REPORTS CONTINUED—REGINA STRAIGHTBACK
We have already obtained a glimpse of Regina Straightback, in
character. Her tall Indian-like figure, with her picturesque and
semi-manly costume, will not be readily forgotten.
The faithful police of the ‘Committee of Disorganisation,’ in course of
a detailed report concerning this woman, says:
“Regina Straightback is nearly as unbending in temper as in figure,
which peculiarity renders her of somewhat less avail to us than such
more ductile natures as her fast friend, Etherial Softdown, and her
soul’s sister, Eusedora Polypheme.
“However, she possesses an availability of her own, which is invaluable
in its way. She is incontrovertibly the Amazonian queen of the
‘New-Lights.’ Her commanding figure and her dramatic carriage, together
with her unanswerably positive and imperious manner, have, as implying
a natural gift of command, won for her the universal suffrage of her
sisters militant. So it never fails that, by a species of spontaneous
acclaim, she is selected to preside over all convocations of the
‘faithful,’ whether held in public or in private.
“By tacit consent, she has, therefore, come to be regarded as the
actual figure-head of the bark of Progress; and, hence, there is no
movement, on the part of feminine schismatics, worthy of attention, to
which she has chosen to deny her presiding countenance.
“This renders her, of course, a very formidable and important person,
in all the ‘New-Light’ agitations of the day. Conscious of supremacy,
she exercises it without hesitation; and, with a boldness that is
startling to all parties, dares to assert outright those opinions
which, in reality, lie at the bottom of the whole agitation in which
they are engaged.
“Indeed, not only does she defiantly assert them openly on all
occasions, but openly lives up to them in the face of society. While
her followers modestly say, they want woman’s civil rights in marriage,
she courageously asserts, that there is no marriage except in love,
and that the civil contract is like any other partnership in which
equivalents are exchanged; and, by way of proof of her sincerity, she
boasts, publicly and privately, of the terms on which she married her
present husband; who, by the way, possessed considerable property. ‘I
do not love you, sir,’ said she; ‘I love another man, whom you know. If
you choose to take me on these conditions, I am ready to marry you.’
“The charming candor of this proposal won the day; and the
superannuated ‘New-Light’ was fain content to exchange his hand and
fortune for her _hand_, and to leave her heart to settle its affairs in
some other direction.
“This is the sort of frankness in which the ‘Committee of
Disorganisation’ do most rejoice. They regard it as a highly
favourable omen, when a ‘distinguished female’ can take such grounds
as this, and be publicly sustained by thousands of her sex; for with
whatever gravity they may pretend to repudiate the doings of Regina
Straightback, in this one particular, it is very certain, that they
must regard it with secret favor, and that this is the principal cause
of her universal and overwhelming popularity.
“They regard her with a species of covert adoration—as a heroine, who
has first, since Fanny Wright, dared, in living up to principle, to
do that which they are all, in reality, yearning for courage to do
themselves.
“The chaos of social licentiousness, to which the general acceptation
of such doctrine as this must lead, may be regarded, to say the least
of it, as pleasantly melodramatic. When one woman may go to the house
of another, and say, ‘Though thou hast been bound to this man, in the
holy bonds of matrimony, yet these bonds are of no moral force; though
thou hast borne to this man children from his loins, yet the fact that
thou hast suffered gives thee no claim upon him, for it is the penalty
of thy sex; and that they are bone of thy bone, and flesh of his flesh,
gives thee no just hold upon him, but rather upon the State. And if
thou hast nursed him in sickness, he has fed thee and clothed thee, in
ample equivalent; if thou hast loved him, he has loved thee; if thou
lovest him still, it is thy weakness. Get thee gone! This man no longer
loveth thee; he is mine. Thou shalt surrender to me thy nuptial couch;
there is no true marriage but in love!’
“Nor does the candor of Regina Straightback rest with practical
declarations such as these; she goes quite as far in other directions.
She does not hesitate to denounce the Bible, as sanctioning all
the oppressions of woman—as the mere tool of the priesthood, the
orthodox of whom are banded, to a man, in mortal opposition to their
rights. She recommends the use of it, as a means—to those who are
more disposed than she is to Jesuitism—of conquering by indirections.
They may influence and control the masses, by invoking its sanction,
to be sure; but she, for her own part, will have nothing to do with
subterfuges; she rejects the Bible system in toto, as false—false in
fact and tendency. God has made woman sufficient unto herself in the
universe. She can and ought to protect herself; and if she does not,
it’s her own fault.
“The Bible might do for men; but women possess a higher spirituality,
and stronger intuitions; they do not need it. Man, with his heavy
logic, never gets beyond a truism or a self-evident fact, of the mere
physical world; while woman, with her electrical inspiration, leaps
the ‘large lengths’ of universal law, and, like a conquering presence,
glides within the spiritual, supreme. It is thus that, scorning all
bonds of sense, she knoweth that she doth know!
“The announcement of these tremendous propositions would, of course, be
calculated to have an overwhelming effect upon the tender adolescence
of thousands of bright spirits—to electrify their hearts and souls with
the novel consciousness of claims and attributes, of which they had
never dreamed themselves or their sex to be possessors.
“The result has been, of necessity, the institution of a feminine order
of ‘knight-errantry,’ of which the Quixote has yet to be sung.
“The Committee do not generally employ such agents as Regina
Straightback; but as the time seems to have practically arrived, owing
to the preparatory labors of Etherial Softdown and Eusedora Polypheme,
they seem to have conceded that such pretensions may be safely risked,
though, it is well known, they usually do far more harm than good to
any cause.
“The fact that such a step may be safely ventured upon, seems to be the
most encouraging token of the progress already achieved, and of the
ultimate and triumphant success of the exertions of the ‘Committee of
Disorganisation.’”