have mainly compelled them to be quiet,
and, by frequent arrests, have greatly diminished
the practices which made the great thoroughfares
unsafe for honest women at night. But, with the
proposed woman-suffrage, these daughters of
shame would be paraded through the principal
streets in the day-time in squads, and their influ-
ence for mischief would be immense. What a
lesson of evil would be taught our children on an
304 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
election day ! These poor wretches, bedizened in
gaudy finery, with bold, brazen faces, many of
them half or wholly drunk, and uttering, with
loud laughter, horrible oaths and ribald and
obscene jests, what impression must an intelli-
gent child receive in regard to a class of women
of whom he or she has hitherto known nothing !
If the virtuous mother seeks to ward off the
evil effects of such a sight from the mind of the
child, by saying that these are wicked, bad women,
who ought not to be allowed to walk the streets in
this way, how will she be appalled by the answer :
" But, mother, they are going to vote. If they
were so very bad, would they have the same right
to vote that you and other ladies have ?" If she
attempts to explain that moral character has noth-
ing to do with political privileges, will she not be
met again with the inquiry : " But, mother, what
makes the government so bad, that they have to
let such bad women vote and help make the
laws ?" The mother will be in a dilemma either
she must recognize these abandoned women as her
associates in political privilege, and thus break
down the ideas of moral purity and virtue which
she has attempted to establish in the minds of her
children, or she must condemn the government of
her country for adopting the very measure which
she and her friends have clamored for. The asso-
ciation with these depraved and vicious women at
the polls, will, in itself, be a great source of
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 397
demoralization to men as well as women. It is
bad enough to have a drunken, profane rowdy
near you in the line of voters, for an hour or
more, while you are waiting your turn to deposit
your vote ; but, as most of these fellows have, at
one time or another, been in State prison, you can,
if too much annoyed, generally get him challenged
off; but to be obliged for an hour to stand in line
with a drunken and noisy prostitute, compelled to
listen to her foul ravings, and to know that she
has the same legal right to vote with yourself, and
that her vote can neutralize that of the best and
purest man in the land, is intolerable, and must
disgust every thoughtful, sensible citizen with
universal suffrage. On the young voter, it must
have one of two effects ; either it will disgust him
with the government, or it will lead him astray
to follow these abandoned creatures. But there
is another phase of the question which has its
moral bearings also. The privilege of woman-suf-
frage implies also the right to hold office and to
seek official position. The thirst for office is at
once the most engrossing and the most groveling of
human passions. Daniel D. Tompkins, once Gov-
ernor of New York, and Vice-President of the
United States, said, late in life, and he spoke from
experience : " Let a man once entertain the 'idea
that he may win the presidency of the United
States, and there is nothing he will not sacrifice
for the purpose of attaining it. His property, his
12* s
308 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
dearest friends, his own family, the shortening of
his life, and his soul's eternal salvation, would all go
freely, if by their loss he could obtain the place
he strove for." And for much lower places, how
many have sacrificed all these. With her more
ardent and impulsive nature, can we doubt that
woman would be, at least, as zealous in seeking
office as man.
Let us inquire briefly into the way in which
nominations for official positions, such as members
of the State Assembly or Senate, members of Con-
gress, State officers, &c., are secured. In a late
speech, Miss Anna Dickinson avowed her belief
that within ten years she should be a member of
Congress. For the sake of illustration, we will
suppose that woman-suffrage having been granted
in Pennsylvania, a warm personal and political
friend of Miss Dickinson, a lady of Philadelphia
(Miss D.'s home), is desirous that her friend should
receive the nomination for Congress. What must
she do to bring about such a result ?
She must first secure the primaries. Our fair
friends may not exactly understand what this
means. We will explain. All these nominations for
legislative, State, or Congressional positions, are
made by party conventions, composed of delegates
chosen at meetings of the voters of that party, or
a portion of them, in each voting precinct. These
meetings for the choice of delegates to the con-
ventions are called primaries.
HIE WIFE AND MOTHER AT A PRIMARY
HE FATHEK STATS AT HOME, ATTENDING TO THE CHILDREN.
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 3Q9
In the cities the number of voters to a precinct
usually ranges from four to eight hundred. Of
course, it is not to be expected that any very large
proportion of these will come out to the primary
meetings for the nomination of delegates.
In truth, only the political managers of the pre-
cinct, and the bullies, rowdies, pot-house poli-
ticians, and roughs of the party those who can
influence the votes of the more ignorant and
vicious classes are usually present, and the can-
didates for Congress, or their friends, begin the
struggle there, for delegates to the nominating
convention who will vote for them. Too often
these primaries are places where open bids are
made by the candidates for support. The ques-
tions are put plumply : " Ef I vote for ye in the
convintion, will ye git my brother a place in
the Custom-House ?" " Will ye git me appointed
weigher or gauger ?" and so on. The candidate
or his friends who make the most liberal bids and
promises, or who pay the most money, get the
delegates from that primary, and the same thing
is repeated throughout the district. Often very
heavy sums are paid to secure the nomination.
Attempts have been made repeatedly to improve
these primaries. Good and high-minded citizens
have sometimes gone to them in considerable num-
bers, to attempt to control them, and secure the
nomination of good men who would not bribe the
delegates, either with money or promises ; but it
310 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
has all been in vain ; the rowdy class do, and will,
control them, and nearly as much in one party as
the other.
It is not reasonable to suppose that they would
be any better if woman-suffrage was inaugurated.
Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that they
would be worse, since the number of voters of the
ignorant and vicious classes would be so greatly
increased. Our fair friend, therefore, if a wife
arid mother, leaving her husband at home to care
for the children, sallies out, of a dark night, to
visit one or two of these primaries. It is her first
visit to them, and it will be likely to be her last
one. Entering, she finds herself surrounded by a
fierce, ruffianly crew, men and women, who look
with suspicion on her neat and becoming dress,
and are prejudiced against her at the outset from
this cause. Confusion worse confounded reigns in
the room, and the air is redolent with the per-
fumes of vile whisky, cheap tobacco, and garlic.
It is some time before she can comprehend at
all what is the cause of the hubbub ; but she
finally ascertains that the primary is not yet or-
ganized, but that the keeper of a dance-house is
discussing his own claims to be a delegate, with
the leader of a gang of workhouse women, both
agreeing, however, that they will only vote for
the candidate who will promise to get for them
some appointment by which they can plunder
the government. The keeper of a grog-shop urges
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 3^3
his claims, but wants a chance to get in what
whisky he needs for his business without paying
the revenue tax on it.
The meeting is at last organized, by the choice
of a noted brothel-keeper as chairman, and the
cashier of a drinking-saloon as clerk. The nomi-
nation of delegates being in order, our fair friend,
who is not quite at home in the mode of pro-
cedure, begins to canvass among the would-be
delegates in behalf of Miss Dickinson, unaware
that she should have previously secured her can-
didate for delegate from among the motley crew,
and having made him pledge himself to vote for
Miss Dickinson, and her only, have put him for-
ward in the fight. Miss Dickinson's name is
received with shouts of derisive laughter or
abusive epithets ; and when one of the proposed
delegates somewhat hesitatingly inquires, " But
what'll she do for us ; will she come down with
the spondulicks ?" he is at once checked by some
of the reprobate class, with, " Hold your tongue.
She's smart enough, may be ; but she ain't one
of our sort." Disheartened, discouraged, and
frightened, Miss Dickinson's friend slips out of
the room as soon as possible, and with quick steps,
and panting for breath, reaches her own home.
Two or three days later she finds that some sharp,
unprincipled politician, it matters not of which
sex, is nominated, and that Miss Dickinson is not
even mentioned in the convention.
314 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
This is no overdrawn picture. In the rural
districts the corruption and villainy are not so
open, and perhaps not so prevalent ; but in the
cities, the primaries, which must be placated if a
nomination is to be obtained, are nests of unclean
birds, festering pit-holes of all iniquity. Is it
possible to touch pitch and not be defiled ?
But, we may be told, in the West, this system
of primaries is not in vogue. There, the candidate
nominates himself, or is nominated by his friends,
and then " takes the stump," or visits each town
or voting precinct, often in company with the
opposing candidate, and publicly discusses with
his opponent the political issues of the election.
These stump-speeches are usually made in the
open air, when the weather is such as will admit
of it, and generally the speaker who has the
strongest lungs, and the most taking way with
the masses, wins the victory.
Let us suppose, for a moment, that woman-suf-
frage being granted, a woman of decided intellect-
ual ability, and, if you please, accustomed to
public speaking in halls or lecture-rooms, were to
be the nominee of one party for governor, and a
man of like ability the candidate of the other,
and that they u stump the State " together. A
woman could have no more unfavorable opportu-
nity of displaying her eloquence than a large open
air meeting. To enable her audience to hear, her
voice must be pitched on so high a key that her
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
finest passages will come out with a shriek, and
the whole effect will be unpleasant. In these days
of weak throats, too, it would be difficult to find
a woman who could stand the strain of a cam-
paign. Then, in a discussion of that sort, sup-
posing the two parties to possess equal abilities,
the man would have the advantage, from the
greater excitability of the woman. The result
could hardly fail to be against her. The high-
pitched treble voice always wearies a crowd very
soon, and the bold position which the female can-
didate would be obliged to take would deprive
her of the respect due, under other circumstances,
to her womanhood ; while the moral effect of such
an exhibition could not but be injurious to all who
witnessed it.
But suppose it possible that a woman of high
character could run the gauntlet of the primaries
and the nominating conventions, and finally obtain
an election. The perils to her moral nature are
but just begun. If she is elected to the State
Legislature she will be plied with a thousand
temptations to act corruptly in regard to railroad
charters and provisions, State aid to them, city
appropriations, and a host of other bills in which
she will be told there is money ; bribes, direct
and indirect, will be offered her daily, to do or to
refrain from doing something, or to vote or not to
vote for somebody. Attempts have been made
by exposures, denunciations, committees of in-
316 OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
quiry, and in all other ways, to break up the
corruption and venality of our legislatures ; yet
each one seems worse than its predecessor. That
members of Congress, both Senators and Repre-
sentatives, are too often corrupt, and amass great
wealth through their adroitness, is, unfortunately,
too well known to admit of doubt. Could we
hope that women, who are admitted to be the
most skillful of lobbyists, would be able to resist
these manifold temptations ?
For the rest, we should hardly expect women
to be very successful as legislators, either in the
State legislatures or in Congress. Their prone-
ness to discuss all questions (i. e. the class who
would be most likely to achieve an election),
their impulsiveness, their tendency to be influ-
enced to wrong action by appeals to their sympa-
thies, and the impatience with which they would
be listened to, would all be against them. A sen-
sible woman would hardly seek a place in any of
our legislative bodies.
The skill and tact which women have on many
occasions manifested in diplomacy, when they
have been secretly intrusted with diplomatic
duties, has led some to suppose that they would
be eminently successful as embassadors. We
can not coincide in that opinion. Were diplomacy
now what the Italian diplomatist represented it,
the art of skillful deception, we could imagine
that a smart, intriguing woman, might achieve
OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
some distinction in it, though at the expense of
her own character for truthfulness and integrity ;
but diplomacy new requires the highest gifts of
coolness, imperturbability, thorough statesman-
ship, profound political knowledge, patriotism,
sound judgment, and quick perception ; qualities
all of which few women can be supposed to pos-
sess, and these few would, without exception, be
averse to occupying such a position. The skillful
and statesmanlike management of our ministers
in England and France during the late war, saved
us, more than once, from threatened war with
those powers at a time when such a misfortune
would have well nigh proved fatal to our national
existence. Does any one believe that we could
have safely replaced Mr. Adams, Mr. Dayton, or
Mr. Bigelow, by any female diplomatist in our
country ? No ! We shall hope to be spared the
sight of that day when a woman, however gifted,
shall be our embassador at the court of the Tuil-
eries, or at that of St. James.
CHAPTER XIX.
HAVING thus fully stated the objections which
seem to us conclusive against the admission of
woman-suffrage, we will next proceed to reply to
such of the arguments advanced in favor of
it by its advocates, as have not been already
met in our previous examination of the subject.
We begin with Mr. J. Stuart Mill's position,
which, in his work, is the basis of all his argu-
ments in favor of woman-suffrage : the substan-
tial equality of woman with man, in all re-
spects. Mr. Mill, indeed, admits that, in physical
power, woman is generally the inferior of man,
and that his claim of authority, and her condition
of subjection, are both based on his possession of
a superior amount of brute force. In all other
respects, he contends, that, under the greatest
disadvantages, woman has proved herself the equal
of man, and that, therefore, she should have the-
right of suffrage to protect herself from the
oppression of his brute force.
That a logician so astute, a thinker usually so
calm and dispassionate as Mr. Mill, should have
been led astray by such evident fallacies as are
contained in this proposition, is only a confirma-
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 321
tion of the ancient proyerb, " Great men are not
always wise." Mr. Mill, as a professed deist,
ignores the scriptural account of the creation of
woman, and thus fails to discern the original de-
sign and purpose of her Creator, in placing her in a
subject relation to man, that she might be the com-
plement of his nature, and that the two together
might form the unit of a perfected humanity. To
him, too, the comment of the apostle Paul, on
this design of God in the creation, is of no sig-
nificance, " For the man is not of the woman, but
the woman of the man. Neither was the man
created for the woman ; but the woman for the
man" (1 Cor., xi. 8, 9). And yet, in these words,
he would have found the key to the mystery
which so stumbles him. Taking the history of
the past, and the status of woman in the present, he
finds that she has been, in all the historic ages, in a
subject condition; that in savage, and sometimes
even in civilized nations, this condition has been the
result of the exercise of brute force ; in other and
more enlightened nations, it has been maintained
mostly by the exertion of a stern and dominant
will. Never, according to his own testimony, has
there been, to any appreciable extent, an excep-
tion to this subject condition of women. From his
own stand-point, taking no cognizance of the
divine revelation, would it not have been more
philosophical for him to have inquired why, if
there was no just cause for it, this condition of
322 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
subjection had always existed ? No class of rea-
soners are so ready, as those with whom Mr. Mill
is affiliated, to deduce a general law from ages of
unbroken custom. Why can not he see that there
must have been some reason, other than the mere
brutal instincts of man, why women should have,
throughout all time, remained in this subject con-
dition, and why they should, in all ages, have
acquiesced in it ? Again, while he admits the
physical inferiority of woman,* is he not led to
inquire, whether this very condition of body, in
which grace takes the place of strength, beauty
that of dignity, and the whole frame indicates
how diverse is its purpose, object, and aim from
that of man, does not of itself teach that, as in
the physical so in the mental and moral structure,
woman and man have their distinct and differ-
ing spheres of action, and that, occupying these,
there can be no more question of equality, supe-
riority, or inferiority, than between any two ob-
jects of entirely differing, and yet complement-
ary natures? The rind of an orange differs in
form, color, and consistency, from the pulp ; yet
one is as necessary as the other to the making up
of the complete orange ; and, while the pulp is
inferior in position to the rind, we can not say of
either, that it is or is not equal to the other. The
one is the complement of the other.
It would seem that a man of Mr. Mill's astute-
> See Appendix B.
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 323
ness ought to have seen this ; yet, had he recog-
nized it, he would at once have comprehended
that, when he relinquished the idea of woman's
equality with man, and substituted for it the view
of her complementary nature, the argument for
suffrage from equality must fall at once to the
ground. As the other part of himself, woman can
have no claim to a separate representation a dis-
tinct vote from man for she is represented in his
representation she votes through him. There
can be no antagonisms, no conflicting interests
between man and woman in this relation, if right-
ly understood, and hence, no occasion for the
woman to protect herself from the aggressions of
the man, more than of the man to protect himself
from the aggressions of the woman. They have
a common interest from their common nature.
That this community of nature and of interest
has not been fully recognized in the past, and is
not, by all classes, at the present time, is un-
doubtedly true, and is a misfortune of the sex ;
yet it would be a very absurd remedy for this
want of recognition, to endow the woman with the
ballot, when her tyrant (as Mr. Mill would call
the man) possessed the same right, and when her
possession of it, leaving her still in a hopeless
minority, would only afford the opportunity of
adding insult to her previous injuries.
There is, moreover, good reason to believe that
this community of nature and interests, between
324 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
the two sexes, is coming to be better understood,
and that in the not distant future it will be re-
garded by all intelligent men and women as the
basis of all their relations to each other.
But Mr. Mill, as if aware of the weakness of his
previous argument, of the equality of the sexes,
proceeds with other arguments in favor of woman-
suffrage, some of them a little inconsistent with
his doctrine of equality. " Their right to both
parliamentary and municipal suffrage" is, he says,
" entirely independent of any question which can
be raised concerning their faculties. The right to
share in the choice of those who are to exercise
a public trust, is altogether a distinct thing from
that of competing for the trust itself. If no one
could vote for a member of Parliament who was not
fit to be a candidate, the government would be a
narrow oligarchy indeed. To have a voice in
choosing those by whom one is to be governed, is
a means of self-protection due to every one, though
he were to remain forever excluded from the
function of governing ; and that women are con-
sidered fit to have such a choice, may be presumed
from the fact that the law already gives it to
women in the most important of all cases to them-
selves for the choice of the man who is to govern
a woman to the end of her life is always supposed
to be voluntarily made by herself. In the case
of election to public trusts, it is the business of
constitutional law to surround the right of suffrage
ARGUMENTS FOE WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 325
with all needful securities and limitations ; but
whatever securities are sufficient in the case of the
male sex, no others need be required in the case
of women. Under whatever conditions, and within
whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage,
there is not a shadow of justification for not
admitting women under the same. The majority
of the women of any class are not likely to differ
in political opinion from the majority of the men
of the same class, unless the question be one in
which the interests of women, as such, are in some
way involved ; and if they are so, women require
the suffrage as their guarantee of just and equal
consideration. This ought to be obvious even to
those who coincide in no other of the doctrines for
which I contend. Even if every woman were a
wife, and if every wife ought to be a slave, all the
more would these slaves stand in need of legal
protection ; and we know what legal protection
the slaves have where the laws are made by their
masters." ,
Some portions of this argument are more
plausible in their application to woman-suffrage in
England, where, even under the new Reform law,
none but property-holders have a vote, and where
the dependent and vicious classes of women would
not be allowed the suffrage under any circum-
stances, than to this country, where all classes
(in the event of the permission of woman-suffrage)
would be allowed to vote. But there is, never
326 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
theless, an amount of sophistry in it which is per-
fectly astonishing. It is doubtless true that in
England many vote for members of Parliament,
who would not, and under any circumstances could
not, be candidates for seats in that body ; but here
the theory of our government is, that every citizen
who votes is, in some sort, eligible to any elective
office in the government. There are undoubtedly
exceptions to this in actual practice, though none
which must be so of necessity ; but the doctrine
of one qualification for voters, and another, greatly
higher and belonging to a different class, for
office-holders, would not be tolerated for a moment
here.
So, too, his statement that " the majority of the
women of any class are not likely to differ in opin-
ion from the majority of the men of the same class,"
may be partially, though not wholly true, in Eng-
land, where only the more intelligent men and
women, and those holding property, would be al-
lowed to vote ; but it is very far from being true
here, where many classes of women would vote un-
der influence, or for pay, while the men of a cor-
responding class would very often have some polit-
ical principle to guide them. But it is very singu-
lar to hear Mr. Mill, who is strongly opposed to
any votes being cast under influence, make
such a statement, which implies distinctly that
the women would usually vote under the influ-
ence of the men of their class ; and it is still more
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 327
singular to hear him, after an elaborate argument
to prove that woman ought not to be in subjection
to man at all, speak of her voluntarily making
choice of the man who is to govern her to the end
of her life. He is also sadly unfortunate in the
choice of his illustration ; for neither in England
nor France, if the ablest writers of both countries,
and the vast weight of testimony are to be believed,
is the woman's choice of a husband, in a majority
of instances, a voluntary one. A voluntary choice
implies the power of actively making a selection ;
at the best, except in the case of the sovereign,
the woman has only the power of accepting or
refusing the hand offered her, not of selecting
such a one as she might have desired ; and how
few are the instances in which the wishes of pa-
rents or friends, ambitious desires for wealth,
equipage, or display, the wish to be the mistress
of a home, or the fear of not receiving a more
eligible offer, do not exert a controlling influence
in the matter ?
Nor can we regard without surprise his asser-
tion, that " women require the suffrage (in matters
relating to their interests as women) as their
guaranty of just and equal consideration." It can
not be possible that Mr. Mill supposes for an
instant that any sufficient number of women could
or would vote in Great Britain, to give them the
control, either in a single borough or in Parlia-
ment j and unless they obtained such a control,
13 T
328 ARGUMENTS FOB WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
would they not, as a hopeless minority, be in a
worse position, so far as any " guaranty of just
and equal consideration " was concerned, than if
they were without suffrage ?
We have shown, we think, clearly, that under
the true idea of society that which regards the
family, and not the individual, as the unit of it
there can be no occasion for women, as women, to
vote, since they are already represented ; and we
may add that, any attempt at voting on their part,
while it would place them in a condition of unnat-
ural and needless antagonism to man, would, by
releasing him from the responsibility he now feels
to legislate for their good, make their situation in
every respect worse than it now is.
Another argument which the friends of woman-
suffrage have continually urged in behalf of their
favorite measure has been, that woman, by her
presence at the polls and in our political gatherings,
legislatures, &c., would exert a refining and puri-
fying influence upon our politics. It is even
stated that Mr. Beecher has more than once
brought forward this argument for woman-suf-
frage. We can hardly credit it ; for we have too
high an opinion of his knowledge of human nature
to believe that he could deliberately utter such an
absurdity. The snow falls upon the city pure and
white, and for the moment it seems to have
invested it with its own purity. But, in a day or
two at the farthest, this very snow, smirched and
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 329
foul from the mud and filth with which it has
mingled, becomes even more offensive to the eye
than the foul streets of the city were before it
descended, and we give a sigh of relief when it
disappears.
So would it be with women after mingling in
political life, and marching to the polls once or
twice, even had they been previously all as pure
as the driven snow. But no one knows better
than Mr. Beecher, that with our system of univer-
sal suffrage, there would be more bad than good
women to take part in the ballot; not, perhaps,
that there are more ignorant and depraved than
good women in the community (we hope not, cer-
tainly), but that very many of the good and pure
women would stay at home, while the bad women
would all come to the polls under the various influ-
ences which would be exerted to bring them out.
Does he believe that these classes would make the
polls, or the legislators elected by their votes, bet-
ter, purer, and more refined than now ? Would
they not very soon be infinitely worse ? And
would not the country, with this large addition
to the corrupt and venal voters, very soon sink to
ruin ?
No ! the reformation of our politics will not, can
not come from that direction. We must restrict
the number and elevate the character of our voters,
before we can hope for any material improvement.
If it were possible to apply the intellectual test
330 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
of ability to read and write, and the moral test of
an unblemished character, and to insist, in addition
to these, upon a residence of not less than five
years by all aliens, after the declaration of their
intention to become citizens, before they should be
allowed to vote, we might hope for a better gov-
ernment, more honest legislators, and more refine-
ment and elevation in our politics. A favorite
mode of expression with the advocates of woman-
suffrage in reference to the success of their project,
is to speak of it as " the emancipation of women ;"
and they often allude to " the coming freedom of
women." These phrases have grown out of the
recent emancipation of the colored race here, and
of the serfs in Russia ; but there is a fallacy in
their application to women. Emancipated from
what slavery, freed from what bondage, we may
ask ? That very many women are the slaves of
fashion, that they are in bondage to their love of
display, and ambition to excel others in dress and
equipage, is undoubtedly true ; but, so far as we can
understand these writers, this is not the sort of
slavery from which they expect emancipation.
There are other women who are, in some sort,
slaves and drudges to their houses scrubbing,
washing, sweeping, dusting, till every thing around
them is so painfully clean that they are in distress
lest somebody should soil it ; but neither is this
the bondage from which freedom is sought. We
will not think so badly of these women as to sup-
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 33^
pose that it is the matrimonial bond from which
they desire all women to be set free, though there
are undoubtedly some cases of oppression and
cruelty in married life ; and there are, very
probably, more bad and tyrannical husbands than
depraved and shrewish wives. Yet there are so
many happy and united families, in which this
bond of union is not in any respect allied to
slavery, that we can not believe these fair speakers
and writers have any design of establishing a sys-
tem of universal divorce.
What, then, can be this slavery from which
woman is to be emancipated, and how is her
emancipation to be accomplished ? It must be, to
many of the sex, an unconscious bondage, and to
a large majority, one from which they have no
desire to be freed.
Inquiry among the leaders of the woman-suffrage
movement on the subject, brings a variety of
answers. Miss Anthony will tell us, perhaps,
that it is " man the horrid creature from whom
woman desires to be set free. He has always
been the tyrant and oppressor of women in all
ages, and it is high time we were emancipated
from his sway." " Not quite so fast, Miss Susan,"
exclaim some of the other leaders, "you forget
that we have husbands, very good fellows, too,
who suffer us to do very much as we please, and
some of whom render us essential service by their
advocacy of our schemes j and then, too, there is
332 ARGUMENTS FOB WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
that dear, delightful George Francis Train, you
would not desire, surely, to be rid of him ?"
Well, then, if it is not men, nor husbands, nor
household drudgery, nor fashion, nor display,
from which you desire to be set free, dear ladies,
what is it ? The civil disabilities under which you
have labored in regard to inheritance, conducting
business in your own names, the punishment of
crimes against you, are fast passing away, and the
influence you can exert upon our legislatures, in
a quiet way, will be sufficient to remove whatever
traces of wrong may still remain. Evils which
can be removed by the exercise of your wills and
influence, clearly do not deserve the name of
slavery. You do not receive, perhaps, in all
employments, the wages you deserve and should
have ; but this is not slavery, since it is in your
own power, as we have shown, greatly to improve
your own condition in this respect, without insur-
rection or revolution, simply by abstaining from
undue competition with each other, by association,
and by co-operation.
The absence of the privilege of suffrage can not
be considered as slavery, for slavery is something
positive, not negative ; a direct oppression, not an
absence of a privilege which you have never
enjoyed; and if you call yourselves slaves from
the want of this, you have ample company, since
in no community of the United States do the
voters much exceed one-fifth of the entire popu-
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 333
lation. We might urge, also, that you are already
represented more efficiently than you could be by
a direct vote ; that your position in the organiza-
tion of human society is such, that you do not
need the ballot, and that your admission to the bal-
lot would only increase the aggregate vote, with-
out altering its character, except for the worse
the classes of women who would vote under influ-
ence being more numerous, proportionately, than
of men ; but we have already sufficiently stated
and illustrated these positions.
But admitting, for a moment, that this were the
only possible sense in which women could be said
to be in bondage, the question arises whether the
exercise of suffrage would give them the freedom
they crave. Women who voted might properly
be divided into two classes : a small one, who, hav-
ing made politics their study, voted independently ;
and a very large class, mostly dependent in one
way or another, who voted under the direction and
influence of others.
In regard to this latter class, we might well ask,
which would be the greater slave the woman who
did not vote, or the one who voted only under the
direction and dictation of others ?
As to the former, they would soon find that an
active interest in politics was the most engross-
ing and enslaving of all pursuits ; and from
woman's natural tendency to devote herself whol-
ly to any subject in which she becomes deeply
334 TFOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.
interested, we might expect to find her devotion
to politics make her the most abject of slaves.
We can not but regard this phrase, " the eman-
cipation of women," as an unfortunate one. It
expresses a fallacy and not a fact. In no con-
ceivable sense are the great mass of women slaves ;
and of course they are in no need of emancipation.
We are sometimes told that woman-suffrage is
not so new a thing after all ; that it was practiced
in New Jersey for thirty-three years. The state-
ment is true ; and as those thirty-three years were
between 1776 and 1807, a period when the doc-
trines of the Declaration of Independence might
be supposed to have exerted the greatest influence
on the minds of the Americans, it will be inter-
esting to examine into this practice of woman-
suffrage, and learn what were the circumstances
under which it was granted and subsequently
annulled. There have been so many erroneous
statements made on this subject, that we have
deemed it advisable to give in full the following
very complete history, compiled evidently from
the highest authorities, and originally published
in the Newark Daily Advertiser. We quote it
from Mrs. Ball's work r " The College, the Mar-
ket, and the Court," and when we add that it
was compiled by Lucy Stone and Antoinette
Blackwell, our readers will agree with us, that it
presents the woman's side of the question as fair-
ly as the facts will justify :
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY. 335
" In 1709, a provincial law confined the privilege
of voting to ( male freeholders having one hundred
acres of land in their own right, or fifty pounds
current money of the province in real and per-
sonal estate ;' and during the whole of the
colonial period these qualifications continued
unchanged.
" But on the 2d of July, 1776 (two days before
the Declaration of Independence), the Provincial
Congress of New Jersey, at Burlington; adopted
a Constitution, which remained in force until
1844, of which section 4 is as follows :
" ' Qualifications of Electors for Members of
Legislatures. All inhabitants of this colony, of full
age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-
money, clear estate in the same, and have resided
within the county in which they claim a vote, for
twelve months immediately preceding the elec-
tion, shall be entitled to vote for representatives
in Council and Assembly, and also for all other
public offices, that shall be elected by the people
of the county at large.'
"Section 7 provides that the Council and Assem-
bly, jointly, shall elect some Jit person within the
colony to be governor. This Constitution remained
in force until 1844.
" Thus, by a deliberate change of the terms,
( male freeholder,' to i all inhabitants,' suffrage
and ability to hold the highest office in the State
were conferred both upon women and negroes.
13*
336 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.
" In 1790, a committee of the legislature
reported a bill regulating elections, in which the
words ' he or she,' are applied to voters ; thus
giving legislative indorsement to the alleged
meaning of the Constitution.
" In 1797, the Legislature passed an act to
regulate elections, containing the following pro-
visions :
" ' Sec. 9. Every voter shall openly, and in full
view, deliver his or her ballot, which shall be a
single written ticket, containing the names of the
person or persons for whom he or she votes, &c.
" * Sec. 11. All free inhabitants of full age, who
are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, and
have resided within the county in which they
claim a vote, for twelve months immediately pre-
ceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for
all public officers which shall be elected by virtue
of this act ; and no person shall be entitled to vote
in any other township or precinct than that in
which he or she doth actually reside at the time
of the election.'
" Mr. William A. Whitehead, of Newark, in a
paper upon this subject, read by him in 1858,
before the New Jersey Historical Society, states
that, in this same year (1797), women voted at
an election in Elizabethtown for members of the
Legislature. ' The candidates between whom the
greatest rivalry existed, were John Condit and
Wm. Crane, the heads of what were known, a year
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY. 337
or two later, as the " Federal Republican," and
" Federal Aristocratic " parties the former the
candidate of Newark and the northern portions of
the county ; the latter, that of Elizabethtown and
the adjoining country, for Council. Under the
impression that the candidates would poll nearly
the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown
leaders thought that, by a bold coup d'etat, they
might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late
hour of the day, and, as I have been informed,
just before the close of the poll, a number of
females were brought up, and, under the provi-
sions of the existing laws, allowed to vote. But
the maneuver was unsuccessful ; the majority for
Mr. Condit in the county being ninety-three, not-
withstanding.'
" The Newark Sentinel, about the same time,
states that ' no less than seventy-five women voted
at the late election in a neighboring borough.'
In the Presidential election of 1800, between
Adams and Jefferson, ( females voted very
generally throughout the State ; and such con-
tinued to be the case until the passage of the act
(1807) excluding them from the polls. At first
the law had been so construed as to admit single
women only ; but, as the practice extended, the con-
struction of the privilege became broader, and was
made to include females eighteen years old, married
or single, and even women of color; at a contested
election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the votes
338 "WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.
of two or three such actually electing a member
of the Legislature.'
" That women voted at a very early period, we
are informed by the venerable Mr. Cyrus Jones,
of East Orange, who was born in 1770, and is now
ninety-seven years old. He says that ' old maids,
widows, and unmarried women very frequently
voted, but married women very seldom;' that 'the
right was recognized, and very little said or
thought about it in any way.'
" In the spring of 1807, a special election was
held in Essex County, to decide upon the location
of a court-house and jail ; Newark and its vicinity
struggling to retain the county buildings, Elizabeth-
town and its neighborhood striving to remove them
to Day's Hill.
" The question excited intense interest, as the
value of every man's property was thought to be
involved. Not only was every legal voter, man
or woman, white or black, brought out, but, on
both sides, gross frauds were practiced.*
*Mrs. Ball had the opportunity, in 1867, of conversing with Mr.
Parker, a venerable member of the Society of Friends, who was a mem-
ber of the New Jersey Legislature of 1807, and, we believe, one of the
committee who reported the bill repealing this provision of the Consti-
tution. Mr. Parker told her " that the women were not at that time
anxious to retain the privilege (of voting) ; but that if they had been,
the Legislature was so irate that the change would have taken place.
Lads, both white and colored, and under age, had dressed in women's
cloches, to swell the ballot, which was more than double what it should
have been ; the irritating question being the possible removal of the
county buildings.
Mr. Wliitehead states, in a communication to the Rev. George B.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY. 339
" The property qualification was generally disre-
garded ; aliens, and boys and girls not of full age,
participated, and many of both sexes 'voted early,
and voted often.' In Acquackanonk township,
thought to contain about three hundred legal
voters, over eighteen hundred votes were polled,
all but seven in the interest of Newark.
" It does not appear that either women or negroes
were more especially implicated in these frauds
than the white men. But the affair caused great
scandal, and they seem to have been made the
scape-goats.
" When the Legislature assembled they set
aside the election as fraudulent ; yet Newark re-
tained the buildings. Then they passed an act
(Nov. 15, 1807) restricting the suffrage to white
male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, resi-
dents in the county for the twelve months preced-
ing, and worth fifty pounds proclamation-money.
But they went on, and provided that all such
whose names appeared on the last duplicate of
State or county taxes should be considered worth
fifty pounds ; thus virtually abolishing the property
qualification.
" In 1820, the same provisions were repeated,
and maintained until 1844, when the present State
Constitution was substituted.
Bacon of Orange, N. J., quoted in Rev. Dr. Bushnell's "Women's
Suffrage The Reform against Nature." page 111, that "the women
voted, not only once, but as often as by the change of dress, or com-
plicity of the inspectors, they might be able to repeat the process."
340 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.
" Thus it appears, that from 1776 to 1807 a
period of thirty-one years the right of women and
negroes to vote was admitted and exercised ; then
from 1807 to 1844 by an arbitrary act of the
Legislature, which does not seem to have been
ever contested the constitutional right was sus-
pended, and both women and negroes excluded
from the polls for thirty-seven years more. The
extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of
1776, to ; all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed
qualifications, was doubtless due to the Quaker
influence, then strong in West Jersey, and then,
as now, in favor of the equal rights of women.
"Since 1844, under the present Constitution,
suffrage is conferred upon ' every white male
citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-
one years, who shall have been a resident of this
State one year, and the county in which he
claims a vote, five months next before the elec-
tion,' excepting paupers, idiots, insane persons,
and criminals.
" This Constitution is subject to amendment by
a majority of both houses of two successive Legis-
latures, when such amendment is afterward rati-
fied by the people at a special election.
"Lucr STONE,
"A. B. BLACKWELL."
It is worthy of notice, that this voting was
under a freehold or property qualification, one
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.
which would, of course, exclude the dependent
and vicious classes almost entirely ; yet the result
was so deplorable in the first case in which there
was a warmly contested election, that the Legis-
lature felt compelled to prohibit further voting by
women, in order to put an end to the scandal. If
such was the result under all these restrictions,
what might be expected in the almost unlimited
freedom of universal suffrage ? If such things
were done in the green tree, what would be done
in the dry ?
CHAPTER XX.
AMOTTG the arguments for bestowing suffrage
upon woman to the same extent to which it is
exercised by man, perhaps the one most frequently
reiterated by its advocates, is that it would have
such an elevating effect upon woman, that it
would inspire her with higher hopes, loftier ideas?
and greater energy in working out her destiny.
With that singular incapacity for logical reason-
ing, and that lack of practicality, which are such
marked characteristics of many of these female or-
ators, some have insisted that the ballot would at
once raise female wages to a fair rate, would in-
crease the social consideration of women, cause
politicians to interest themselves in finding offices
and places for them, and would prevent any of
them from lacking remunerative employment.
One of these orators exclaims : " Shall Sena-
tors 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 bread
at starving-prices with the needle !"
We might reply, very justly, that there is no
necessary, hardly any possible, connection between
the premise and conclusion of this plea; that
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 343
the ballot can neither hinder nor help these forty
thousand women (the number, by the way, is
greatly exaggerated) in regard to the starving-
prices at which they are earning their bread by
the needle. All this we have shown conclusively
elsewhere in this volume. But we prefer to let
one of their own sex, a gifted woman, and a
believer in the abstract right of woman-suffrage,
answer them : *
" 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 can not 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 any thing for which their constitution or
their education has not fitted them, and I do not
know of any law now, which prevents them from
doing any thing 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 be, in proportion to the population, insignifi-
cant."
The same writer meets with still greater clear-
* Gail Hamilton (Miss A. M. Dodge), in her " Woman's Wrongs : a
Couu ter-Irritant.' '
344 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
ness and force, the other claims which the adva-
cates of woman-suffrage urge with such perti-
nacity. We quote her views the more readily,
because, though she holds to woman-suffrage, as
an abstract right of the sex, she is too clear-
sighted and sensible to expect from it any of the
thousand benefits which some of its advocates
predict :
" Is it said that the impetus given to women
by the social elevation consequent on the posses-
sion 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 ?
" But how is this work to be wrought ? Does
the possession of the ballot really mark any prac-
tical 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, or,
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.
ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 345
Much real power of expression, much actual influ-
ence they possess, which men do not. They have
no consciousness of inferiority. Those women
who are wise and thoughtful, who understand pol-
itics, political and historical, 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 self-respect, will not be touched by suffrage.
The influence of any woman's vote is slight, com-
pared 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 accom-
plishment will the ballot raise them up into dig-
nified 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 pros-
pect of any definite advantage from female suffrage ;
but I fear not. If women can live in the deep,
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 enfran-
chise them. All this is no reason for withholding
it. I only intimate that such withholding can not
be considered the cause of the apathy which pre-
346 ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
vails, 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 miss-
ing the ballot ? What barrier will it remove ; 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 free-
dom which she has the nerve to secure. Preju-
dice 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, excel-
lence, without the ballot, will remove. Art, lit-
erature, science, theology, medicine, all lie in
her manor, but how largely are they left unculti-
vated ! 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 follow-
ers 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
WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO. 347
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-mor-
row, the right of suffrage, there would not be any
more female lawyers, preachers, artists, doctors,
than there are to-day. 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 in-
tention, and she will have a larger audience than
a man of similar ability, and she will have at least
an equally appreciative hearing. If she can sus-
tain herself, she will be sustained by the public.
Still we have not reached the masses the
women who have no inward, irresistible bent to
any thing, who have no ambition for a career, but
who must earn their own living who, while the
leaders are conquering all opposition, all circum-
348 WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO.
stances, still remain, thirty-nine thousand 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 employ-
ments it will give them,' say its advocates, but
they do not specify ten ; indeed, I can not 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 can not spend all my pity upon
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 peaceful, through the advent of forty
thousand intelligent American servants. These
forty thousand women are starving over their
needles, but if a busy house-mother 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 dressmaker
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
WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO. 349
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 milli-
ners 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 servile and cringing dependence ? It is
because they have not the requisite skill or
money ; but of these they can not 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 let-
ters 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 inaccu-
rately, that her work is worthless. Here is a
pretty, bright young woman, engaged with a
room full of companions in a similar work, and
actually boasting that her employers ' can not do
any thing 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 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
350 WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO.
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, com-
mon pay ; and there are such multitudes of
them that their employer has every thing 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. The
laws of supply and demand are just as rigorous as if
the brutal and profane head-shopman were a wood-
en 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 be-
tween employer and employed the law seldom
touches but to disturb. l 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 in-
dividual, to decrease itself and to increase the
citizen, is it performing the true function of gov-
ernment. But if women are prevented from
WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO.
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 thou-
sands of families to which, if an intelligent, virtu-
ous, and ordinarily healthful woman should go and
say, ' I have been starving with my needle, and
I desire now to try housework. I know very lit-
tle 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 exer-
cising those virtues and graces which every human
being ought to exercise by being faithful, good-
humored, and efficient, she could speedily be-
come an honored and valued member of the fam-
ily, 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 starv-
ing because she has no food in her hands, when
a woman is starving by her side because she has
14
352 WHAT WOMAN SUFFRAGE CANNOT DO.
no hands for her food ? I feel indignant when I
hear these multiplied stories of wholesale desti-
tution. I am disposed to say to these women :
If you choose to stay at home and perish, rather
than go 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 wretch-
ed homes ; but if those who are unencumbered
would resort to the kitchens of the rich, it would
relieve the stress of competition ; those who re.
main 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 complamt
and outcry. If it were picking apples or gather-
ing 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 constantly
desire for him artistic employment ; but if he
could by no means succeed in securing it, we
should certainly advise him to chop wood, how-
ever disagreeable wood-chopping be to him, rather
than die ; and if he choose to shiver and starve at
his home, rather than come and cut my woor*, for
want of which I stand shivering, I should take
his starvation with great equanimity. So with
THE PRESENT SUFFRAGE EXCITEMENT. 353
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
the 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.' "
We can very readily understand how it should
come to pass that there should be at this time
so much excitement on the question of woman-
suffrage. The late war called into sudden and
beneficent activity thousands of heroic, brave wo-
men ; tested by its great emergencies, lifted above
themselves by its grand excitements, they found
themselves capable, while the stress lasted, of won-
derful deeds, as surprising to themselves as to any
one else. Well-educated women, hitherto distrust-
ful of their own powers, undertook, and with success,
the management of great enterprises of mingled
philanthropy and business; they kept, with perfect
accuracy, complicated and difficult sets of books
of account, packed and shipped goods, sometimes
to the amount of millions of dollars, superintended
hospitals, arranging all the details with the most
perfect system and order, improvised hospital
comforts and luxuries from the most unpromising
materials, visited camps and battle-fields, remaining
sometimes under fire when the most stout-hearted
men retreated. They roused the occasionally
354 THE PRESENT SUFFRAGE EXCITEMENT.
flagging contributions of the country, by eloquent
appeals, and sometimes by oral addresses of such
deep pathos, that large audiences would be affect-
ed to tears, and what was more to the purpose, to
the most bounteous giving ; and in all ways devel-
oped powers of the possession of which they had
previously no consciousness. It is greatly to the
honor of these noble women, that at the close of
the war, after three or four years of the most
intense and wearing excitement which human
nature was capable of enduring, they should have
gone back to their homes, as quietly and with as
little seeming consciousness of the great work
they had accomplished, as if their years of toil
had been but a pleasant pastime. And yet they
were greatly changed. The pale face, the occa-
sional expression of intense weariness, a weari-
ness which the grave alone could hide, the abstract-
ed gaze, as if the soul was looking back on all it
had seen and suffered, these alone would have suf-
ficed to show that there was a change from their
girlish gayety, or their womanly self-possession.
But the change was far deeper than this. The
development of higher gifts, and a more profound
and thoughtful nature than they had previously
been conscious of, made the frivolities and super-
ficiality of their old life intolerable. Hencefor-
ward, except where the vital powers had been
so much overtasked that they could not rally,
their lives must be passed in unresting activ-
THE PRESENT SUFFRAGE EXCITEMENT. 355
ity. To them the poet's words were deeply sig-
nificant
Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
To some these opportunities for activity came
in the shape of philanthropic enterprises : the care
of hospitals, the ministering to the sick and sor-
rowing, the instruction and elevation of the igno-
rant and degraded, the rescue of the imperiled
or fallen, or the care of the orphaned, the home-
less, or the tempted. Into all these institutions
they infused a new life and power, and showed
that they were in their true vocation.
Some (a comparatively small number) in whom
the consciousness of power dominated over the
claims of the ordinary philanthropies, believed
themselves called to a wider sphere of action ; to
the inauguration of reforms in society, in political
life, in the very organization of government.
Aware of what they had been able to accomplish
amid the white-heat of a great civil war, and not
having hitherto reached the limit of their intellec-
tual abilities, they went forward fearlessly, but
found themselves, presently, hampered by unex-
pected obstacles, and learned, to their cost, that
there were bounds which they could not pass. It
was natural that the efforts of this class should be
early directed to the acquisition of suffrage for
356 THE PRESENT SUFFRAGE EXCITEMENT.
women ; and that they should cherish undue ex-
pectations from it. Had they not demonstrated
that they possessed equal executive abilities, equal
business capacities with men? and looking upon
their owji grand achievements with a kind of
proud humility, they said : " What we have done,
our sisters could have accomplished under similar
circumstances ;" if, then, they were capable of
doing men's work, even in its higher, perhaps its
highest, callings, why should they not enjoy all
men's privileges? Why, indeed?
But they have yet to learn, and some of them
are slower in acquiring this lesson than any other,
that there is a higher sphere of action for
woman than the enjoyment of man's prerogatives
or the usurpation of his duties and labors. He
who, in his blessed word, has taught us the true
relations of the sexes, and has made us to under-
stand that woman's nature is the complement of
man's, and that both are necessary to make up the
unit of a perfect humanity, has also demonstrated
to us in the type of this perfect humanity, the
God-man, Christ Jesus, that the subject-condition
in this life is the one of the highest honor, and
that in the future it will receive the greatest
glory. " For even the Son of Man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many." If, then, the Divine Re-
deemer, the only perfect representative of the com-
plete human nature, has thus glorified the subject-
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN 357
condition by himself assuming it, and only laying
it aside with his mortal life (since one of his last
acts before his crucifixion was to engage in the
office of washing his disciples' feet), how confi-
dently may those who, in the like spirit, have
submitted to the subject-condition here, look
forward to that glorious future, when they shall
be as the angels which excel in strength, still, in-
deed, the ministers of God's will, laut ministers
crowned with glory and honor. This subject-con-
dition did not, in the case, of Jesus Christ, and
does not in theirs, imply any thing necessarily
humiliating or degrading ; it is rather in itself one
of honor and responsibility.
The work to which these brave, heroic spirits
are called, is not, indeed, one of political revolu-
tion ; it is something higher and better. The army
of the Union to which they with others ministered
was a great one, and the care of its sick and
wounded tasked their highest powers ; but they
are now called, if they will but heed the call, to a
greater ministry, to ameliorate more wide-spread
suffering, to do a grander work. Be it theirs, by
associated and organized effort, to promote the
practical education of the humbler classes of their
own sex, to elevate them from the slough of pov-
erty and despondency, in which so many of them
are sunk, not by the gifts of an indiscriminate
charity, but by kindly sympathy, encouragement,
and counsel ; protecting them from oppression and
358 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
wrong, aiding even their feeblest efforts to strug-
gle up to a higher position ; assisting in the at-
tempts of both husbands and wives to escape from
the bondage of intemperance and its concomitant
evils ; facilitating the acquisition of trades and
other forms of skilled labor by the young ; encour-
aging and helping the organization of associations
to prevent overcrowding and undue competition in
the lower grades of work where they produce the
greatest suffering; explaining and enforcing the
benefits of co-operative labor and supplies ; and,
where it is necessary, invoking earnestly the legal
protection of the interests, temporal and moral,
of women.
Here is a vast and most beneficent work a
work which will give ample employment to the
intellects and activities of thousands of our most
accomplished women, and which will confer, if right-
ly managed, untold benefits upon the women of our
country. Were the ballot the agency for good
which its most enthusiastic advocates describe it,
one week of such work as we have here indicated
would accomplish more for the advantage of Amer-
ican women, than could be gained from the ballot
in all the ages of the future.
It would be a ministry, a service, it is true ;
and those who engaged in it would be, in the best
sense, the servants of the Most High ; but, in thus
following the example of Him, who went about
doing good, they would find their work and ser
WORK FOB GIFTED WOMEN. 359
vice compatible with the greatest joy and the
highest honor.*
* Mr. J. Stuart Mill, in some of the most eloquent passages of the
closing chapter of his book on " The Subjection of Women," thus be-
moans the condition of these women, qualified for a life of active useful-
ness, but who are, as he thinks, denied any suitable outlets for their
activity : " There is nothing, after disease, indigence, and guilt, so fatal
to the pleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for
the active faculties. Women who have the cares of a family, have thig
outlet, and it generally suffices for them ; but what of the greatly in-
creasing number of women, who have had no opportunity of exercising
the avocation which they are mocked by telling them is their proper
one? What of the women whose children have been lost to them by
death or distance, or have grown up, married, and formed homes of their
own? There are abundant examples of men who, after a life engrossed
by business, retire with a competency to the enjoyment, as they hope,
of rest, but to whom, as they are unable to acquire new interests and
excitements that can replace the old, the change to a life of inactivity
brings ennui, melancholy, and premature death. Tet no one thinks of
the parallel case of so many worthy and devoted women, who, having
paid what they are told is their debt to society having brought up a
family blamelessly to manhood and womanhood having kept a house
as long as they had a house needing to be kept are deserted by the
sole occupation for which they have fitted themselves ; and remain with
undiminished activity but with no employment for it, unless, perhaps,
a daughter or daughter-in-law is willing to abdicate, in their favor, the
discharge of the same functions in her younger household. Surely a
hard lot for the old age of those who have worthily discharged, as long
as it was given to them to discharge, what the world accounts their only
social duty. Of such women, and of those others to whom this duty has
not been committed at all many of whom pine through life with the
consciousness of thwarted vocations, and activities which are not
suffered to expand the only resources, speaking generally, are religion
and charity. But their religion, though it may be one of feeling and of
ceremonial observance, can not be a religion of action, unless in the form
of charity. For charity many of them are by nature admirably fitted ;
but to practice it usefully, or even without doing mischief, requires the
education, the manifold preparation, the knowledge, and the thinking
powers, of a skillful administrator. There are few of the administrative
functions of government for which a person would not be fit, who is fit
14* W
360 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
We honor the efforts of those who seek to res-
cue from the paths of the destroyer those who
have become the slaves of lust; theirs is an
arduous but a blessed work ; yet, how much
more blessed is the work of those who rescue
from temptation those who have not yet fallen !
She who has not sinned has great advantages over
to bestow charity usefully. In this, as in other cases (pre-eminently in
that of t' e education of children), the duties permitted to women can not
be performed properly without their being trained for duties which, to
the great loss of society, are not permitted to them. . . .
"If there is any thing vitally important to the happiness of human
beings, it is that they should relish their habitual pursuit. This requisite
of enjoyable life is very imperfectly granted, or altogether denied, to a
large part of mankind ; and by its absence many a life is a failure, which
i. provided, in appearance, with every requisite of success. But if circum-
stances, which society is not yet skillful enough to overcome, render such
failures often for the present inevitable, society need not itself inflict
them. The injudiciousness of parents, a youth's own inexperience, or
the absence of external opportunities for the congenial vocation, and their
presence for an uncongenial, condemn numbers of men to pass their
lives in doi..g one thing reluctantly and ill, when there are other things
which they could have done well and happily. But on women this sen-
tence is imposed by actual law, and by customs equivalent to law.
What, in unenlightened societies, color, race, religion, or in the case of a
conquered country, nationality, are to some men, s x is to all women ;
a peremptory exclusion from almost all honorable occupations, but either
such as can not be fulfilled by others, or such as those others do not
think worthy of their acceptance. Sufferings arising from causes of
this nature usually meet with so little sympathy, that few persons are
aware of the great amount of unhappiness even now produced by the
feeling of a wasted life. The case will be even more frequent, as in-
creased cultivation creates a greater and greater disproportion between
the ideas and faculties of women and the scope which society allows to
their activity." We have, we think, demonstrated in the passage which
precedes this note, that for the classes whose lack of enjoyable employ-
ment Mr. Mill so eloquently deplores, there is something better than the
ballot, and better than that indiscriminate dispensation of charity which
he seems to regard as their only other resource.
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
her erring, but repentant sister. How much of
sin and bitter repentance may be prevented . by
such labors as we have indicated; how many
homes now desolated by vice may be made happy ;
and how many wives and mothers, in imminent
danger of falling, may be held up and made to
stand firmly ! How many abodes of wretched-
ness and filth may, by kindly counsel and instruc-
tion, be made comfortable and cheerful homes !
An organization somewhat akin to this, though
more distinctly religious, has been established in
Germany by the philanthropist, Wichern, and some
associates, male and female, of kindred spirit, un-
der the name of " The Inner Mission," and it has
accomplished a vast amount of good. Let us have
our " Inner Mission " here, and let those noble
women who showed such executive and adminis-
trative ability during the late war, be its founders
and managers.
There are other fields of effort yet open to
this newly-awakened activity of woman ; fields in
which she may exhaust the aspirations of her
nature, without ever reaching their bounds. Are
her tastes and sympathies interested in the pro-
motion of high art ? Is " a thing of beauty a joy
forever " to her ? How wide is the scope for the
exercise of her powers of invention, creation, and
combination ? In painting, in sculpture, in those
arts of design which are of humbler name, she
may aid in enlightening and beautifying the world,
362 WORK FOB GIFTED WOMEN.
and if her highly cultivated taste excel her pow-
ers of execution, how easily may she, as the friend
and patron of artists, give them that appreciative
encouragement which is often more cheering to
their sensitive natures than the most lavish ex-
penditure without intelligent interest.
There are other realms of art, too, in which
woman reigns of right. In music, she can, if
endowed with a fine and flexible voice, thoroughly
trained, move the heart and thrill the soul, as no
man ever did or can. And this is not, as some
have supposed, because the soprano voice is so
much more effective than the tenor, but because
the woman puts more soul into her singing, and
forgetting her own consciousness, is borne heaven-
ward by the exalted strains, while the man almost
inevitably thrusts his own personality into his
music.
And what is true of music, is also, in a less
degree, perhaps, true of poetry. The elements
of the true poetic nature are oftener found in
woman than man; and the sole reason why wo-
men have not oftener been successful in attaining
the loftier heights of poetry, has been that they
have been too much afraid to abandon themselves
to its best inspirations ; they have mingled too
often their own personality with the great thoughts
which sought utterance. The genuine poets of
the future will, many of them, be women. In
still another department of art, now degraded by
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN. 353
the utter want of good taste, and in which the
worst possible contrivances of women, alike devoid
of intellectual and moral capacity for their work,
have been eagerly copied, the artistic designing
and planning of woman's dress, there is a wide
scope for the genius of highly cultured and gifted
women.
What an admirable means of instruction in the
principles of beauty in form, lines, design, and
color, might dress be made. How complete its
adaptation to the figure, complexion, and bearing
of the wearer. And how might economy, both in
style and cost of material, be made compatible
with elegance and excellence. We should be
delivered from those hideous designs, whose only
object seems to be to transform the most trans-
cendent beauty into a thorough fright ; and in the
reign of exquisite taste which would ensue, the
eye would no longer be pained, nor the heart sick-
ened, by the grotesque deformities Avhich are now
palmed upon society as the latest fashions.
There would be a positive gain to our systems
of education, both the public and the charitable,
if they were to a much greater extent than they
now are, under the control and supervision of
thoroughly trained, sensible women. The deacon-
esses and Protestant sisterhoods in Europe, train-
ed to educational and charitable labors, and the
Sisters of the Sacred Heart and of Mercy in the
Catholic Church, accomplish great good in their
364 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
several spheres, in bringing the children of the
middle and poorer classes under instruction. Or-
ganized and persistent effort is greatly needed in
this country, especially in our great cities, to
bring the vast numbers of vagrant and truant chil-
dren into schools. It is estimated that, in New
York and Brooklyn alone, one hundred and fifty
thousand children, between the ages of five and
sixteen years, never enter a school ; and from
these hordes of young vagrants, the criminal classes
are constantly recruited. By systematized and
judicious effort, much can be done to educate and
train up these children aright ; and women must
do it, if it is to be done successfully.
Another wide field of activity for these women
who desire to be useful, is to be found in the
management of charitable and benevolent institu-
tions. The reformatories, homes for the friend-
less, orphan and half-orphan asylums, homes for
the aged and infirm, schools for feeble-minded and
imbecile children, nurseries, creches, children's
and foundling hospitals, asylums for consumptives
and incurables, industrial schools for girls, work-
ing-women's homes, houses of correction, homes
for fallen women, and all the wide range of refor-
matory, corrective, and charitable institutions, will
generally succeed better under the management
of able and judicious women, than under the
charge of men ; and though the experiment has
not yet been tried on a large scale, we incline to
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN. 355
the belief that they would prove skillful in the
management of deaf-mute and blind asylums.
Every thing depends, of course, upon the selection
of women for these posts, since a pragmatic,
wrong-headed, or otherwise incompetent woman,
could, even to a greater extent than a man of the
same character, do almost irreparable injury to
the institution.
But for women possessing the high abilities and
the ardent piety, which are the necessary qualifi-
cations for the work, there is no sphere where
there is so great an opportunity of usefulness as
is to be found in connection with the Christian
Church. She who lays her intellectual gifts, her
graces, her superior culture, and her ability, to
plan and work for Christ and his Church, upon
the altar, brings a noble sacrifice. Foreign mis-
sions call loudly on our women of culture and
talent, for recruits to the heroic band who have
been for years struggling with the darkness of
heathen minds, the powerful influence of caste,
the degrading doctrines of Brahminism and Mo-
hammedanism, in relation to the future life of
woman, and the general condition of depression
and wretchedness of the sex on the Asiatic and
African continents.
Formerly, women who went out to the East, as
the wives of missionaries, were looked upon as a
sort of necessary evil ; little or nothing was ex-
pected from them in the way of missionary labor,
366 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
and some of the missionary boards preferred that
the missonary should be a celibate. More than
once was the question argued in the meetings of
these boards, whether the wives were not, on the
whole, a hinderance, rather than a help, to the
success of their husbands.
The remarkable efficiency of many of these
women in a few years overcame these prejudices,
and now, not only is it considered desirable that
every male missionary should have a wife, who
will be a help-meet for him in his labors, and who
will take an active part in teaching, and exerting
her influence for the elevation of her sex from the
ignorance and degradation which now surround
them, but very considerable numbers of single
women are sent out as teachers of the heathen
women, on a wider scale than had previously been
attempted, and preparations are making to estab-
lish Christian women, educated as physicians, in
Mohammedan, Hindoo, and Chinese countries,
because they can reach their own sex in the high-
er classes through their professions, where men
could obtain no access to them. In these various
classes of duties, there is a field for as many
women as will devote themselves to the work.
But the home-field is not less importunate in its
demands for more laborers than the foreign. On
the frontier, the wives of home-missionaries, and
female missionary teachers, will find ample scope
for work which will accomplish more for the men-
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN. 357
tal and moral improvement of these States of the
future, than almost any other agency.
In our great cities and towns, and even to a
considerable extent in the more scattered farming
districts, the necessity for mission schools, for
friendly Christian visitation from house to house,
for Sunday-school instruction among the ignorant,
poor, and vagrant classes, for those ministrations
to temporal necessities which are so often the
means of calling the minds of these poor people to
the consideration of religious truth, and the thou-
sand other methods of reaching the lower classes
for their good, are already employing the thoughts,
the hearts, and the hands of many Christian
women ; but the number might and should be
greatly increased. This is a work which money
alone can not do ; money is needed, undoubtedly,
and our Christian, philanthropic men, may be
relied upon with considerable certainty, to furnish
that they have never yet been found wanting,
when properly approached for such causes but
what is absolutely indispensable is, that personal
effort and influence which women of tact and
high religious enthusiasm can best exert.
There is still another department of this field in
which educated and refined Christian women can
do a work whose influences shall be felt through
all coming time. There are, in all our large cities,
many thousands of young men who have come
thither to fill places as clerks, errand boys, and
368 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
apprentices to the various mechanical and manu-
facturing occupations. They have left country
homes often where they were under good influ-
ences, and have come to the great city, where they
are homeless and friendless. The cheerless board-
ing-house, with its hall bedrooms and untidy table,
does not invite their stay in it a moment longe 1
than can be helped ; and they go forth into the
streets to satisfy their craving for society and enter-
tainment, two wants which are uppermost in their
minds. Satan takes good care that neither of these
shall be lacking on his side. The friendless, lonely
young man, unguarded by any strong religious
principle, is not long at a loss for either compan-
ionship or pleasure in a great city. On every
hand, the theater, the concert-saloon, the beer-gar*
den, the billiard-room, glowing with light and
beauty, stand conspicuously before him, and
places of even baser character are not hard te
find. To keep these young men from such resorts
there must be other resorts, also glowing witb
brightness and beauty, where wholesome not dul/
entertainment and pleasant society may attrac'
and keep the yet unhardened from the dangerous
influences surrounding them.
The " Young Men's Christian Associations " are
doing a good work in this direction, but they neec
help such help as Christian employers can give
by taking a careful interest in the intellectual an
spiritual welfare of all those in their employ,
WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN. 359
seeing to it, personally, that they have suitable
companionship and proper sources of entertain-
ment ; and, above all, they need help from noble
Christian women. No attraction to good is so pow-
erful to young men of this class, as the influence
and notice of pure, gentle, and intelligent women.
Their influence is, beyond comparison, greater
than that of all others with these youths, who have
left tender and pure-minded mothers and sisters in
their far-away homes.* If attracted away from,
the haunts of vice, and strengthened in all good
purposes and virtuous undertakings, they will
become, in a few years, proprietors and employers,
where they are now clerks and apprentices. Then,
how vast will be the power which they will exert
for good in the community a power due almost
wholly to the influence of these Christian women,
who, at the cost, doubtless, of a considerable sacri-
fice of their feelings and natural reserve, have won
them from the haunts of vanity and sin, to become,
under their guidance, honorable, high-minded
Christian men.
Several of the Christian churches in Europe,
and three or four denominations in this country,
have been in the habit for some years of setting
apart, by some simple form of consecration,
after suitable instruction and training, such
* We are gratified to learn that, in New York City, a considerable
number of excellent and philanthropic women have banded themselves
together for this and other humane purposes, under the appropriate
title of "Sisters of the Stranger."
370 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
women as felt that they were called to the work,
as deaconesses, or, as they are called in some of
the churches, "Protestant Sisters."
The work of the deaconesses is, in general, vis-
iting and nursing the sick, ministering to the poor,
gathering the poor and vagrant children into paro-
chial schools, and, in some instances, teaching
them ; encouraging and aiding those who have not
attended church to do so, assisting the clergymen
under whose general direction they work, in such
of his pastoral duties as may come within their
range, and less frequently, though to a consider-
able extent, nursing in and superintending hospit-
als and asylums, acting as matrons and managers
in Magdalen asylums, penitentiaries, and prisons
for women.
The Deaconesses' Institute at Kaiserswerth, on
the Rhine, long under the care of its founder,
Pastor Fliedner, and now conducted by his widow
and daughters, is the best known of all these, in
part from the fact that Florence Nightingale
received her special training there. It has sent
out several hundred deaconesses, who are mostly
at work in Europe, Asia, Africa, -and America.
They enter upon their work for five years, but
take no vow, and are at liberty to marry if they
choose. Most of them continue in their work
beyond the five years, and if they remain in it till
disabled by illness, infirmity, or old age, they have
a home at Kaiserswerth to which they are wel-
WORK FOB GIFTED WOMEN.
corned, and where they spend the evening of their
days. This institute is under the care of the
Lutheran Church. A somewhat similar institution,
at Strasburg, under the care of the Protestant
Reformed Church of France, has also accomplished
a great amount of good. Smaller establishments
exist in the Dordogne, under the care of Pastor
Bost ; in Paris, also under the direction of the
Protestant Reformed Church ; at Basle, in connec-
tion, we believe, with the Basle Missionary Society,
and in some other towns of Central Europe. la
England, the organization of sisterhoods has been
a High Church, and to some extent a ritualistic
development ; and though they have accomplished
some good, it has caused a prejudice against them
that they copied too closely the objectionable fea.
tures of the Catholic order of Sisters of Charity.
That order, despite its life vows, its peculiar cos-
tume, its lack of a broad and generous culture, its
fanaticism, and its zeal in propagating under all
circumstances and at all times the Romish faith,
has accomplished a vast amount of good, and has
given Romanism a more powerful hold on the
hearts of the masses, than all its other agencies.
In this country, the Lutherans, the Moravians, the
Mennonites, the Tunkers, and, in a few instances,
the Congregational churches, have had and still
have their deaconesses ; not always trained like
those of the European institutions, but always
selected from those who manifested a vocation for
372 WORK FOR GIFTED WOMEN.
the work. Analogous to these, in some particulars,
are the women preachers and elders among the
Friends. Some churches, and at least one diocese
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, have favored
the establishment of sisterhoods, trained to this
philanthropic and Christian work, from some of
which (notably the Sisterhood of the Holy Com-
munion in New York, and a similar organization
in Baltimore, under the direct patronage of Bishop
Whittingham) were sent some of the most accom-
plished nurses and lady superintendents of hospi-
tals who served in those capacities during the war.
We have been thus particular in our review of
the work which still demands the exertion of the
marvelous energies, the great abilities, and the
remarkable administrative powers of the women
who were the glory and pride of our country
during the recent war, for the purpose of showing
to them that their time and intellect need not be
frittered away on such insignificant objects as
woman-suffrage, but that they can find " ample
scope and verge enough" for the exercise of all
their powers, in the great duties which we have
spread before them. There are those among
them, we feel certain, who will rise, there are
some, indeed, who have already risen " to the
height of this great argument," and we can not but
commend their example to those of their sisters
who seek but to know their duty, and are willing,
so soon as it is known, to do it with their might.
CHAPTER XXI.
WERE we to estimate the importance of the
movement for woman-suffrage, by the force of the
arguments of the women who have undertaken its
advocacy in this country, we should deem the
labor we have bestowed on the subject as well
nigh lost, for there can be no serious discussion,
when one of the parties puts forth only words
without argument. There can be no doubt that
Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and the other eight
or ten ladies who have made themselves conspicu-
ous in this movement, possess considerable talent ;
they ought to be familiar with the whole subject
of woman-suffrage, for some of them have been
declaiming in its favor for twenty years and
more ; if there are any strong arguments for it,
they certainly should have them at their fingers'
ends ; but, after a careful reading of their ad-
dresses and speeches, and a frequent perusal of the
Revolution their organ we have failed to find
any thing which could be, by courtesy, called an
argument, in favor of what they claim to be the
greatest reform of the century. There is decla-
mation in plenty; exaggerated and inaccurate sta-
tistics of the number of working-women who are
374 SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
starving for want of the ballot ; of the number of
the impoverished and vicious classes ; careless mis-
representations of the arguments against woman-
suffrage; the most laughable non sequiturs, from
assumed, but false premises ; sharp, and sometimes
witty flings against opponents, and a great amount
of froth and fury, utterly irrelevant to the subject ;
but of real argument, not a word.
Of course there is nothing to answer in such
ebullitions ; and, were it not that a few writers
elsewhere, among them Mr. Mill and Mrs. Ball,
have brought forward all the arguments which
can be adduced in its favor, we should have
deemed it the wiser course to let the public judge
of the cause by their weak defense of it, satisfied
that they could make no considerable progress with
thoughtful minds.
Many of Mr. Mill's arguments do not apply to
the condition of affairs here, being written for the
people of England, where the property-qualifica-
tion is an essential feature of the suffrage ; others
we have met, we believe, satisfactorily. Mrs. Dall
indulges too much in mere declamation, but she
adduces more arguments than any of her sisters,
and these we have endeavored to answer fully.
The effect of this frothy declamation, and asser-
tion without proof, upon the community, has been
just what might have been expected ; a large pro-
portion of the sensible, practical women, who, at a
first superficial survey of the subject, thought that
NOT A SUCCESS. 375
it might be well for women to enjoy the abstract
right of suffrage, though they would have been
opposed to any frequent exercise of it, have be-
come completely disgusted with the want of reason
and argument which these self-appointed advocates
have manifested, and are now clear and decided
opponents of woman-suffrage, under any and all
circumstances. Let us give a few instances, which
will serve to show the existing feeling on the
subject.
About a year ago, a working-women's asso-
ciation, was organized in New York City, Miss
Anthony being active in it from the first. Its main
object was, such systemization of woman's work,
as should lead to their receiving better wages, and
should prevent undue and unfair competition. Miss
Anthony insisted that these objects could be at-
tained only by the acquisition of the suffrage. The
working-women, who had come into the organiza-
tion in considerable numbers, listened at first with
respectful silence, and some hope, but soon per-
ceiving that there was nothing but declamation and
froth in these harangues, and finding that the only
measures which were practical and feasible, were
steadily ignored by Miss Anthony, and that there
was no way of shaking off this " Old Man of the
Sea," they began to drop off by ten or a dozen at a
time, till finally Miss Anthony was left with but two
or three adherents. The working-women, meantime,
organized anew, and made it one of their organic
15 X
376 SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
conditions that neither woman-suffrage nor its ad-
vocates should have any place henceforth in their
association.
There were at first a considerable number of
sincere friends of the movement for the elevation
of woman, and her more thorough culture persons
of both sexes, who honestly thought that some
benefit might inure to woman from the possession
of suffrage. They had no political ends to serve,
and no personal ambitions to gratify. A year or
two of declamation from the leaders has satisfied
most of these, either that the ballot would be pro-
ductive of more evil than good to woman, or, that
of all the agencies for her advancement, it was the
least significant and the least important. Among
these we may name Mr. Greeley, Geo. W. Curtis,
Miss A. Dodge (Gail Hamilton), Miss C. E.
Beecher, and one, at least, if not more, of her
sisters, and, we believe, also, Mr. W. L. Garrison.
Chicago, as in duty bound, was early, forward in
this movement, a Sorosis being formed, in which
this was the prominent idea, and a newspaper in
defense of woman-suffrage in particular, and
woman's rights in general, started, under the edi-
torial charge of one of the most gifted, brilliant,
and eloquent women of the city one who had
already achieved a high reputation by her labors
in behalf of the soldiers during the war.
Chicago is a fast city, and these enterprises
presently attained maturity and decay. The
NOT A SUCCESS. 377
Sorosis failed first, and singularly enough, .on a
question of the individual rights of one of its mem-
bers. The interest in the paper speedily began to
wane, and not all the ability of its editor could
increase or even maintain its circulation. We are
not informed whether it still exists, but at the
latest advices, it was evidently destined to speedy
dissolution. Meantime, the true friends of woman
have been gradually arriving at the conclusion
that her highest interests and her best oppor.
tunity for improving her condition lie in quite
another direction, and that her advancement can
be best promoted by a more thorough and more
practical education, especially in artistic, horticul-
tural, and other industrial pursuits, by trades-
unions, co-operative societies, and association.
Miss Beecher has led the way among her own sex
in the systematic development of plans for this
purpose, and " Gail Hamilton " has demonstrated,
with more than her accustomed force, that the
evils under which women suffer are very largely
due to their own ignorance, indifference, or reck-
lessness.
So rapidly is this sound and healthy reaction
affecting the masses of intelligent women, that
were the vote to be taken among them solely to-
day, the preponderance against woman-suffrage
would be, at least, ten to one.
" But," say some of the advocates of woman-
suffrage, " if there are any women who want to
378 SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT NO SUCCESS.
vote, the door ought to be opened so that all can
who choose."
Why, sapient orator ! should they be ? Let
us put the proposition in another shape. If there
are any minors (no matter of what age) who
want to vote, the doors ought to be opened, so
that all can who choose. Does that proposition
seem absurd ? It is not more so than the other.
Still another form might be given to it with equal
justice. If a woman wants any thing (no matter
whether it is reasonable or unreasonable), she
ought to have it. We are hardly prepared to ac-
cept either proposition as our rule of action, because
that we believe that neither party (the women
or the minors) are always the best judges of what
is for their good. Let us be convinced that they
are, and we will cheerfully aid in according them
all that they have set their hearts upon.
We entered upon the preparation of this work
with the avowal of our high regard for the sex,
and our desire to promote their real interests in
all possible ways. If we have opposed woman-
suffrage with zeal, if we have sought to dissuade
women from entering on certain pursuits and call-
ings, it has been, not from any unkindly motive or
any desire that they should be restrained from
occupying any sphere or fulfilling any duty to
which God has called ; them but because we were
convinced that the suffrage, and the pursuits to
which we objected, would prove an injury and a
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT. 379
blight upon their character and reputation. We
would have all women what some whom it has
been our happiness to know, are : modest, virtu-
ous, pure, and loving, of amiable disposition, clear
intellect, and sound judgment ; in short, God's
last, best earthly gift to man, his help-meet, friend,
and counselor.
It is a source of great gratification to us, to
know that the views we have advocated in this
volume are fast gaining ground in our own coun-
try ; that here, sooner than anywhere else on
earth, woman is likely to be enfranchised from
every bondage which prevents her from occupy-
ing the sphere which the Creator designed she
should occupy; while yet she maintains with hon-
or and dignity, that subject-condition to which she
was assigned in Eden.
There is progress, not always, perhaps, in
exactly the right direction, though often the
deviation is but slight, but still progress in all
respects in the condition and rights of women, and
progress is infinitely preferable to stagnation.
Looking back as some of us can, to a period
forty years ago, we shall see how great are the
changes which have transpired in woman's condi-
tion in that time.
The young woman of those days, at eighteen,
was a very good cook ; she could wash and iron
skillfully, could sew, knit, and spin. Except on
state occasions, her dress was a plain, neat calico ;
380 GENERAL REVIEW OP THE SUBJECT.
or, in winter, of woolen stuff; her cheeks had the
glow of health, for she knew nothing of disease ;
her life was simple and pure, and she looked for-
ward with a confidence which time selcfom failed
to justify, to the day when she should be a happy
bride and reign a queen in her own household.
This was the bright side. But useful and happy
as she was, her education was but scanty ; she
could read and write, she knew a little of the ele-
ments of arithmetic, geography, and possibly a
trifle of grammar and history. Politics did not
much disturb her, though she had a vague idea,
that for the preservation of the country, all men
ought to vote as her father did, and wondered
that any .were so perverse as not to do so. If she
possessed a natural taste for music, she attended
the singing-school, was duly escorted therefrom
by a rustic swain, and in process of time joined
the village choir, and perhaps performed wi-th
remarkable skill her part of one of those wonder-
ful fugues, in which the whole choir seemed
engaged in playing the game of tag. As to
instrumental music, she knew nothing more of it
than could be extracted from the accordeon,
though, perchance, she might be able to ac-
company her lover with her voice, as he played
some simple tune on the fiddle or flute. To own
a piano, and especially to be able to play a
tune upon it, was only the privilege of the fami-
lies of the very rich ; and even with them
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
was regarded as an almost sinful waste of time.
It was very doubtful if she had ever learned to
dance ; if she had, it was only some simple qua-
drilles, or the old-fashioned contra-dance. The
polka and waltz, to say nothing of the Schottische,
the Lancers, or the German, would have shocked
her sense of propriety. Of all the sciences and
belles-lettres, which go to make up a modern,
fashionable education, she was utterly ignorant,
and if she had ever heard of, or read any novels,
they were either, " The Children of the Abbey,"
" The Scottish Chiefs,"- " Thaddeus of Warsaw,"
"The Mysteries of Udolpho," "Dunallan,"
" Thinks I to Myself; or, Coelebs in Search of a
Wife ;" or, by a bare possibility, " Redwood," or
some volume of " Waverley," then just issued.
She could not have entertained a young gallant
for five minutes with small talk about the last
novel, and as to magazines, they were not ; but if
the young gentleman would stay to tea, he could
have choice wheat, or rye bread, which her own
hands had made, and cake which would surpass any
thing to be found at the confectioner's ; rich, golden
butter, which was wholly the product of her skill ;
and though the table was old and dark, it was
covered with a snow-white cloth, which, very pos-
sibly, she herself had spun. Visiting her a few
years later, you would find her with her beauty .a
little faded, it may be, and the face perhaps less
joyous and spirituelle ; her cares as wife and
382 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
mother had rendered her somewhat more of
the earth, earthy ; yet all were performed with a
conscientiousness and fidelity, a neatness and
attention to detail, which left nothing uncared
for. She had no time now for books or intel-
lectual improvement, but must go on as she
had begun, as a model wife and housekeeper
in all things appertaining to the comfort of her
family.
If, in this simple, healthful life of the young
maiden of forty years ago, we find little which is
not now changed for the worse, except it may be
a higher and better intellectual culture (though
even this is a little in doubt), the progress in a bet-
ter life of the household has been far greater. The
health of the women of the higher classes at the
present day, is much less sound and stable than
that of the matrons of forty or even thirty years
ago ; but though this is a serious drawback to the
happiness and -comfort of the family life, the high-
er education, the wider range of thought, the more
complete intellectual companionship, in a great
measure, compensate for the other ills, and if we
can but substitute a more rational education for
the absurd fashionable one, which every reason-
able person must so heartily deprecate, the ratio of
progress will be such as to give us new cause of
congratulation. There are cheering signs of the.
near approach of this beneficent reform. The
great error of the past forty years in the education
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
of women, has been that we have sought to bring
about mental development while ignoring entirely
the claims of both the body and the moral nature.
Such one-sided culture could not fail to be harm-
ful, and the more successful it has been, the more
injury has it done. The mind, debilitated by the
cramming process, has sought relief in the stimu-
lating influence of the most vapid and trashy sen-
sational novels, and an equally trashy magazine
literature, and has at last reached that condition
in which memory is weakened, consecutive serious
thought has become impossible, and the whole intel-
lectual powers are too often occupied with the most
frivolous topics. The body, neglected in all except
its outward adornings, gives speedy tokens of its
premature decay in weakness, ill-health, and ina-
bility to bear even slight exposures to the vicissi-
tudes of weather, which the young maiden of
forty years ago would have regarded as only
enhancing her enjoyment. The physical frame
should have been developed in harmony with the
mind by vigorous and health-giving enterprise, and
by the performance of domestic duties, and then
both body and mind would have been capable of
higher and better attainments. But the moral
nature has been as much neglected as the body in
the fashionable education of the day. The princi-
ples of truthfulness, spotless honor, and strict,
unflinching integrity, have not been practically
enforced. Petty deception, injustice, class distinc-
15*
384 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
tions, and falsehood in little matters, have been
passed over as things of no moment, even when
they have not been actually encouraged, so long
as they inured to the teacher's benefit. The
moral culture in our boys' schools and colleges has
been bad enough, and we are feeling its evil effects
throughout the whole structure of society ; but
that of our fashionable female seminaries is greatly
worse, inculcating a lower sense of honor, giving
predominance to false standards of right and wrong,
prompting to no high aims, searing the conscience,
and hardening the heart.
But we are not without hope that the worst
point has been reached even in the schools. More
attention is certainly given to physical education
than formerly, and though its outcroppings, in the
protracted and exciting dances kept up till near
morning, in the almost equally exciting skating
parties, where the health is often greatly periled,
and in the questionable velocipede riding, are not
exactly in the right direction, even these in mod-
eration may be better than an entire absence of
exercise, or the moping walk in long procession
through the public streets, which was at one time
the semi-weekly penance called exercise, in many
of the fashionable 'Schools.
What is really wanted, and is beginning to be
practiced by our best teachers, is not so much any
system of female gymnastics, Indian clubs, swing-
ing of dumb-bells, pulling at weights, and all the
O
f^
GENERAL REVIEW OP THE SUBJECT. 337
varied motions which have been invented to call
the different muscles into activity. Though these
are very good in their way, as some form of
exercise which shall occupy and interest the mind
while it keeps the body in motion climbing moun-
tains, cultivating botany in the field, rowing, the
study of geology and mineralogy in situ, and, as an
agreeable alternative to these, the exercise of the
sublime art of bread-making, the skillful washing,
clear-starching, and ironing of some of the many
dainty garments which constitute their wardrobe.
The vigorous wielding of the broom is also not a
bad exercise, especially on a hard and heavy
carpet. It calls into active motion the muscles of
the chest and shoulders, and is fully equal for
this purpose to the rings or the Indian clubs of the
gymnasium. It is a pity that spinning on the
great wheel could not be revived. The motions
were not too violent, and while they were not in-
compatible with steady and consecutive thought,
they contributed greatly to an erect and graceful
carriage of the head and shoulders.
The moral culture will, we hope, come in time.
The example of the best of the training-schools
and the colleges and high schools for both sexes,
will not be without its influence ; but while so
many of these fashionable schools are controlled
by those who are actuated by no lofty principle,
who seek patronage on other grounds than those
of the moral excellence of their instruction, and
388 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
who are accustomed in their intercourse with
wealthy patrons to
Bend the supple hinges of the knee,
That thrift may follow fawning,
we can hardly expect that they should all become
remarkable for their inculcation of the loftier
virtues. It is something gained that sensible,
practical, intelligent women, themselves long con-
nected with the education of girls, see these evils,
and are taking measures to obviate them as far as
possible. We look with great interest for the
results of the noble plan proposed by Miss
Catharine E. Beech er, in her paper read before the
National Educational Convention at Trenton, in
August, 1869, which we have printed in full in
the appendix to this work.* It marks an era in
the education of woman in this country. We
hail this thorough canvass of woman's position,
rights, and duties, which is now in progress, for
another reason, while we feel certain that the
more thoroughly the subject is discussed, the more
clearly will the impracticability of female suffrage
be demonstrated, and there will yet come out
of the discussion much of positive good for woman.
The disabilities under which woman has labored,
the imperfection of female education, the lack of
sufficient employment, the great over-crowding in
the lower grades of work, and the unjust difference
* See APPENDIX A.
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT. 339
between the compensation given to women for
certain kinds of work, and that paid to men for
doing the same things, the want of a vocation so
strongly felt by a class of earnest, educated, but
hitherto unemployed women ; all these, and other
kindred grievances of the sex, have not hitherto
received their full share of consideration. But
the present agitation, notwithstanding the efforts
of some injudicious partisans on both sides, will
now effect a thorough ventilation of the whole
subject, and as there is no desire on the part of
any intelligent, right-minded man to do injustice
to woman, we may feel confident that all the real
wrongs will be righted as soon as they can be
fairly reached. Most of them, indeed, are already
in progress of amelioration. The promptness with
which both the larger trades-unions and the recent
Labor Congress, which closed its session in August,
1869, have recognized and admitted to their
organizations the real representatives of the
working-women's trade associations ; and the
readiness with which most of the employers have
acceded to the requests of the associations for
increase of women's compensation, give strong
ground for hope that henceforward we shall have
less complaint of the inferior wages of women.
The over-crowding of applicants for work which
unskilled or but partially skilled women can per-
form, and the consequent reduction of their wages
to the point of starvation, is a matter requiring
390 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
time and patience to remedy. The best panaceas
for it are those which we have urged so strongly,
and which others are now urging better industrial
education, the diversion of a large proportion of
these working-women to domestic employment,
the avoidance of country competition and under-
bidding, and, as soon as it can be accomplished,
trade associations and co-operation.
The earnest and really noble w r omen, who,
conscious of their ability to be something other
than the gay, frivolous butterflies of society, are
seeking for a worthy vocation, will find in the
suggestions we have made to them in the previous
chapter suggestions which their best friends will
reiterate a better way of utilizing their remark,
able gifts, than in agitation for the ballot for
women, a boon which, like the fabled apples of
Sodom, would turn to ashes and bitterness the
moment they seized it.
For them, if they have, as they have manifest-
ed in the past, the true heroic spirit, there is a
grand and noble future. To be the world's bene-
factors, to illumine its dark places, to give hope
and joy to the downcast, peace and comfort to the
erring, health to the sick ; to lift up those who
have fallen, and bid them, as the Divine Master
had done before, to go and sin no more, to rescue
the orphaned and vagrant child from a life of
wretchedness and sin, to raise the victims of appe-
tite from their degradation, and make homes now
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT;
desolated by intemperance, happy and peaceful,
and to diffuse over our own and other lands the
blessed influences of lives full of all pure and
generous deeds these are objects worth living
for, worth- dying for. The women of America
who shall organize and develop this glorious mis-
sion for good, will deserve and will receive from a
grateful country such honors as no crowned queen,
no proud empress, can ever hope to attain. On
them, too, will fall Heaven's highest benediction :
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me."
Thus, then, we take leave of our readers. We
have sought, with all plainness of speech, but with
the deepest regard and reverence for women, to
show them from Scripture, from history, and from
reason, what were the best remedies for the evils
and wrongs from which they suffered ; what the
advancement and progress to which they should
attain. Desiring to see them, in the future as in
the past, women and not men, beings of gentle-
ness and grace, our companions, our sympathizing
friends, and not either our slaves or our tyrants,
we have endeavored to indicate to them in
what directions their condition might be bene-
fited, their lives made happier and more useful,
and their own comfort and joy enhanced.
Knowing the evils that were to be apprehended
from their participation in political life, and the
392 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SUBJECT.
weighty reasons which forbade their entering upon
it, reasons lying at the very foundation of all
society and government, and inherent in their very
nature, as well as those which were specially
pertinent to our American conditions of suffrage,
to the good order of society, and to their own mod-
esty and delicacy we have endeavored to set these^
before them as plainly and clearly as possible, and
to answer the arguments of those who have advo-
cated woman-suffrage.
How far we have succeeded, remains to be
seen; but if our humble effort shall have stimu-
lated any of the sex to more earnest endeavor .
after a higher and more useful life ; if it shall have
aided to relieve any woman from the unjust bur-
dens borne so patiently, and have turned any from
the vain pursuit of the ignis fatuus of the ballot,
we shall feel that those months of toil have not
been wholly in vain.
APPENDIX A.
[Miss Beecher's essay, read before the National Educational Conven.
tion at Trenton, N. J., in August, 1869, and subsequently published in
Appleton's Journal, is, in the main, so pertinent to the topics discussed
in this work, and presents so strongly the need of a better, practical, and
industrial education for women, as something of far greater advantage
to them than the possession of the suffrage, that we felt we could not
better aid in carrying out the philanthropic purposes of its author than
by giving it the advantage of the extensive circulation of our work.
L. P. B.]
SOMETHING FOR WOMEN BETTER THAN THE BALLOT.
BY CATHARINE E. BEECHEB.
Now that negro suffrage is accomplished, the
next political struggle that will agitate this coun-
try, as well as Europe, will be that of labor and cap-
ital, and, connected with it, the question of woman-
suffrage.
That there is something essentially wrong in
the present condition of women, is every year
growing more and more apparent, while the pub-
lic mind is more and more perplexed with diverse
methods proposed for the remedy. In one of our
leading secular papers, we read this statement of
the case from the pen of a working-woman :
" There are so few departments of labor open
to women, that, in those departments, the supply
394 APPENDIX A.
of female labor is frightfully in advance of the
demand. The business world offers the lowest
wages to eager applicants, certain that they will
be ravenously clutched. And, indeed, to see the
mob of women that block and choke these few and
narrow gates open to them the struggle the
press the agony the trembling eagerness you
might suppose they were entering the temple of
fame or wealth, or, at least, had some cosy little
cottage ahead, in which competence awaited the
winner. Nothing of the sort. These are blind
alleys, one and all. The mere getting in, and
keeping in, are the meager objects of this terrible
struggle. A woman who has not genius, or is not
a rare exception, has no opening no promotion
no career. She turns hopelessly on a pivot; at
every turn the sand gives way, and she sinks low-
er. At every turn light and air are more difficult,
and she turns and digs her own grave. Do you
say these are figures of speech ? Here, then, are
figures of fact. There are noiv thirty thousand
women in New York, whose labor averages from
twelve to fifteen hours a day, and yet whose income
seldom exceeds thirty-three cents a day. Operat-
ors on sewing-machines, and a few others, enjoy
comparative opulence, gaining five to eight dollars
a week, though from this are to be paid three or
four dollars for a bed in a wretched room with
several other occupants, often without a window
or any provision for pure air, and with only the
APPENDIX A 395
poor food found where such rooms abound. Thou-
sands of ladies,of good family and education, as teach-
ers receive from two to six hundred dollars a year.
Few women get beyond that, and a large propor-
tion of them are mothers with children. Over
these poorly-paid laborers broods the sense of
hopeless toil. There is no bright future. The
woman who is fevered, hurried, and aching, who
works from daylight to midnight, loathing her
mean room, her meaner dress, her joyless life,
will, in ten years, neither better herself nor her
children. The American working-woman has no
share in the American privilege given to the poor-
est male laborer a growing income, a bank
account, and every office of the Republic, if he
have brain and courage to win them."
This describes the condition and feelings of not
all, but of a large class of women in our larger
cities, who must earn their own livelihood. But,
in the medium classes, as it respects wealth, the
unmarried or widowed women feel that they are
an incumbrance to fathers and brothers, who often
unwillingly support them from pride or duty.
For such, also, there is " no opening no promo-
tion no career ;" and they must remain depend-
ent chiefly on the labor of others till marriage is
offered, which, to vast numbers, is a positive im-
possibility.
This has lately been proved, from the census,
396 APPENDIX A.
by a leading New York paper. In that it is shown
that, in all our large cities, the male inhabitants,
under fifteen and over the usual marriageable age,
are greatly in excess of the females, and, conse-
quently, the women at the marriageable age are
greatly in excess of the marriageable men. Thus,
in New York City, according to the statements of
the New York Times, there are eleven thousand
more females than males, of all ages, while there
are one hundred and thirty-two thousand more
women of marriageable age than men of that age.
This is probably a large estimate, but the dispro-
portion is at all events enormous.
And, in the rural districts of New York State,
we find a similar state of things ; for the excess
of females, of all ages, is twenty-one thousand,
while the excess of marriageable women, if at the
same ratio as in New York City, is two hundred
and sixty-three thousand. Thus, it appears that,
in the single State of New York, there are over
three hundred thousand women to whom marriage
is impossible. The same state of things will be
seen in all our older States.
The most mournful feature in this case is the
fact that most of these women have never been
trained for any kind of business by which they
can earn an independent livelihood. The Work-
ing-woman's Protective Union, of New York City?
reports that, of thirteen thousand applicants, not
one-half were qualified to do any kind of useful
APPENDIX A. 397
work in a proper manner. The societies that are
formed to furnish work for poor women report that
their greatest impediment is that so few can sew
decently, or do any other work properly.
The heads of dress-making establishments report
that very few women can be found who can be
trusted to complete a dress, and that those who
are competent find abundant work and good wages.
The demand for really superior mantua-makers is
almost universal in country places, and even in
many of our cities.
In former days sewing was taught in all schools
for girls, but now it is banished from our common
schools, and the mothers at home are too neglect-
ful, or too ignorant, or too pressed with labor, to
supply the deficiency.
It was reported in the New York Tribune, not
long since, that there are at least twenty thousand
professed prostitutes in New York City alone,
while Boston, in proportion to its number of in-
habitants, shows a larger number, and all our cities
give similar reports. This, also, is an estimate
probably much in excess of the reality ; but the
truth is bad enough and mournful enough. Multi-
tudes of these unfortunates have only two alterna-
tives on the one hand, poor lodgings, shabby
dress, poor food, and ceaseless daily toil from ten
to fifteen hours ; on the other hand, the tempter
offers a pleasant home, a servant to do the work,
fine dress, the theater and ball, and kind attentions,
398 APPENDIX A.
with no labor or care. Where is the strength of
virtue in those who despise and avoid these out-
casts, that might not fall in such perilous as-
saults ?
It is this dreadful state of temptation which
accounts for the fact that crime increases faster
among women than among men. Thus, in Massa-
chusetts, during the last ten years, among the
men of that State, crime decreased at the rate of
eight thousand five hundred and seven less than
during the ten preceding years, while, among
women, crime increased at the rate of three hun-
dred and sixty-eight during the same period ; that
is, over eight thousand less men, and over three
hundred more women, were guilty of crime than in
the previous ten years.
But, turning from these to the daughters of the
most wealthy class, those who have generous and
elevated aspirations also feel that for them, too,
there is " no opening no promotion no career,"
except that of marriage, and for this they are
.trained to feel that it is -disgraceful to seek. They
have nothing to do but wait to be sought. Train-
ed to believe marriage their highest boon, they are
disgraced for seeking it, and must affect indiffer-
ence. Meantime, to do any thing to earn their
own independence is what father and brothers
would deem a disgrace to themselves and their
family. For women of high position to work for
their livelihood, in most cases custom decrees as
APPENDIX A. 399
disgraceful. And then, if cast down by poverty,
they have been trained to nothing that would earn
a support, or, if by chance they had some resource,
all avenues for its employment are thronged with
needy applicants. Ordinarily, and with few excep-
tions, there are only two employments for such
women that do not involve loss of social position,
viz., school-teaching and boarding. But every
opening for a school-teacher has scores, and some-
times hundreds, of applicants, while often the pro-
tracted toils in unventilated and crowded school-
rooms destroy health. To keep boarders demands
capital to start, and an experience and training
in household management and economy rarely
taught to the daughters of wealth. In this coun-
try housework is regarded as dishonorable, and
rich men make no attempts to train their daugh-
ters to any other business that would be a resort
in poverty.
Few can realize the perils which threaten our
country from the present condition of women.
The grand instrumentality, not only for perpetuat-
ing our race, but for its training to eternal bless-
edness, is the family state, and in this woman is
the chief minister. As the general rule, man is
the laborer out of the home, to provide for its
support, while woman is the daily minister to train
its inmates. But there are now many fatal influ-
ences that combine to unfit her for these sacred
duties. Not the least of these is the decay of
400 APPENDIX A.
female health, engendering irritable nerves in both
mother and offspring, and thus greatly increasing
the difficulties of physical and still more of moral
training.
The factory girls, and many also in shops and
stores, must stand eight and ten hours a day, often
in a poisonous atmosphere, causing decay of con-
stitution, and forbidding healthful offspring. The
sewing-machine lessens the wages of needlewomen,
while employers testify that those who use it for
steady work become hopelessly diseased, and can
not rear healthy children. In the more wealthy
circles, the murderous fashions of dress make ter-
rible havoc with the health of young girls, while
impure air, unhealthful food and condiments, lack
of exercise, and over-stimulation of brain and
nerves, are completing the ruin of health and fam-
ily hopes.
The state of domestic service is another element
that is undermining the family state. Disgraced
by the stigma of our late slavery, and by the
influx into our kitchens of ignorant and uncleanly
foreigners, American women forsake home circles
for the unhealthful shops and mills.
Then the thriftless young housekeepers from
boarding-school life have no ability either to teach
or to control their incompetent assistants, while
ceaseless " worries " multiply in parlor, nursery,
and kitchen. The husband is discouraged by the
waste and extravagance, and wearied with endless
APPEXDIX A. 401
complaints, and home becomes any thing but the
harbor of comfort and peace.
Add to all this, the now common practice which
destroys maternal health and unborn offspring
the loose teachings of free love the baleful influ-
ence of spiritualism, so called the fascinations of
the demi-monde for the rich, and of lower haunts
for the rest, with the poverty of thousands of
women who but for desperate temptations would
be pure, and the extent of the malign influences
undermining the family state that chief hope of
our race is appalling.
Woman, in the Protestant world, is educated
only for marriage, hoping to have some one to
work for her support, and, when this is not gained,
little else is provided.
The Roman Catholic Church, while it honored
the institution of marriage as a sacrament, and
upheld its sanctity, yet taught that woman had a
still higher ministry ; and for this, large endow-
ments, comfortable positions, and honorable dis-
tinction, were provided. The women who devoted
their time and wealth and labors to orphans, to
the sick, and to the poor, were honored above
married women as saints, who not only laid up
treasures in heaven for themselves, but also a
stock of merits to supply the deficiencies of others.
The idea of self-sacrifice and self-denial in that
church was so honored as to run into mischievous
extremes, so that rich establishments of celibates
16
402 APPENDIX A.
of both sexes multiplied all over Christendom till
they became burdens and pests.
This drove the Protestant world to the other
extreme, so that no provision at all has been made
for the single woman. She must marry, or have
no profession that leads to independence, honor,
and wealth. To fit young men for their profes-
sions, thousands and millions are every year pro-
vided, securing by endowments the highest class
of teachers, in addition to every advantage of
libraries, apparatus, and buildings. But woman's
profession has no such provisions made for its
elevated duties.
How much there is included in woman's distinc-
tive and appropriate duties, and how much science
and practical training are demanded properly to
prepare for them, few realize. The selection, pre-
paration, and care of food and drinks for a family
are, in Europe, made an art and science, to which
the most literary and cultivated devote attention.
The selection, fitting, and making of clothing are
other branches for which science and training are
demanded. The care of young infants, and the
nursing of the mothers demand science and prac-
tical training as much as any profession- of the
other sex. The management and governing of
young children require as much training and skill
as the duties of the statesman or warrior. The
nursing and care of the sick, if performed by con-
scientious, scientific, and well - trained nurses,
APPENDIX A. 403
would save thousands of the victims of ignorance
and neglect.
And then there are out-door professions con-
nected with a home which are as suitable for women
as for men. The business of raising fruits and
flowers is especially suited to woman, as also the
management of the dairy ; and for these the other
sex are regularly instructed in endowed agricul-
tural schools, while women can not share these
advantages. The arts that ornament a home, such
as drawing, painting, sculpture, and landscape gar-
dening, are peculiarly appropriate for women as
professions by which to secure an independence.
Yet but a few have the opportunities which are
abundantly given to the other sex.
These are all employments suited to woman,
and such as would not take her from the peaceful
retreat of a home of her own, which by these pro-
fessions she might earn. Were there employ-
ments for women honored as matters of science, as
are the professions of men ; were institutions pro-
vided to train women in both the science and
practice of domestic economy, domestic chemistry,
and domestic hygiene, as men are trained in
agricultural chemistry, political economy, and the
healing art ; were there endowments providing a
home and salary for women to train their own sex
in its distinctive duties, such as the professors of
colleges gain immediately a liberal profession
would be created for women, far more suitable and
404 APPENDIX A.
attractive than the professions of men. Let this
be done, and every young girl would pursue
her education with an inspiring practical end,
would gain a profession suited to her tastes, and
an establishment for herself equal to her brother's,
while she would learn to love and honor woman's
profession.
It would soon become the custom, as it now is
in some European countries, for every woman to
be trained to some business that would secure to
her honorable independence.
The grand difficulty, which those who are seek-
ing the ballot would remedy, is, the want of
honorable and remunerative employment for
unmarried or widowed women. It is not clear
how the ballot would secure this ; while a long
time must elapse before public opinion would
arrive at this result.
But the attempt to establish institutions, well
endowed to support women instructors, and carry-
ing out as liberal a course as men have provided
for themselves, would have an immediate influence,
while it would escape the prejudice and the diffi-
culties incident to giving woman the ballot.
Few will deny that the various departments of
domestic economy demand science, training, and
skill, as much as any of men's professions. But
the world has yet to see the first invested endow-
ment to secure to woman's profession what has
been so bountifully given to men. Never yet has
APPENDIX A. 405
a case been known of a highly-educated woman
supported by an endowment to train her sex for
any one department of woman's profession. Such
favors being withheld, the distinctive profession
of woman is undervalued and despised. To be a
teacher of young children would be shunned by
the daughter of wealth as lowering her social
position. To become a nurse of the sick for a
livelihood, or a nurse of young children, would be
regarded as a degradation; while to become a
domestic assistant in the family state would be
regarded as the depth of humiliation to any in a
high social position.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the woman of
high position, culture, and benevolence, is honor-
ed above all others, if she remains single, and
devotes her time and wealth to orphans, to nurse
the sick, to reclaim the vicious, and to provide for
the destitute. She becomes a lady abbess, or the
head of some sisterhood, where high position, influ-
ence, and honor, are her reward.
And the priesthood of that church employ all
their personal and official influence to lead women
of benevolence and piety to devote time, proper-
ty, arid prayers, to the salvation of their fellow-
creatures from diseases of body, ignorance, and
sin.
But Protestant women, as yet, have been influ-
enced to endow institutions for men, rather than
for their own sex. The writer obtained from the
406 APPENDIX A.
treasurers of only six institutions for men the fol-
lowing statement of benefactions from, women :
Miss Plumnrer, to Cambridge University, to
endow one professorship, gave $25,000 ; Mary
Townsend, for the same, $25,000 ; Sarah Jackson,
for the same, $10,000 ; other ladies, in sums over
$1,000, to the same, over $30,000. To Andover
Professional School of Theology ladies have given
over $65,000; and, of this, $30,000 by one lady-
In Illinois, Mrs. Garretson has given to one pro-
fessional school, $300,000.- In Albany, Mrs. Dud-
ley has given, for a scientific institution for men,
$105,000. To Beloit College, Wisconsin, proper-
ty has been given by one lady, valued at $30,000.
Thus, half a million has been given by women
to these six colleges and professional schools, and
all in the present century. The reports of simi-
lar institutions for men all over the nation, would
show similar liberal benefactions of women to
endow institutions for the other sex, while for
their own no such records appear. Where is there
a single endowment from a woman to secure a salary
to a woman teaching her own proper profession ?
But a time is coming when women will hon-
orably perpetuate their name and memory by
bestowing endowments for their own sex, as
they have so often done for men.
The first indication of this advance is the
organization of an association of prominent ladies
and gentlemen of the city of New York, for the
APPENDIX A. 407
purpose of establishing institutions in which high-
ly-educated women shall be supported by endow-
ments to train their own sex for the practical
duties of the family state, and also, to some busi-
ness that will secure to them an independent
home and income.
The plan aimed at is large and comprehensive,
but will commence on a small scale, and be
enlarged as means and experience shall warrant.
When completed, it will include these depart-
ments :
1. The Literary Department, which will "embrace
a course of study and training for the main pur-
pose of developing the mental faculties. Much
that goes under the head of acquiring knowledge
will be omitted until it is decided what profession
the character and tastes of a young girl indicate
as most suitable. When this is decided, the stud-
ies and practical training will be regulated with
reference to it, and the pupil will select that
department of general knowledge most connected
with her special profession.
The public mind is fast approaching this method
in the education of young men who do not aim at
what have heretofore been called the liberal pro-
fessions, and who enter institutions where the
course of study is adapted to the profession to be
pursued. At the same time, our colleges are
gradually modifying mediaeval methods to those
which bear more directly on practical life.
408 APPENDIX A.
2. The Domestic Department, in which the pupils
of the literary department will be received and
examined as to their practical acquaintance with
the varied duties of the family state, aiming to
supply every deficiency in past training, so as to
fit them to be economical, industrious, and expert
housekeepers. The principal of this department
will have a family of about twelve, consisting of
her assistant principal and ten pupils, who will be
carried through a regular course of domestic labor
and instruction, and then vacate their place to
another class of pupils. In another family, con-
sisting of stationary residents, another assistant
principal will superintend the training of servants
to be conscientious and faithful cooks, chamber-
maids, and table-waiters, and, when trained, will
provide suitable places for them.
3. The Health Department, in which the pupils
of the literary department will be trained to pre-
serve their own health, and also to superintend
the health of a family. In this department the
attempt will be made to train scientific nurses of
the sick, monthly nurses of mothers and infants,
and nurses for young children. With scientific
training will be combined moral instruction and
influences to induce the sympathetic, conscientious,
and benevolent traits, so important in these offices.
4. The Normal Department, in which women
will be trained to the distinctive duties of a
school-teacher.
APPENDIX A. 409
5. The Department of the Fine Arts, in which
all those branches employed in the adornment of
a home will receive attention ; drawing, painting,
sculpture, and landscape gardening, which are
peculiarly fitted to be professions for women, will
be included in this department.
6. The Industrial Department, the chief aim
being to train women to out-door avocations suited
to their sex, by which they can earn an honorable
independence. The raising of fruits and flowers,
the cultivation of silk and cotton, the raising and
manufacture of straw, the superintendence of
dairies and dairy-farms, are all suitable modes of
earning an independence, and can all be carried
on by women without any personal toils unsuited
to their sex. And agricultural schools to train
women to the science and practice of these pro-
fessions are the just due to women as much as to
men. And here it is well to notice that our
national government has given to every State in
the Union a portion of the national lands to endow
agricultural colleges, and they have been taken,
and in most cases have been wasted, by speculators,
and in no instance have American women received
any share. But the States in the late rebellion
have not taken their portion, and, when they
receive it, the Southern women, it is hoped, will
claim their proportion, and thus establish institu-
tions to train women to earn their own independ-
ence. If only a majority of women, in such .a
16* z
410 APPENDIX A.
case as this, and also in the case of detrimental
and unjust laws, would unite and petition for re-
dress, they would gain all they ask, and by a
more direct and suitable method than by obtaining
the law-making power, and then enforcing such
acts of justice.
The wisdom of the former course is indicated by
the results of a recent meeting of New York
ladies. Among the resolutions adopted at this
meeting was one claiming that women should be
trained for their appropriate professions as men
are, and that institutions for this purpose should
be as liberally endowed as are the colleges and
professional schools for men. This resolution was
adopted unanimously, and was as unanimously
approved by the leading papers of the city, both
secular and religious.
It is an unfortunate feature of some who, with
the best of motives, are laboring to relieve the
burdens of their sex, that they assume that the
fault rests with men, as if they were in antagonism
with woman's interests and rights. But in all
Christian countries men are trained to a tender
care of wives, mothers, and sisters, and a chival-
rous impulse to protect and provide for helpless
womanhood is often stronger in men than in most
women who have had no such training.
The grand difficulty is that the teachings of our
Heavenly Father, as to the care of the feebler
members of his great family, have been imper-
APPENDIX A.
fectly realized by women as much as by men, and
therefore they have never understood their rights,
nor claimed the advantages which are now seen to
be their just due. It is certain that all just and
benevolent men feel the wrongs and disabilities of
womanhood as much as most women do, and have
been as much perplexed in seeking the most effect-
ive remedy.
The ladies' meeting in New York, and the uni-
versal approval by the public prints of the resolu-
tions adopted, prove that the most benevolent and
intelligent minds of both sexes deem it only an
act of justice to establish institutions for training
women to their appropriate professions, which
shall be as liberally endowed as those for the other
sex ; and that these endowments shall support
well-educated women as liberally as the professors
of our^colleges.
In pursuance of this indication, the American
Woman's Educational Association proposes to com-
mence seeking endowments to establish such an
institution in close vicinity to New York. Each
of the various religious denominations is repre-
sented in their board of managers, and the consti-
tution forbids a majority of any one denomination
as managers. It is hoped that the ladies of New
York (of all parties and sects) will set an example
of harmonious action in establishing one model
institution, which, no doubt, would be reproduced
all over our land. Should this be done, it is
412 APPENDIX A.
believed that all the wrongs of woman would be
redressed, and that the ballot for woman, and its
risks and responsibilities, would be no longer
sought. The family state would thus rise to its
high and honored position, and woman, as its chief
minister, would feel that no earthly honors or
offices could compare in value with her own.
Then every woman would look forward to a
cheerful home of her own, where she could train
the children of her Heavenly Father for their
eternal home. If not married, or if not blessed
with children, she could gather the lost lambs of
her Lord and Saviour, and lead them to the green
pastures and still waters of eternal life.
APPENDIX B.
IT will be noticed by the reader that we have,
in this discussion, said nothing concerning the
views held on the subject of marriage by some
of the advocates of woman-suffrage ; nor on the
effect which would be inevitably produced on the
permanence and inviolability of the marriage tie,
by granting this privilege to women.
Having laid down, in the beginning, the Scrip-
tural view of the relations of the two sexes, a
view which we conceive to be vitally important
to the discussion of the whole question, we were
disposed to leave the subject of marriage untouch-
ed, regarding these declarations of Scripture suf-
ficient to satisfy our readers of our position.
But the avowals of Mr. Mill, in his recent vol-
ume, the published declarations of some of the
leaders of the woman-suffrage movement in this
country, and the low ground on which all of them
base the relation, have caused us to reconsider our
determination, and to say a few words on this
important subject.
Marriage we hold to be an ordinance of God, in
which one man, in the presence of witnesses, and
before his Creator, whom, by that act, he calls also
414 APPENDIX B.
to witness his vows, takes one woman to be his
wife, promising to love, cherish, protect, and honor
her, to be true to her, and to her only, so long as
they both shall live ; the wife, on her part, pledging
herself equally to be true to her husband, to honor,
love, and obey him, so long as they both shall
live. This is no mere partnership of two equals,
to be dissolved with or without cause, at the will
of either or both parties. Aside from death, it
can, according to the explicit declaration of the
Divine founder of the relation, be dissolved only
for one cause the violation of their marriage vows
by one or the other party. A separation, but with-
out the privilege on either side of marriage to
another, might be justified on the ground of cru-
elty, intemperance, desertion, or complete incom-
patibility of temper. This position, we believe
to be maintained by the Scriptures, and by the
Christian Church in all ages.
Mr. Mill, on the contrary, takes the ground that
marriage is a mere partnership, professedly for
life, but capable of being dissolved at any time, at
the will of the parties ; though he dissuades them
from such dissolution, except for good and suffi-
cient cause. The corollary which he draws from
this position is, that being equal partners, there is
no rightful headship in one more than in the other ;
that, from the accident of his seniority, or his
greater mental culture, the man may be the head ;
or, the circumstances being changed, the wife may
APPENDIX B. 415
be ; or, they may share their headship together.
To the objection that this would lead to collisions
and separation, he replies, that this would never
occur except where the connexion altogether had
been a mistake, and then it would be a blessing
to both parties to be relieved from it.
Some of the leaders in the woman-suffrage
movement, Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose for one, we
believe, take even stronger ground than this.
They avow that marriage has not even the sanc-
tions that belong to an ordinary partnership ; that
" every woman has a right to choose who shall be
the father of her child ; " " that true marriage, like
true religion, dwells in the sanctuary of the soul,
beyond the cognizance or sanction of State or
Church ;" and scoff generally at the idea of any
permanence or sanctity in the marriage tie.
We do not believe that Mrs. Stanton, Miss
Anthony, Mrs. Davis, or several of the other
prominent women of the suffrage movement, are
prepared to sanction all these extravagant and
disorganizing sentiments ; though we have never
been able to learn that any of them have publicly
repudiated them ; but there is a looseness of view
on this important subject, inherent in the move-
ment itself.
Miss Dodge (Gail Hamilton), in one of the
most eloquent passages in her " Woman's
Wrongs," treads on very dangerous ground on
this subject; and, though she would probably
416 APPENDIX B.
scout the idea of being the advocate of divorce
and the opponent of legal marriage, her language
bears on its face that interpretation. Hear her :
" Wherever man pays reverence to woman,
wherever any man feels the influence of any
woman, purifying, chastening, abashing, strength-
ening 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 mellowing it for all spiritual fertility,
there is the element of marriage. Wherever wo-
man 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 turbu-
lence, 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 good nature, to develop her ener-
gy, to consolidate her thought, to utilize her benev-
olence, to exalt and illumine her life, there is
the essence of marriage. Its love is founded on
respect, and increases self-respect at the very
APPENDIX B.
moment of merging self in another. Its love is
mutual equally giving and receiving at every
instant of its action. There is neither depend-
ence nor independence, but" interdependence.
Years can not weaken its bonds; distance cannot
sunder them. It is a love which vanquishes the
grave, and transfigures death itself into life."
Now this is a very beautiful, and, barring a little
of the rhapsody, a very true description of that
union of hearts which constitutes a perfect mar-
riage. Such unions there are, thank God, and
they constitute the bright spots on earth's dark-
ness ; but, if Miss Dodge supposes that no mar-
riage can be other than an adulterous one, which
does not contain all these elements, she sadly mis-
takes God's ordinance and the spirit and* tenor of
both the gospel and history. How many cases
are there, where the affection, reverence, and con-
fidence of the two parties, at marriage, fall far short
of this, and yet, subsequently, develop into a near
approach to it ? Are these no true marriages ?
Again, how many instances do we all know, where
the parties, through all their lives long, coming
far below this very exalted standard, yet lead
peaceful and well-ordered lives, and enjoy such
harmony and satisfaction in each other's society
as is possible in temperaments not ardent, and in
intellects^ not of the highest grade. Must we
strike out these from the list of true marriages ?
Yet further, there are those who have infirmities
418 APPENDIX B.
of temper, which lead to not infrequent collisions,
but yet entertain a strong affection for each other,
and, in the intervals of these ebullitions, are loving
and tender. Are these adulterous mismatches ? It
would be a blessed world, indeed, if all the mar-
ried came up to Miss Dodge's noble ideal, and
perhaps at the millennium they may ; but mean-
time, it is a naughty world, and we fear that, for
every one of these instances of perfect connubial
bliss, there are to be found not less than fifty, and
perhaps a hundred, which make no near approach
to it. Yet, believing as we do in the upward pro-
gress of the race and its capacity for improvement,
we should be slow to declare all marriages except
these few, violations of the true idea of marriage,
until we fiad ascertained whether it was not pos-
sible for those who now occupy a low plane to come
up higher.
But Miss Dodge goes on to say : " The current
of human progress is undoubtedly perhaps has
always been setting in this direction. Its motion
is slow, sometimes apparently backward, but
never permanently checked. Every legal enact-
ment 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 subjugations of the, marriage
rite and of common law are against it. Every thing
which coerces that whose only value lies in its
APPENDIX B. 419
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, 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 cen-
turies 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 sub-
APPENDIX B.
ordinate her best uses to her lowest functions.
They degrade her into a hewer of wood and a
drawer of water, and add blasphemy to falsehood
with a ' Thus saith the Lord.' "
Miss Dodge is too sensible and clear-headed a
woman, we are persuaded, to advocate the abolition
of the marriage rite and of all laws intended to
regulate marriage ; and yet to many her words in
this extract will seem to have this signification,
and this alone. She has been imprudent in her
use of language on this subject before, and has
incurred odium which we do not believe she fully
deserves thereby.
But the fundamental difficulty with Miss Dodge
is that, though recognizing, she fails to comprehend
the reality of woman's complementary nature, and
harps on the equality of the sexes, when she
really knows, if she would but consider, that there
is no perfect equality between them.
That many rush into marriage with no thought
of its real character, and no knowledge of their
adaptation to those to whom they are wedded, in
temper, tastes, affection, or intellectual capacities,
is too true ; and very often they find, too late,
that they are grievously mismated ; but the
remedy for this great evil is not, as these advo-
cates of the equality of the sexes assert, in the
abrogation of all marriage rites, and the leaving
both sexes perfectly free to choose, by some occult
law of affinity, how they will be mated. The
APPENDIX B. 421
perfect union which Miss Dodge so glowingly
describes will not come in this way. Opinions
will be as discordant, hasty and ill-considered
matches will be as common, and quarrels as
frequent, if women propose for husbands, as
they are now, when men propose and women
accept or reject. It is all very well to talk of
woman's being free, and of her own will placing
the nuptial crown on man's brow ; but woman, in
all the past, has been disposed to robe the man of
her choice in ideal perfections, and very often,
when she believed him a demigod, he has turned
out to be only a creature of clay, and very poor
clay at that. Will she be any wiser, or judge
character any better in the future than in the
past ? We hope so, but we doubt. Let us now
listen to another woman, the peer of Miss Dodge
in learning and in intellectual grasp, and her
superior in her mastery of the higher problems of
political economy and ethics, as she gives her
views on this question of the equality of the
sexes.
The gifted author of " Woman's Rights and
Duties " thus discourses on the subject :* " The
power of the strong over the weak is so immov-
ably fixed in the nature of things, that any attempt
to improve the condition of women, if not founded
on the assumption that men must hold the chief
rule in society, will carry the seeds of failure in.
* YoL i. p. 208, et seq.
422 APPENDIX B.
its bosom. Every fanciful attempt to place the
two sexes on a perfect equality, has ended with-
out the slightest benefit to women. When we
view the wide regions of uncivilized life, the first
thing that strikes us is the corruption to both
sides, which results from this natural deficiency on
the part of the female sex. We can not but con-
trast the spirit of tyranny it generates in the one
party and the servility in the other, with the
humanizing influence of those bonds of relation-
ship or friendship, which are cemented by a mutu-
al sense of equality. The same individual who is
a devoted and generous friend, has sometimes
proved a brutal oppressor to his wife ; nor is it
surprising : for in the rude mind, services received
as duties generate contempt as free kindness, they
generate love and fidelity. But we may be assur-
ed there is no natural law without some beneficial
uses. Man was designed for civilization, and
though, in uncivilized life, the weakness of woman
is found to be almost invariably productive of
misery, the effect, when reason begins to prevail
over barbarism, may perhaps appear very differ-
ent. There can be no civilization without order,
and the progress of order could scarcely be secur-
ed without some provision that should lead man-
kind, promptly and universally, to a division of
labor and duties into the public and private.
" The utmost confusion and embarrassment
would arise, if it were quite uncertain which of the
APPENDIX B. 423
two heads of a family should attend to the details
of the household, and which pursue the profession
or duties that were to provide for their common
support. On what principles should education be
conducted ? It can not be said that rearing the
young would naturally confine the female to the
domestic duties ; we see that in savage life it does
not do so. She is compelled to labor much harder
in proportion to her strength than the other sex ;
she is exempted from nothing that her strength
can perform. In civilized life it can not be sup-
posed that man would labor for her if she was
just as strong and able, as bold and as daring as
himself; all the feminine virtues would cease to
exist, or be even imagined, and the whole race be
so much the harder and coarser. The confusion
would be so great from the uncertainty which of
the two parties should abandon their professional
duties, to attend to the details of domestic life,
that, I think, such an awkward condition of society
would compel the institution of castes, that a cer-
tain portion of the community might be brought
up to particular sorts of employment alone. Let
any one but follow out in imagination the details
of a condition in which all the professions and
employments of civil life were given indifferently
to men or women, as their physical strength might
permit. The picture could scarcely be drawn out
with seriousness, but the embarrassments would
not be the less real because the notion is ludi-
424 APPENDIX B.
crous. All inconvenience is avoided by a slight
inferiority of strength and abilities in one of the
sexes. This gradually develops a particular turn
of character, a new class of affections and senti-
ments that humanize and embellish the species
more than any others. These lead at once, without
art or hesitation, to a division of duties needed
alike in all situations, and produce that order
without which there can be no social progres-
sion.
" In the treatise of ' The Hand,' by Sir Charles
Bell, we learn that the left hand and foot are
naturally a little weaker than the right; the effect
of this is, to make us more prompt and dexterous
than we should otherwise be. If there were no
difference at all between the right and left limbs,
the slight degree of hesitation which hand to use,
or which foot to put forward, would create an
awkwardness that would operate more or less
every moment of our lives, and the provision to
prevent it, seems analogous to the difference
nature has made between the strength of the
sexes.
" Nature, then, having placed the stronger mind
where she gave the stronger body, and accompan-
ied it with a more enterprising, ambitious spirit,
the custom that consigns to the male sex the chief
command in society, and all the offices which
require the greatest strength and ability, has a
better foundation than force, or the prejudices
APPENDIX B. 425
that result from it. The hard, laborious, stern,
and coarse duties of the warrior, lawyer, legislator
or physician, require all tender emotions to be
frequently repressed. The firmest texture of
nerve is required to stand the severity of mental
labor, and the greatest abilities are wanted where
the duties of society are most difficult. It would -
be as little in agreement with the nature of things
to see the exclusive possession of these taken
from the abler sex, to be divided with the weaker?
as it is in the savage condition, to behold severe
bodily toil inflicted on the feeble frame of the
woman, and the softness of feeling which nature
has provided her with for the tenderest of her
offices, that of nurturing the young, outraged by
contempt, menaces, and blows.
" It is, therefore, an impartial decree which
consigns all the offices that require the greatest
ability to men. For, is it .less the interest of
woman than of man, that property, life, and
liberty should be secured that aggression should
be quickly and easily repressed that content-
ment and order should prevail instead of tumult ?
that industry should be well paid provisions
cheap and plentiful that trade should cover their
tables and their persons with the comforts, con-
veniences, and luxuries which habit has rendered
necessary, or an innocent sensibility pleasurable ?
Is it less momentous to them that religious
opinions should be free from persecution that a
IT AA
426 APPENDIX B.
wise foreign policy should maintain these bless-
ings in peace, and preserve us from the tribula-
tion of foreign dominion? In objects of less
selfish interest, are women less anxious than
m.en, or more so, to see the practice of slavery
expelled from the face of the earth ? or our colo-
nial government redeemed, in every remaining
instance, from the stain that has too often attended
it, of being numbered with the most oppressive
of European ? In the dangerous and difficult
sciences of medicine and surgery, is it less import-
ant to women than to men that the life which
hangs by a thread should be trusted to those
whose nerves and ability insure the greatest
skill ? Or in law, that the decision of rights, the
vindication of innocence, should be in the hands
of those who can most patiently endure the driest
studies and most boldly follow human nature
through all its various forms and all its foul
pursuits ? Ills enough, Heaven knows, ensue from,
the weaknesses and incapacity of men, but to con-
fer the offices, which demand all the skill and energy
that can be had, on those who are weaker still,
would be injurious alike to both. The commanding
and influential stations in society belong, therefore,
naturally and properly to the male sex ; this, of
necessity, entails the chief rule in private life also.
But it is here that the rights of women come in,
and that the danger of unjust encroachment upon
them commences. Every thing that tends to
APPENDIX B. 427
lessen the comparative purity and refinement of
women is most pointedly adverse to their real
interests ; these are the qualities that enable them
to be the guardians and sustainers of national
morals ; and their rights must be founded on their
natural attributes and their moral dignity. To
these respect and consideration can not be denied,
and every step mankind advances in civilization
gives strength to those sentiments. Women have
neither the physical strength nor the mental power
to compete with men in the departments which
depend on those qualifications ; and however little
we were to suppose their inferiority, in the long
run they would always be defeated and discredit-
ed in their competition for employment with the
abler sex. Were so unnatural a state of society
to arise, as that they should become the competi-
tors instead of the assistants of man, they would
lose their hold on his protection and tenderness,
without being able to shield themselves from his
harshness. The business of life would be far
worse conducted, when the division of labor so
clearly pointed out by nature was done away ; and
the just influence which women ought to have
would be destroyed by breaking down the barrier
of opinion which consigns them to the duties of a
domestic and private station, and preserves them
from the contamination of gross and contentious
scenes.
" But the same arguments that establish the right
428 APPENDIX B.
of the male sex, to the sole possession of public
authority, must leave the chief control of domes-
tic life in their hands also. All the most laborious,
the greater and more lucrative social offices, being
filled by them, it follows that, generally speaking,
it is they who produce the wealth and property
of society, and the property they create they have
assuredly the best right to control ; within the
rules of virtue and law, they may spend it as
they will. The children whom the husband sup-
ports, the wife who accepts him, engaging to fol-
low his fortunes, must be content to live as he
pleases, or as his business requires. This is the
law of nature and reason. If his tastes or his
profession be unpleasant to her, she must see to it
beforehand ; for ever after their interests must be
one. In every important decision that is taken,
one counsel must prevail ; if it can. not be mutual,
it must be assigned as a legal right to the owner
of the property and the abler sex. Hence he is
the head of the family ; he must be responsible
to law and opinion for the decorum of his house,
and must have the power of restraining what he
holds to be discreditable or wrong. Happy if he
could be made equally responsible, even to his own
conscience, for unjustly encroaching on rights
which should never be taken from a woman, ex-
cept for positive vice or incapacity ! Her right to
all the self-government that can be left to her, with-
out deranging his purposes or his enjoyment, is as
APPENDIX B. 429
real as his own ; and his purposes and enjoyments
are not to be measured by mere pride or fancy,
but by reason and justice ; even then he remains
judge in his own cause. As the right of man to
the chief power, public and domestic, has been
deduced from his greater ability, so the aptitude
of the female mind and character for the details of
domestic life, and the improvement of society, in
manners and morals, establish her rights, also, to
a share of control ; otherwise, her utility must be
greatly impaired, and her enjoyment cruelly and
needlessly sacrificed."
APPENDIX C.
JUST as the last sheets of this work were pass-
ing through the press, two volumes of essays were
published in England, treating on many of the same
topics which are here considered, though neces-
sarily from the English point of view. One of
these, " Woman's Work and Woman's Culture," is
a large octavo volume, and, besides the introduc-
tory essay by the editor, Mrs. Josephine E. Butler,
has very able papers by Frances Power C'obbe,
Jessie Boucherett, Rev. G. Butler, Principal of
the Liverpool College, Sophia Jex-Blake, James
Stuart, Charles H. Pearson, Herbert N. Mozley,
Esq., Julia Wedgwood, Elizabeth C. Wolstenholme,
and John Boyd-Kinnear. The various aspects of
what is so generally called " The Woman Ques-
tion," so far as English women and English
society are concerned, are treated with remarkable
ability and moderation, and the work is one which
ought to be widely read. The other volume,
" Ourselves," is a series of spicy, lively essays, by
Mrs. E. Lynn Linton, exceedingly readable, and
portraying the good and evil that is in woman as
only one of themselves could do it. It will, we
doubt not, do good.
APPENDIX 0. 431
The essay, in the first volume named, on the
" Social Position of Women," by John Boyd-Kin-
near, is so remarkable for its forcible presentation
of facts, and corroborates so fully the positions we
have already taken in this work, that we feel that
our readers will enjoy a few passages of it, but we
must beg leave to say, in advance of our presenta-
tion of them, so striking is at times the resem-
blance of the thoughts, that we had no knowledge
of Mr. Kinnear's views, or of his essay, when our
chapters on these topics were written, and, of
course, he could have no possible knowledge of
ours. L. P. B.
. . . . " The most prevalent understanding at
present, undoubtedly is, that women should do
as little as possible of any active, any outside
work. Let them become wives and mothers, it is
said these are their natural functions ; and let
them leave the business of the world to men. We
concede grudgingly, and under a sort of protest,
that they may do a little charity, visit some select
ed poor, decorate churches, and teach under the
clergymen in Sunday-schools. All beyond that
is thought exceptional, if not odd.
" And yet it ought to startle us into doubt of
the soundness of our notions, when we find, ever
and anon, how infinitely obliged we are to women
when they dare to be even more than odd. The
country was more grateful than it has been to any
man since the Duke of Wellington, when Miss
432 APPE D x o.
Nightingale took the extraordinary step of going
out to Scutari, and bringing order and decency
into the chaos of neglect that had grown up around
medical men and staff- officers. On a more limited
scale, there is many a parish that owes the deep-
est thankfulness to some good woman who has
quietly organized its schools, or broken down the
cruel routine of its workhouse. If it is well when
these things are done, can we deprecate their being
done more oten ; and still insist that women are
out of their sphere when employed in other duties
than ( suckling fools and chronicling small-beer ?'
It is probably the case that modern social changes
have indirectly operated to lower the public idea
as to the duties of women, just as they have oust-
ed women from some of the employments that
were formerly appropriated to them. In the feu-
dal times, woman, factitiously elevated by the
notions of chivalry, and so often called on to play
the part of men when left as chatelaine of the
castle in their husband's absence, or head of the
family of the yeoman, who had to follow his lord
to the field, could hardly at any time sink back
into the mere household ornament or drudge. In
every rank women had their prescribed duties,
and these were so large, that unmarried girls were
often attached to a lady's little court, that from
her they might learn, and, under her, practice the
proper accomplishments of a gentlewoman. But
girls had another resource. The convent opened
APPENDIX C. 433
its gates to rich and poor. In these communities,
whoever could not marry, and whoever did not
choose to marry, was sure of an honored and
secure asjdum. There they were at least not idle.
Beside the regular offices of religion, there was
the management of property, the acts of charity,
the learning and the teaching of the literature of
the time. If we think copying manuscripts, illu-
minating borders, or working tapestry, not very
profound studies, or interesting amusements, yet
surely they were far less vapid than the chief
avocations of modern young ladies. But, above
all, they were at least an alternative to matrimony.
While such refuges existed, no girl could be forced
into a reluctant marriage, either by compulsion
of parents, or because, on the death of parents,
there would be no home for her to live in. I am
far indeed from desiring the restoration of the
conventual system, with its vows of perpetual celi-
bacy and servitude ; but it is right to remember
that, with many evils, it brought at least some
compensations. To be unmarried was then to be
the spouse of Christ, the revered l mother/ the
member of a sisterhood surrounded with all the
honor and sanctity of the Church ; nowadays, it
is to live and die in the dreary lodgings, and
under the half-contemptuous title of an old maid.
" Thus it has come to pass that women have, by
change to times of settled peace, and by the
reformation of religion, lost something of dignity,
17*
434 APPENDIX C.
of usefulness, and of resources. And, thus it has
been brought about that, having scarce any choice
but marriage, marriage has come to be considered
as the sole function to which it is right or decent
they should look. This notion is heightened
among, at least, the upper classes, by the ideas
which the law of primogeniture fosters. It is
thought a father's duty to provide largely for the
eldest son; consequently, the daughter's portion
must be pinched. Many are left enough to live
on, but not enough to enable them still to move
in the society in which they have been brought
up. Their choice lies, then, only between mar-
rying money, or abandoning all their connections,
habits, and amusements. Foreseeing such a time,
a wealthy marriage becomes a matter to which
they, and their mothers for them, eagerly look for-
ward. The more luxury increases, the more
urgent seems the necessity for their securing a
luxurious provision. Unluckily, at the same time,
and from the same causes, there grows up an in-
creased disinclination among young men to enter
into marriage. Then, the efforts of the young
ladies become more desperate, and being more
apparent, of course, still less and less successful.
So matters go on from bad to worse. It is esteem-
ed a discredit to pass the second season, after they
come out, without securing an engagement. Rich
young men become so valuable a prize, that selec-
tion is renounced, and even barefaced vice is no
APPENDIX C. 435
disqualification to their being well received in
wealthy drawing-rooms. The young men feel and
improve all the privileges of their position ; they
are careless of hiding what is no longer reprobated,
and they begin unreservedly to speak of, and to
be seen talking to, the notorious harlots of the
day. Young ladies, seeing that the harlots are
run after and themselves neglected, begin (God
knows it may often be with innocent ignorance)
to ape the style, and in some degree, the manners,
of the attractive harlot. It is now the harlots
that set the fashion in dress ; that prescribe the
fashionable drives in the park ; and that still,
because in some things modest women can not
vie with them, form the attraction that daily car-
ries young men more and more away from the soci-
ety of modest women. But still the fatal emula-
tion is kept up. Whoever wants to judge of its
character, has only to frequent the fashionable
London drive at the fashionable hour, and there he
Avill see the richest and most shameful woman-
market in the world. Men stand by the rails, crit-
icizing with perfect impartiality and equal free-
dom, while women drive slowly past, some for
hire, some for sale in marriage ; these last with
their careful mothers at their side, to reckon the
value of the biddings, and prevent the lots from
going off* below the reserved price.*
* Horrible as is the picture which Mr. Boyd-Kinnear has here drawn
of the mercenary spirit of British mothers of the upper classes, and of
436 APPENDIX C.
" Such is the pitch to which we have arrived
by telling women that marriage is their sole duty.
the readiness of young ladies of high rank to imitate the manners, the
dress, and the shameless conduct of the demi-monde, in the hope of there-
by winning husbands, there is the most abundant evidence that it is not
exaggerated. Mrs. Linton, in her volume of essays ' Ourselves "
thus testifies to the prevalent tendencies of these " girls of the period,"
as a writer in the Saturday Review had previously done :
"These characters are no mere fictions of the Saturday journalist's
brain. They exist, and they make their existence a loud and staring
fact. In the Park, the streets, the drawing-room, you see their painted
cheeks, their dyed red hair, and liberaJ expanse of bust and back, and
you hear their spicy talk, well seasoned with slang, and always hovering
about that doubtful line of topics at which bold men laugh and modest
women blush. We may wince as much as we like, and flounce and flut-
ter, and deny, but the fact remains the same. Here, in the very heart
of what is called good society here, as the companions of our daughters,
the wives of our brothers, the playfellows of our sons, and the friends
of our husbands, is a sect of women, young and mature alike, who have
taken the hetairce of the day for their models, and who paint, and dress,
and talk, and make up their lives as near after the patterns set by their
prototypes as is possible to them. How can we deny it, when we see
the archpriestess of the sect" living in that wealthy temple of hers, in
Bond Street, whence every now and then some deluded votary, more
indignant than wise, turns round against her cyprian- abbess, and
denounces and exposes? The guilt, and the shame of such things,
do not lie with those who speak of them, but with those who do them ;
not with the writers of those slashing articles in our weekly censor, but
with the models who stand in the way to be slashed. For my own part,
I only hope there will be no holding of the hand yet awhile, and that so
long as these sins exist among us, there will be found faithful friends to
use the knife and the actual ^cautery, and so to cut out and to burn
unsparingly, while one corrupted fiber remains."
Elsewhere. Mrs. Linton says: "I, who am a matron myself, with
pleasant, brown-haired girls, as yet innocent of aqua amarilla and
Madame Rachel, I solemnly swear that I would rather see my daugh-
ters dead now in their youth and beauty, than iu the way to become
girls of the period, and frisky matrons to follow."
The fashionable women of America have sins and follies enough to
answer for, sins of frivolity and display, of indolence, and ignorance of
what is good and true ; but we say it in no pharisaic spirit we are
APPENDIX C. 437
Its terrible evils are chiefly visible among the
upper classes ; but who can tell what mischief is
done throughout every rank of society by exam-
ples so conspicuously set ? When the best sanc-
tion of social morality, the reprobation of vice by
women, is cast aside in the highest circles, who
can tell how widely the encouragement may act ?
It is happily limited as yet in our country by two
checks, the purity of the throne, and the strength
of religious feeling in the middle classes. And
we may hope and believe that these influences will
ultimately prevail, so far at least as to shame into
respect for external decency those who now flaunt
their defiance of morality and modesty in the
public eye. But not the less is it apparent that
men and women. degrade each other when social
opinion inculcates that life's chief aim is luxurious
enjoyment, and that to secure a good establish-
ment is the one purpose for which a girl should
be brought up
" In this is summed up the fatal error of the
day in the position assigned to women. We dis-
regard, even if we do not deny, the fact that they
have souls as well as bodies, souls not only to
be saved, but to be cultivated, instructed, made
fit to do what work God has assigned such souls
devoutly thankful that, as yet, they are under no temptations to imitate
and emulate the painted and bedizened daughters of shame, or enter the
lists with them in winning rich and fashionable rakes for husbands.
Far distant be that day when we shall be called to write such bitter
things of our countrywomen.
438 APPENDIX C.
to do on earth, as well as to grow meet for the
nobler duties that may await them in Heaven.
Herein arises no question whether they are
intellectually equal with the souls of men or
not. Enough that they are intellectual ; the con-
clusion follows that the intellect ought to be
employed. And concede only this simple, this
indisputable proposition, and it will guide us
through all our difficulties. Grant that we have
to think of the minds of women as their chief
part ; and how different must be the education we
give them, as well as how different the work we
must expect from them : the one dependent on
the other; the education to make them capable
of the work, the work as the outcome of the edu-
cation.
" The wider usefulness which ought to be in-
trusted to women is craved for by themselves. It
is easy for us to speak of the frivolity of their
pursuits and cares, when we force them, by all the
moral power we can bring to bear, to be nothing
more than frivolous. But against this constraint,
their own higher and better nature constantly
rebels. Some, of course, there are among them, as
among men, who are not capable of more than tri-
viality. But it is incontestable that the majority
of women would most eagerly welcome a truer
education than they are now permitted to have.
The cry among the poor is hardly more strong for
leave to work, than it is among the rich for leave
APPENDIX C. 439
to be useful. Against every difficulty and tacit
opposition, many girls of the higher classes eagerly
fling themselves into such branches of parish,
church, school, or other local work, as are at all
allowed to them. The more active minds form
sisterhoods, in which the nursing of the sick and
the tending of the poor are the principal occupa-
tions. There is no doubt that much of the encour-
agement which has lately been given to ritualism,
may be traced back to its recognition of the long-
ing of women to devote themselves to what they
are able to think, and to what, in some sort, are
really active and important services. Those who
know how readily recruits are found among women
for all sorts of lay mission work, will bear witness to
their longing to labor in fields that are not natur-
ally inviting to the frivolous. Again, the recent
establishment of lectures for women, on subjects
often abstruse, and given by men whose position
is guarantee that they will not deal with the sub-
jects in a too popular method, has elicited proof
that, in every part of the kingdom, women are
anxious to avail themselves of every opportunity
of cultivating their minds, and of developing facul-
ties which have not ev^'n the attraction of any
immediate application
" It does not fall within the scope of this paper
to enter into the details of an educational svstem
m
that would remedy the defects so prevalent at
present. It is enough here to point out the prin-
440 APPENDIX C.
ciples which ought to regulate such a system.
The principle is the same for women as for men-
That is a true education which teaches how the
faculties which its Maker has implanted in the
soul can be made most serviceable to our fellow-
creatures. For in serving others consists self-
elevation. Whatever is divine in ourselves, is
most fully developed by the endeavor to make it
beneficial to our neighbor. Herein is scope, and
motive, and reward for the most patient effort of
self-culture. Nor is it to be overlooked that, in
the wonderful scheme of God's earthly government,
the doing of good to others is the direct means by
which what is called success in life is achieved
for ourselves. Unthinkingly, often, the man of
the world who by honest effort struggles to raise
himself, raises hundreds around him. All science,
all commerce, all industry, by which human fame
or fortune is made, spread blessings around. Not
less do they lead to fame and fortune, if pursued
for the sake of the blessings they confer. Women's
education and work make no exception to this
happy rule. If a woman were to try to do the
very best for herself in a worldly sense, she could
take no surer course tlmn by fitting herself to
confer the largest benefits on those around her.
For her, then, I ask the best, when I ask that she
should be trained so as to be best able to do good.
Beyond elementary education this process must
vary in the case of every individual, according to
APPENDIX C. 441
her individual temperament and her position in
life. Only let the highest faculties be in each case
most regarded the capacities for literature, for art,
for industry, for government, for organizing, for
instructing, for sick-nursing, with the thousand
subdivisions and modifications of each, present a
wide enough field, within which every girl can
find some innate taste to gratify, some special
aptitude to cultivate. -Let her count that her
duty which she can best exercise. Let fathers
and mothers count it their most solemn duty to
help and guide their children to render themselves
thus worthy workers in their Father's vineyard,
that so, when the day is done, they may receive
every one the reward of their work.
" Does any one object that in thus developing the
higher nature of women, in teaching and admitting
them to the performance of important duties, there
is danger that any of the peculiar charms of their
sex should be lost ? Surely, neither in men nor
in women is it to be found that a sense of life's
deeper realities and responsibilities, and an interest
in things outside themselves, are hostile to the
qualities that make the delight of companionship.
The struggle, indeed, which women just now have
to make in order to escape from the trammels of a
false position, do sometimes lead them to take up
an attitude which we should not perhaps like to
see them all assume. I do not admire, any more
than their critics, the type of the ' strong-minded '
442 APPENDIX C.
woman, as it is occasionally presented to us. I
am not arguing in favor of woman-militant, or
defending any errors of taste into which some
may occasionally fall. But, on the other hand,
we all have the happiness of knowing a far greater
number of examples of women, intelligent and
cultivated, active in every good work, interested
in all that is worthy of interest, who by such
development of their faculties have added addi-
tional grace and luster to their natural attractions.
Even men who only look for agreeable companions,
acknowledge that they are to be found rather
among the educated than the uneducated. What
further answer is needed to the apprehensions
which only silly men venture to express, that
learning and employment would make women
bores, and destroy the pleasures of society ?
"And the world has room and need for all the
higher work of which women are capable. In cities,
in villages, in prisons and in workhouses, in art-
galleries and in letters, in all branches of industry,
and in every field of benevolence, the world will
*
be grateful to the women who can do it service.
In many things the world gropes and stumbles,
because it has not enough of women's hands to
guide it. In many other things in which men and
women may labor together, there is a cry for more
labor. In some things even men's work is less
perfect than it would be if they had women's work
to compare with their own. For women, I again
APPENDIX 0. 443
say, I do not call the same as men, but different
their complement, the necessary element to the
completeness of human nature. Even in our
highest public duties, we should be incalculably
helped by admitting the directness, the simplicity,
the instinctive honesty of a woman's unperverted
mind. Often their counsel would be less cowardly
than men's, simply because they would more regard
what is ultimately right, and less what is probably
and immediately profitable. And in thus counsel-
ing us, women would save us from many disasters
into which our own selfish and short-sighted policy
is daily leading us, because we choose to forget
that what is not right can not be profitable ulti-
mately, whatever the promise of safety or wealth
it may hold out for the moment
" But in matters affecting our home administra-
tion, surely no candid mind can dispute the fact
that women's opinions would be a most valuable
corrective of our own. I leave out of sight all
the questions which practically affect women,
either as regards their property or their persons ;
for every day we concede to them, as individuals,
rights of self-government which the surviving bar-
barism of our laws still denies to them as a sec-
tion of the community. But looking to matters
in which, as members of the community, women
have an' interest as great as men have, it is obvi-
ous that we should reap incalculable advantage
from their considering along with us the national
444 APPENDIX C.
questions of education of the young, of the man-
agement of the poor, of the treatment of criminals,
and of the guidance of emigration. Whoever
thinks that on these topics women would be less
careful, cautious, and judicious counselors than
men are, simply betrays that he takes for his type
of womanhood ' the girl of the period,' as he
has helped to make her, and knows nothing of the
number of women who have thought out and ma-
tured the working of all these most difficult prob-
lems of social humanity. But, in narrower
spheres than those that belong to the domain of
politics, we equally want the recognized help of
women. Whatever the nation resolves on, each
locality must administer ; and, in the administra-
tion, there is need for all the experience and
all the wisdom that both sexes can contribute.
These very questions education, poor relief,
prisons, hospitals, and emigration, are local ques-
tions. In every one of these there are departments
which scarcely any but women are competent to
deal with. Why do we not I will not say, merely,
admit but why do we not urge women to help
us with the classification and redemption of female
paupers, and pauper children, and prisoners ? How
can we, with our rough reasoning and generalization
even attempt to deal with what a cultivated
woman's intuition can alone discriminate and
appreciate ? Once again, for fear of being, perhaps
willfully, misunderstood, I repeat that I do not
APPENDIX C. 445
assert that every woman would be of value in
such work; I certainly could still less say so of
every man. But I do say, that there are thou-
sands of women in every district who are compe-
tent to help in such work to help in a way in
which no male help would avail.
" For the sake, then, of the country and of its
dearest interests, we ought to invite women to
bear part with us in the great Christian duty of
doing good to our neighbor ; for the sake of women
themselves, we ought so to train them that they
may understand that duty and do it. Think of a
woman's empty life, as too often now public opin-
ion makes it her training in a few showy gifts,
almost avowedly to help her in husband-hunting
her seclusion from all that interests the best men,
her incapacity to rule even her own household
and her own children, because, alas ! she has never
been taught how to do either ; think of her life,
but half useful if she does marry, and an utter
blank if she does not and then say how great the
loss, the pity, and the shame, of an up-bringing
that has such results. Women and men alike the
losers; but if the pity be for the women, the
shame is for the men ; for it is by the indifference
and misjudgment of men that women are so
brought up. It is because fathers do not think of
their daughters' future, because they too often
regard them as only so much goods to be got rid
of in the market, and therefore only to be dressed
446 APPENDIX 0.
and adapted for the market, that the daughters are
so unfit for any higher function. When we cry
out about women's frivolity, or vanity, or luxury,
we impeach the education which has cultivated
these feelings, and has not been directed to devel-
op any of the higher and nobler faculties with
which women are so endowed.
" I appeal then to men, because by their strength
they are the masters ; I appeal to women, because
even now their domestic influence is so great ; I
appeal to all that mass of thought which forms the
public opinion by which we are governed, to give
to the women of the present and of coming genera-
tions a fair chance ! Let us think of them and
deal with them as fellow-workers with us, it may
be in different departments, but, at least, in the one
great duty of doing good on earth. Let us teach
them and train them so that they can work with
us in that duty. Shall we, in doing so, make
them unmaidenly, unwifely, unmotherly ? No :
rather, more perfect in all womanly gifts and
graces, of which those will first enjoy the happi-
ness who are nearest to them in their homes. We
can not unsex women by cultivating more highly
the qualities that are the especial glory of their
sex. We shall not make them masterful by teach-
ing them how best they can serve. The purity,
the charity, the tenderness that is in them, we
now corrupt and crush by misdirection, and by
forbidding them any object save that which a
APPENDIX C. 447
possible husband and children may supply. Allow-
ed only to expand allowed to be bestowed on a
wider circle of sympathies allowed to seek out a
sphere beyond the range of self-interest, these
qualities will be enhanced in strength, and will
become to us the richer blessings. Women and
men will be drawn the closer in the bonds of
mutual service, and love, and comfort, when we
seek women's aid, and train them to give their
aid no longer only in our idleness and amuse-
ments, but in the daily round of duties which
makes the noblest portion of our lives."
THE END.
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