Woman and Legislation.
What rights, it may be asked, ought women to have accorded to them which
they do not now enjoy according to law? From what rights does custom
debar them? We claim that women, being held equally responsible to the
law with men, are as well entitled to have a voice in making that law.
It is a fundamental principle of all governments, not despotic, that
"taxation without representation" is a gross infringement upon the civil
rights of the subject or citizen. When, in spite of the disadvantages
under which women labor, they have, by unflagging industry and prudent
management, acquired real estate, their property is taxed according to
the same rule by which the property of men is taxed; and still the
elective franchise is denied them. Men in legislating for men know their
wants and understand their particular needs, because they have
experience of them; but in legislating for women they look at things
from their own stand-point; and because of its being impossible for them
to experience the various annoyances and humiliations to which women are
subjected, they do not realize the injustice toward women of the
existing state of things, or the nature and extent of the changes which
justice to them requires. To secure any thing like impartial justice in
civil affairs for women, they should have an equal voice in making the
laws.
It is contended that, if women were entitled to the franchise, it would
make no difference with a party vote, since as many women would vote on
one ticket as on the other. What of it? The franchise has been extended
from time to time for centuries to various classes of men, and these
classes did not, as a class, confine themselves to one particular ticket
or party. Was it any the less the unalienable right of these men to
enjoy their liberty to vote as they saw fit, or as they deemed for the
best interests of the country? Certainly not. Neither is it just that
women should be denied the right to vote because it would make no
perceptible difference to a party ticket.
If women had a right to vote, say some, it would occasion family
contention. Why should it? If a woman thinks as her husband, she will
vote as he does; if not, none but an unreasonable and overbearing man
would insist that his wife must think as he does, and vote in accordance
with his views, whether they agree with her own or not. It would be
quite as just and as reasonable to urge that, because the peace of
families is sometimes disturbed by fathers and sons voting for opposite
parties, therefore, the sons should not be allowed to exercise the
franchise during the life-time of their fathers. There are differences
of opinion concerning politics in families now; there always have been,
and always will be, unless some process can be devised whereby women
will be deprived of the power of thought. Are these existing differences
less to be deprecated than those likely to result from extending the
franchise to women? How can it be supposed that the peace of families is
secured by men only having the liberty to give practical expression to
their views, by recording votes which may tell for the good or ill of
the country, while women have not? though very frequently a woman has
the outrage put upon her of knowing that her husband is recording a vote
upon her property, not his, for a party to which she is conscientiously
opposed. And this in a civilized, not a barbarous, land! Where is either
the justice or the moral honesty of such a course of procedure? Surely,
if a woman did vote for a candidate or for a measure to which her
husband is opposed, it is no worse, and ought to produce no more
disturbance in the family, than for him to vote for a candidate or
measure to which she is opposed, especially where the property
qualification is in her own right, or where--as is very frequently the
case--she has worked equally hard in earning it; nor would disturbance
be produced by it at any time, were men as much disposed to be just as
women are to forgive injury.
Then, there are many intelligent, industrious, and enterprising women
who never marry; and many more who do, are left widows early in life,
and remain so to its end. These women contribute quite as much to the
public good as do unmarried men in similar circumstances. Why, then,
should the one enjoy the privilege of the ballot-box or the polls, and
it be denied to the other? There is no just reason whatever. Nothing but
usage makes such an injustice tolerated; nothing but the love of
arbitrary power causes it to be advocated.
The assertion that the majority of women care nothing about politics or
the exercise of any right not now enjoyed by them, is about as true as
the asseverations of those who opposed the passage of the late "Reform
Bill" in England, that the majority of the middle and poorer classes
were satisfied with the privileges enjoyed, and would scarcely--the
poorer classes especially--be able to vote intelligently if the
privilege were allowed. It was roundly asserted, too, that all this
reform agitation was the work of demagogues and infidels. Time has
proved that the common people of England were able to record intelligent
votes, and that they did prize the privileges which were so reluctantly
granted; neither is infidelity any more rampant since liberty has been
given to the people to express their opinions than it was before.
Indeed, it has less material upon which to feed and grow than it then
had. It is asserted by reverend divines that, to accord women equal
rights and privileges with men, is to countenance infidelity. Such
assertions have yet to be proved to be truthful. Logically, the position
is untenable. There are many thousands more infidels among men than
among women. How, then, can these divines make it appear that giving to
women equal civil and political privileges with men would countenance
infidelity, or tend to its increase? Women being so much more generally
religiously disposed than men, the influence of the former, if allowed
its due weight in public affairs, would be much more likely to
neutralize the influence of the infidel men now exercising the rights
and privileges from which women are debarred, and would thus contribute
to the development of a higher moral and religious tone in community.
Apply these men's theory to themselves, and they would quickly observe
its absurdity, as well as its shameful injustice. It is said, too, that
women are amply represented by their husbands, brothers, or fathers;
which is not true, since wives do not always think as their husbands do;
daughters do not always see matters from the same stand-point that their
fathers do, any more than sons; and sisters do not agree in opinion with
brothers, any more than brothers agree with brothers. It is a well-known
fact that, in all countries, fathers and sons have entertained different
views, both political and religious, and have given public expression of
them; so, also, brothers have arrayed themselves against brothers in
civil and ecclesiastical contests. It is absurd, therefore, to say that
one member of a family--even though he be the "head"--of necessity
represents the views of the entire family. But, supposing it were true
that the thing could be done, it would be just as reasonable for women
to represent their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers at the polls as
to be represented there by them.
It is urged that many women are frivolous, that they seem scarcely to
have a serious thought, that the energies of their minds--if they have
any--are bent upon the acquirement of a thorough knowledge of the latest
foreign fashion, heedless whether they ruin father or husband or not. So
there are--those especially who are taught to think it very "unfeminine"
to be "strong-minded" enough to be independent, who deem it a fearful
thing to bend mind or body to work for their own living, asserting, with
an unwitting sarcasm, that "papa" or "husband" is the responsible head
of the house, and that it is his business to supply their wants. There
are frivolous young men, too, in this world of ours, whose whole minds
seem bent on the exquisite parting of their back hair, the peculiar
shape of their collar and shade of gloves or neck-tie, and the exact
height of the heel of their French boots; men who run up bills and ruin
fathers and wives without any apparent compunctions of conscience, and
who feel no shame that their wives or daughters support them while they
squander both time and money. Yet these men, frivolous as it is possible
to be, are not denied equal privileges with the rest of their sex, nor
is their frivolity pleaded as a reason why sensible men should not be
allowed the franchise.
Why, then, should the frivolity of some women be urged against the whole
sex? Rather, educate them. Let them realize that they are equally with
man responsible to God for the powers of mind given them. And let them
know, too, that they shall have equal opportunities for the development
and exercise of those powers; that with equality in responsibility there
is equality in privilege; and the next half-century will number fewer
frivolous women--by many hundreds.
The dread is entertained by some that, if granted the elective
franchise, women would be mixed up in election rows and drunken
squabbles, as men are now. Such an event does not necessarily follow;
neither is it at all probable. Men of good principle and well-balanced
judgment do not make either fools or beasts of themselves now, badly as
elections are managed; nor would sensible, right-minded women degrade
themselves by unseemly conduct while exercising their right to vote.
No law has ever yet existed which entirely prevented evil-minded men and
evil-minded women from making public exhibition of their degradation;
and, as society is now constructed, where wicked men congregate, some
wicked women will be found. Elevate women to perfect equality with man,
and fewer wicked ones will prey upon society.
The great objection, the one which rises above all others, with regard
to women taking an active part in civil and ecclesiastical matters, is,
that they would thereby neglect their houses and families.
This objection has some weight; it is not altogether so unreasonable as
most of the others raised. But even here the event dreaded does not
necessarily follow, any more than because men are allowed to vote
therefore their business and families must suffer in consequence.
Prudent men, when they accept offices of public trust, so order their
business arrangements that they shall be properly attended to without
allowing the one to interfere with the other. So also would prudent
women. It might with as much propriety be argued that a farmer must not
be permitted to accept any public office, not even that of juryman,
because the acceptance of it might call him from home, either in
Springtime or harvest; nor a doctor to become a candidate for public
honors, lest some one might be sick while he was away,--as to argue that
a woman must not be permitted to take an active part in public affairs
because the house is to be attended to, and the comfort and well-being
of her husband and children provided for. Are the recognized duties and
ordinary occupations of women necessarily so all-engrossing as to be
inconsistent with any other demand upon their time or thoughts; or of so
much graver importance than the duties which men owe to their business
and families, as to require her constant presence and the entire
devotion of all her energies; while men, who have families and large
business transactions on their hands, are justified in devoting a large
portion of their time and attention to other objects, whether
literature, science, or politics?
There is no more honorable position on earth than that of a wife,
possessing the undivided affection of a good husband, surrounded by an
orderly and interesting family of children. Neither is there a more
honorable position among men than that of a husband, possessing the
undivided affection of a good wife, who sympathizes with him in his
every care, surrounded by a family of well-behaved, intelligent
children. A well-regulated household is a picture upon which the good of
either sex love to look. The responsibility of regulating and ordering a
household properly, devolves equally upon both the husband and wife. It
can not be a well-regulated house if either fails to share the
responsibility equally. Is the careful wife and mother, then, to be cut
off from the rights of citizenship because she is a wife and mother?
There is no valid reason why an intelligent woman should not be
permitted to carry the weight of her judicious influence beyond the
charmed circle of her home, any more than that she should not be
permitted to exercise it there. Even in the limited sphere now assigned
to women, many of them have proved that they could be faithful to the
interests of their husbands and children, and yet accomplish much for
the benefit of the world besides. Admitting, however--and we do admit
it, heartily--that women are endowed with peculiar talents for the
management of children, and men are better fitted than women for
training horses or managing swine,--which occupation requires the
greater mental culture? Which is likely to do the most for the benefit
of mankind? The proper care for her children, and attention to them,
does not necessarily prevent a woman from attending to matters of public
utility outside of her house.
And then there are the unmarried women, who were referred to previously,
that have not these household claims resting upon them. The objection
concerning the neglect of households does not touch their cases at all;
for they have neither children nor husbands to be neglected. That
unmarried women, who step out from the "private sanctity of their
homes," often accomplish much good by entering on the so much censured
public career, the lives of Florence Nightingale, Miss McPherson, and
Miss Dix, if there were no others, amply prove.
It is argued by some that, if women would exercise the privilege of the
franchise, she must be prepared to take the field as a soldier, or enter
the navy, as circumstances might require, in time of war. History
informs us that women have given valuable assistance in time of war,
even taking the field and fighting nobly for their country when their
valor was needed; and, in our own day, there is on record an instance of
a woman commanding a vessel during a long voyage over exceedingly
dangerous seas, and bringing it successfully into the desired port. But
apart from this, the fact is, the argument is simply used as a bugbear
to frighten the timid and deter them from claiming their just position,
both social and civil. By law, certain classes of men are exempt from
war, except in extreme cases, so that by no means all who vote, now, are
expected to fight. Then, women render an equivalent to the State, and
risk their lives in doing it, quite as much as soldiers or sailors; not,
however, in destroying human life, but in perpetuating it. As recruiting
agents, therefore, and the first drill-masters or instructors of the
members of future battalions, they serve the Government as effectually
as any standing army.
It does not follow, then, that as a consequence of being permitted to
vote, or being admitted to other privileges, women must load the cannon
or wield the sword. We wonder if the originator of such an attempt at
intimidation ever heard of Joan of Arc or Margaret of Anjou.
It is claimed that women are unfit for public life because--another
unproved assertion--they are incapable of reasoning logically or
speaking fluently. Women have had but little opportunity afforded them
for public speaking; yet, even with the slight advantages which they
have possessed, they have proved themselves quite as capable of
arriving at a high standard of reasoning or oratory as the majority of
the opposite sex. Anna Dickinson will draw a full house in any city in
the United States; and disinterested listeners (men) have pronounced her
lectures unsurpassed, in close reasoning and power of fervid eloquence,
by any male lecturer in the Union. But, say some, all women are not
equally gifted; there are few endowed with the talents or voice of Miss
Dickinson. Just so; and but few men are endowed with the talents of
Theodore Cuyler, or gifted with the versatile wit of J.B. Gough; yet
other men speak in public, and in their humbler sphere render the State
good service.
The various Churches have not done what they might in drawing out this
talent in women, and using it for the good of the world. Indeed, while
quoting and straining the writings of the apostles to suit their own
narrow views, those who have given tone to the various branches of the
Christian Church, and virtually fixed the position of women therein,
have wandered far, very far, from the practice of the Pauline days with
regard to the employment of women in the public workings of the Church,
as is shown by a comparison of the present working of the several
Christian Churches with the sacred records, as given in Acts and the
Epistles themselves.
The Society of Friends, upon examination, becoming convinced of the
falsity of the reasoning, assumed to be predicated upon the Word of God,
that there was inferiority between the sexes, and not believing that the
assumption was borne out by a careful perusal of the Scriptures, granted
perfect equality to men and women in the exercise of religious services.
Having been the foremost religious body of modern times in granting
liberty of speech to Christian women, they have been more highly honored
than most other denominations in the number of gifted speakers among
their women.
In the early days of Methodism, too, women were allowed to exercise the
talent for public speaking, with which God had endowed them; and Dinah
Evans and Mrs. Fletcher--the one in the humbler walks of life, the other
a lady of position, education, and refinement--stand forth conspicuously
upon the pages of history, giving evidence that the ministry of
Christian women was honored by God in leading the wicked to forsake
their unrighteous ways. As Methodism became older, like the primitive
Church, it departed from the first usage, and as a consequence, like it,
it lost for the time a powerful agency for doing good. Latterly,
however, women, especially in the United States, are breaking through
the fetters--ecclesiastical as well as civil--which have so long bound
them. In a measure, at least, their day of civil and religious slavery
is drawing to a close. They now very frequently preside and speak at
public religious meetings, and are admitted by candid, well-informed men
to be quite as competent to discharge the duties of a presiding officer,
or to present the ideas they wish to convey in a clear and logical
manner, as any of the learned clergymen or clear-headed laymen in the
same meeting. Some of the most eloquent public advocates of the
missionary enterprise in the United States are earnest Christian women.
In the halcyon days of Queen Victoria, before the sad bereavement came
upon her which has darkened her latter years and caused her to retire as
much as possible from public view--at the time when she read her own
speeches from the throne--she was pronounced, by competent critics, to
be unsurpassed, as a reader, by any elocutionist in Europe.
A thoroughly liberal education, and the practice of conversing with
persons of intelligence, renders material assistance to both men and
women, by enabling them to express their thoughts in the clearest and
most forcible language possible; and the same thing may be remarked of
declamation. In social circles, where men and women of average mental
culture meet together, there is no perceptible difference between the
conversational powers of the sexes. Let the facilities for the education
of men and women once be made equal throughout the civilized world, and
the hackneyed cry of her mental inferiority will be heard of no more,
excepting when mentioned among the other exploded theories of the Dark
Ages and of barbaric times. The cramping of the mental powers of women,
or the attempting to cramp them, lest they might claim equal advantages
with the other half of the race, will be classed--and justly so--with
the cramping of women's feet by the Chinese, lest they might claim and
exercise the liberty of walking the streets at pleasure, as their
husbands do. A woman will be no more expected to give credence to every
thing her husband believes, no matter how absurd the belief may be, at
his dictation, because he is her husband, or to yield implicit obedience
to his commands, no matter how tyrannical, than she will be to follow
him to the funeral pyre.
Already ladies, by dint of untiring industry and perseverance, have
mounted to honorable positions, and have acquired meritorious fame as
artists, both in painting and in sculpture. Who, in our times, stands
higher on the list of artists than Rosa Bonheur or Miss Hosmer? In the
study of medicine, women have been met by the most scandalous opposition
and insult by those conservators of good morals, male medical students.
Yet, believing that women were as capable of acquiring skill in the
healing art as men, and that, where the peculiar diseases of women were
concerned, they were better adapted to it, and that there was less
impropriety in their attending their own sex than in men doing so, they
persevered, and have won for themselves honorable distinction. That
women have, for years, distinguished themselves in connection with
medical science, may be seen from the following interesting historical
facts presented by Caroline H. Ball:
Madame Francoise, the midwife of Catharine de Medici, lectured ably to
students of both sexes. James Guillemeau was a French surgeon of great
eminence, who died in 1813; but the obstetrical observations which gave
value to his books were contributed by Madame Veronne. It was to the
Countess of Cinchon, and the influence which she used at every court in
Europe, and finally at the Court of Rome, that the world owed the use of
Peruvian bark, and consequently of quinine. Its early name, "Jesuit's
Bark," showed one step of her process. (See "Anastasis Corticis
Peruviani, Seu China Defensis.") Madame Breton patented a system of
artificial nourishment for infants, in use in France as late as 1830.
At the age of twenty-four, in the year 1736, Elizabeth Blackwell, of
London, published a work on Medical Botany. It was in three volumes,
folio, well illustrated, and was the first of its kind in any country.
Madame Ducoudray, born in Paris, 1712, was the first lecturer who used a
manikin, which she herself invented and perfected. Physicians persist in
ignoring this fact, although it was publicly approved by the French
Academy of Surgeons, December 1, 1758.
Morandi, born in Bologna in 1716, and Beheron, born at Paris in 1730,
invented and perfected the use of wax preparations to represent
diseases. Beheron's collection was purchased by Catharine II, of Russia,
and went to St. Petersburg. Hunter acknowledged his obligations to her.
Morandi's collection, at Bologna, was visited and purchased by Joseph
II. She was Professor of Anatomy at the university. Lady Mary Wortley
Montague introduced inoculation into Europe; and the intelligent
observation of a farmer's wife led Dr. Jenner to his experiments with
vaccine matter.
The services of regularly qualified lady physicians are now eagerly
sought, not only in the United States, where they in later times first
proved their capability, but also in foreign countries. Medical
universities, the sage faculties of which once frowned with scorn upon
"women who would be guilty of the indelicacy of pushing themselves into
the medical profession," now gladly open their doors to them; the more
candid of the professors admitting that the "indelicacy," not to say
indecency, is upon the side of men who would push themselves into the
sick-chamber of a woman, and make inquiries of her concerning symptoms
peculiar to her sex, when there are women who are competent to attend to
her case.
Little by little the mists of superstition and error, incident to
barbaric times, are being dispelled by the genial light of a brighter
day. Even now, genteel ignorance is not esteemed the acme of feminine
perfection, except by those theorists who would degrade woman mentally,
that they themselves may thus acquire so much a higher elevation--at
least in their own imaginations--as to stand to them in God's stead, or,
at the very least, to be a semi-deity whose superior wisdom is to be
worshiped.
The facilities for acquiring a good common education, of late years
afforded to the masses, in which there was not so wide a distinction
made between the sexes as formerly, have accomplished much in removing
old-time prejudices; as the searching examinations of these public
schools have fairly tested the capabilities of both boys and girls, and
have established the fact that, with equal opportunities, the girls were
fully equal to the boys in mental ability and attainments. Grudgingly,
girls have been allowed to enter the grammar and higher schools; and
here, too, by their proficiency, they have proved their right to enter.
There was a great outcry raised when the first genuine university which
admitted women, allowed them to pursue precisely the same studies as
young men. It was predicted that almost unheard-of evils would ensue.
Woman, if they succeeded, would be unfitted for her "sphere," and become
unwilling to soothe, with tender hand, the suffering and the distressed,
etc. The wail was terrific. The experiment, however, succeeded. Women
not only commenced a real collegiate course, but pursued it to the end,
graduating with honors; and, despite prophecy, college-bred women made
faithful wives, judicious mothers, and good housekeepers. A cruel war
ravaged the fair fields of a portion of the United States, bringing with
it its attendant train of misery. What was the employment of ladies who
had graduated in universities in this crisis of their country? Had their
knowledge of Latin and Greek made them either inefficient or hard? The
weary, wounded soldier in the hospitals would testify that the kind hand
of an educated and refined woman bathed his feverish temples, while her
gentle voice breathed into his ear the glad tidings of a peace to be
attained by repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Delicacies
were needed for the invalid soldiers, and were not to be bought for
money; the educated woman, side by side with her uneducated sister,
bared her white arms above the elbow, and molded delicate pastry, and
sealed and pickled and preserved as diligently and as deftly as if she
had never demonstrated a problem in Euclid or heard of Sophocles. In
what way had women become unfitted for their sphere by a liberal
education? In no way whatever. If some highly educated women are
inefficient housekeepers, and slatternly in their persons, so also are
many who neither know how to read nor write; just as there are many
impracticable, inefficient, and slovenly men who are highly educated,
and ignorant men who are also incompetent and inefficient. Education has
nothing to do with making either men or women inefficient; the
inefficient would be inefficient to the end of time, though their minds
were never troubled with literature.
No fearful calamity having ensued as a consequence of the admission of
ladies to one university, others also began slowly, and with great
caution, to open their doors to them; and now their admission on the
same footing as their brothers to the same universities, and their
capability to complete the same curriculum is no longer an experiment,
but an established fact. Even in conservative, staid old England, ladies
are admitted to the examinations at Cambridge. But all are by no means
open. No: there are those, and some of them men of sense in other
respects, who can not come down from the lofty pedestal on which they
have placed themselves, and are not willing to allow their sisters or
daughters to mount, lest they should reach their side. These sneer and
frown, and prophesy evil just as vehemently as did narrow-minded men of
the same class fifty or twenty years ago; and their influence will, for
a time, keep some of the colleges closed to women. But this is a matter
of little consequence now. There are universities now open to them of as
high a literary grade as those which are closed against them; and
consequently they may drink at will at the fountain of knowledge,
despite the sneers and frowns of those who would prevent it if they
could, but happily can not altogether.
Though there is still much fierce opposition to the movement for
granting them equal civil and ecclesiastical rights and privileges, and
for allowing them to compete fairly with men in business transactions or
in the learned professions; and though it may be expected that this
opposition will be continued for some time to come,--yet women have
cause for thankful rejoicing, and may take courage. The long night of
their bitter servitude is nearly over, the dawn of better days is
beginning to tinge the horizon; and hope may now be entertained that
erelong they shall occupy the position to which they are entitled, as
man's compeer--the position of equality with him in all the relations of
life--and enjoy the full rights and privileges of civilized and
Christianized citizenship.
The morning is breaking.