O, deny this who will! It is no "attack upon the church;" merely a
lamentably truthful statement.
The church, like society, withdraws her skirts from contact with the
fallen sister. "She is a wreck, drifted upon our shore, for which God
holds some one accountable. Not a wreck that can be restored--not a wreck
that money or repentance can atone for." (What! not money? Then surely she
is lost, and forever!) "The damage is beyond earthly knowledge to
estimate, beyond human power of indemnification. If ever the erring soul
shall retrace her steps, it will be _Christ_ himself who shall lead her;
if ever peace shall brood again over her spirit, it will be the Comforter
who shall send the white-winged dove.
"But the merest lad detects the lost woman. She carries the evidences of
her guilt (or misfortune?) in the very clothes she wears, whether she is
the richly dressed courtesan of the Bowery, or the beggarly street-walker
of the village. There is a delicacy in, and a fine bloom on the nature of
woman, which impurity smites with its first breath, and she cannot conceal
the loss nor cover the shame!"
"If there be but one spot upon thy name,
One eye thou fearest to meet, one human voice
Whose tones thou shrinkest from, Woman! veil thy face,
And bow thy head and die!"
Then is there no help for woman's condition in this cold, uncharitable
world? you ask, in view of these facts related above. Yes; _but it rests
with woman_. It must begin with the first breath the female infant draws.
Educate her from the cradle. Give her the freedom of the boy, the pure air
that the boy breathes; not the romping, rude, boisterous plays, perhaps
(?), of the boy, but plenty of outdoor exercise, runs, slides, skates,
rides; let her laugh, yea _shout_, if it be in a country place, till the
woods ring again with the merry echoes, and the puzzled forest nymphs
issue from their invaded retreats, endeavoring to solve the riddle by
ocular demonstration which their ears have failed to unravel, viz., the
sex, as revealed in the strength of voice and buoyancy of spirits, or
expressed in unrestrained laughter!
"O, shocking! How hoidenish!"
Who says to laugh is "_hoidenish_?" A female invariably! And this is just
what we are explaining: women must change tactics as teachers. There is
time enough to instruct the _young_ lady, after the girl or the miss has
developed muscle, vitalized her blood, and capacitated her brain for the
sterner realities of life.
Let women learn to be true teachers of women.
Begin at the beginning. This is the only way. Stand by one another in the
reform. Never mind the ballot; don't try to wear the _breeches_. No--the
male attire I mean.
The superfluous boarding-school education must give place to something
more substantial. Mrs. Dashaway is to the point:--
"No, Pauline; home eddycation is perferable. If there is a requestred spot
on this toad-stool I detest more'n another it is a female cemetery, where
bread-and-butter girls are sent and quartered for a finished eddycation;
and it does finish most of em."
"O, no, no, aunty. You mean _sequestered_ spot, and sent _quarterly_ to a
_seminary_."
"Well, well; you've got too many oceans in your head already of Greek and
zebra, of itchiology, and other humerous works; as for me, give me pure
blood, sound teeth, and a good constitution, and let them what's got them
sort of diseases see the good Samaritan, and ten to eleven if he don't
cure them in less than no time. Land! if Pauline ain't drummin' the
piany!"
Shall women remain passively resigned to the lamentable physical condition
of her sex? or will she see where lies the main difficulty, viz., in a
_wrong start_,--in the superfluous, debilitating, _namby-pamby_ education
of the female infant, miss, young lady?
Thoreau wrote that he believed resignation a _virtue_, but he "rather not
practise it unless it became absolutely necessary."
"Resignation" is unnecessary in this case. Only let every woman arouse her
energies, and stand firmly in claiming her "rights" to rightly educate her
children, girls as well as boys, showing no respect of sex in their
_early_ training, thereby "commencing at the beginning." What is a house
without a good foundation? You may build, and rebuild, and finally it will
all topple over, overwhelming you in its ruins.
There is no "right" that woman may claim for herself and sex in general
but men must and will concede. Man is not your master. "Habit," "fashion,"
"opinion," these are your only masters. These shackle woman.
Do women dress for men? to please the opposite sex? or for each other's
eye? "You know just how it is yourself." Poh! What do men, generally
speaking, know of woman's dress? Absolutely nothing! I boldly assert that
not one man in twenty, going out to a call, party, or even a concert or
opera, knows the cut and color of the dress of his wife accompanying him.
Woman dresses for women's inspection. Whatever she does for fear or favor
of man else, woman dresses for her own sex.
"What will Mrs. Codfish say when she sees this turned dress?"
"Old Codfish," her husband, is worth at least fifty thousand dollars, and
here is Mrs. Copyman, whose husband is as poor as "Job's turkey," standing
in dread of that woman's criticism!
Not one male in a thousand can detect a well turned dress, but I defy the
most cunning dressmaker to alter, retrim, frill, and "furbelow" a dress
that the female eye won't detect at a glance!
"I rather pay the butcher's bill than the doctor's," says the father.
"O, horrors! Just see that girl swallow the meat! Why, it will make your
skin as rough as a grater and as greasy as an Indian's!" exclaims the
mother.
Miss Primrose keeps our village school; she who wears the trailing skirts,
and was seen to cut a cherry in two parts before eating it, at the party
last week. She almost went into convulsions--not of laughter, as I did--to
see Kitty Clover astride a plank, with her brother on the opposite end,
playing at "See-saw."
"Here we go up--up--uppy; and here we go down--down--downy," they were
singing in unison, when "ding, ding, ding!" went the school-bell, followed
by a scream from Miss Primrose.
With glowing cheeks--that's from the exercise--and downcast eye, from fear
of Miss Primrose's anger, Kitty came demurely into the school-room before
recess was half over.
After a long lecture about her "masculine behavior," "horrid red
countenance," and "rumpled dress," and "dishevelled hair," poor Kitty is
sent to her form to "sit up straight, and not forget that she is a young
lady hereafter."
[Illustration: "HERE WE GO UP--UP--UPPY; AND HERE WE GO
DOWN--DOWN--DOWNY."]
And what of her brother who was on the other end of the plank? O, he is a
boy! "That's what's the difference!"