The native American., 1838-09-22
CONDITION OF WOMEN IN FRANCE
NEXT DOOR TO THOSE IN INDIA.

CONDITION OF WOMEN IN FRANCE
NEXT DOOR TO THOSE IN INDIA.
We extract from a late number of the Journal
des Debats (of Paris) notice of new edition
of work which has attracted some attention in
tina. country. The extract contains some facts
which seem almost incredible, relating to the
fairer portion of creation in civilized France, at
the present aa-.
The second edition of the Treatise of M. Aime
Martin on the Education of Mothers of Families
is about to appear from the Paris press. He is
the first, perhaps, among our morallsts, who has
shown the deplorable situation of women in the
country, and called the attention Of Government
to the painful pictures which are all round u.s. and
which we are unwilling to see. The two chap
ters ne has published on the subject have struck
us as remarkable. One of them is entitled "The
Civilization Of the Rural Districts by Women"
We shall make quotations from this chapter.
''The great misfortune of our villages is the de-
gradaton Of women by the labors which belong
to men. In their early infancy, they drive the
focks and gather the harvest. While young
girls an instinct of coquetry and the foresight of
their mothers Danish them from the ruder fatigues
of agriculture; but as soon as they are married,
every thing is changed; they abandon the house
and follow their husbands into the fields. on
see them bent to the earth like machinery, or
loaded with enormous burdens like beasts. There
are countries in France Il do not mean Atrica)
where they are attached to the plough like the OK
and the ass, Then their skin becomes wrlnkled,
their features become masculine, and they fall
into premature decreptude, more hldeous than
that of old age. But, while they are performing
the labor OF the women, those labors which soften
all others,) they remain unknown or neglected.
Nothing can be more dirty and more unhealthy
than the interior of cottage. Often hens, ducks,
and hogs dispute the possession of its damp soil.
The door opens into the mud, and the windows,
when there are any, open upon the dung heap.
''Here it is, however, in mud hole like that
of a savage, in the midst Of the grunting of ami
mails and their offensive exhaations, that every
evening two human beings, male and female,
come to rest themselves from their fatigues Here
no one welcomes them; nothing agreeable meets
their eye; the table is empty and the hearth is
cold And here, too, other labors await the wo-
man; and before thinking of her husbands sup
per, and the care Of her children, she must take
care of the stable, and give food to the beasts.
ssWhat difference would there be, if, aban-
doning to man the rude labors of the earth, and
conining her own to the interior Of the house, the
woman, by her graceful foresight, had prepared
every thing for the hour of return. The flames
would shine upon the hearth; on the table, po-
lished by her hand would smoke the nutritious
soup, and the high pyramids of chestnuts or po-
tatoes, bursting invitingly from their skins. The
good housewife would then never be seen by her
husband but in the midst of abundance, and sur
rounded by the smiling flock of her children
Thus genteel and easy life would become the
life of vilager But nothing gives him the
idea of such happiness; he is ignorant of COM
fort, the charms of caresses, and even the power
Of love. His children tremble before him; his
wife breads the vigor of his arm. The adversa-
ry, and not the protector of these feeble beings,
he knows no law but force. The last reason of
the peasant, in his cabin as well as the fields, is
generally the weight of his fist.
"If we are asked for examples, we will cite
whole pro ,inces, the richest as well as the poor
est Of France Perigord, where the women grow
el in state of dirt and degradation, which reacts
upon the whole family-Picardy and Limousn,
where, repulsed to the last point as inferior
race, they serve their husbands at the table with
out ever placing themselves by their sides
t,rsse, where they are mere machines, beasts
e burden and labor-Basse Bretagne, finally,
where the men, women, and children, reduced to
an almost savage state, pell-me in the same
mud. eat the same black corn in the same man
Ger with their sheep and swine. Every where
the degradation of the woman is the proof of
the brutality of the man. And every where the
hrutalization of the man is the reaction of the
degradation Of the woman.
s.Such is the situation of the peasantry in
almost the whole of civilized Europe"
THE .ancient Greek and Roman IaJle.-The