Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-10-23
AlisteIoneona
wOMAN,s socIAL pIsLocArLoN.

Says the Home Jo,bHgi. Among a collection Of
very able addresses, delivered at he anniversary
OF The "Young Mems Christian Union" u New
York, and published by Thatcher anil Hutchinson,
under the title Of Religious Aspects oc the Age q
is ole OF peculiar pid aud interest. The author,
Rev. T. W. lligginsun, of Worcester, spoke parDic
ularly Of woman's wrcns position in our social
system and we extract, below, he Iulk ofwhai
he said -
~ = ; 3 lIo is idle, she is illcr, who at
tributco 20 any temporary excitement tle great,
and gradual movement in these times, which as,
signs to woman her equal position in TIE future.
rs man has had bis prcdJminance in .hc past
For want of this movement, for ages, a minor key
of sadness has run through all tic words and
works of woman. No man can ever speak Of the
position of woman so mournlully as she has done
it for herself. Charlotte Dron,o, Caroline Norton,
and indeed the majority Of intellectual women,
from the beginning to the end 81 their lives, have
touched US to sadness, even in their mirth. And
the mournful memory Of Mrs. Sidions, looking
back upon years when she had been the chief in.
tellectual joy Of English society, could only de
duce one hope, chat there might he some other
world hereafter, where justice would be done to
woman
ut is not alone in the great tragedies Of life it
is more in the unseen and private sorrows it is
more in the prosperous classes than in the uupros.
porous it is more among women who make no
complaint. than among the Compliments, that we
see the wrongs in tho position Of woman. The
life, the ordinary life &c single women in the com
munity-their life from eighteen years to their
wedding day-what is it, IN tens Of thousands Of
cases, but one long petty tragedy Alife rcputed
blameless indeed, but also aimless a life without
a noble hope, without a large enjoyment. without
an earnest purpose! 1t is impossible that the
soul should be satisfied with what society gives
young girls as the solid material Of their lives, dan
cling PARTIES, a crochctneedle, the last new novel.
and the occasional amateur manufacture Of rather
indigestible sponge cake. The soul demands an
object, or it dies. This emptiness Of life, to I'M
married momen, has led again and again to insan..
ity and premature decline, for which the doctors
could find no sufficient reason. Every man knows
it, whose position has given him the confidence of
woman. Again and again have | been asked by
woman, almost with tears in their cyes-persons
who had everything that fortune could give them
De not merely preach to US resignation, but
point out to US some object in existence How
hard it was to answer.
"Wbat is education, what all the varied culture
of modern times, to q perplexity like this? 1t is
only giving wings to a'cagel bird. | remembe q
young friend Of mine, now a happy and successful
school teacher, who was asked by a companion,
some years since, why she was so unwilling to leave
school?' Il don't want to leave school, was the
answer, because then / shall not have anything to
do Nothing to do ? was the astonished answer,
why can't you stay at homo, and make pretty lit
tie things to wear. as other girls do {? II was a
correct description. 1t is a sad thing to me-" said
another accomplished female teacher to watch my
fine girls after they leave school, and see the intel.
lectual expression die out Of their eyes, for want Of
an object to employ it, | once heard n mother
say, i have thought much on this subject, but
know this my daughters are more gifted than
my cons, more cultivated, have higher aspirations,
yet it seems to me, when l think of it, that my
girls live, all the year round, very much the sort
Of life that my boys do when they come back from
college, for a few weeks of relaxation. | like it
well enough in my boys for a week or two at a
time, but l should be ashamed to have brought
them into the world if they lived so permanently. ,
again and again, in different forms, this prob
lem comes befoIe US. 1t is q transition age. The
old employments of woman are passing by. Low
ell does the work of the spinning-whecl. The
sewing machine is annihilating the needle, and so
ciety is to solve a new problem in the position o.
women. l pass over the darker aspects Of her ex
issence. l say nothing Of the crime which fills oul
streets, Of domestic tyranny and sensuality-of tn,
woman whose life, at first happy, is wrecked b.
the basenesS Of manhood, and who then turns u
,ba l,us which choplI proteat how ord GpIs FL,
law worse than the husband. For it is but a few
years since laws were repealed, of which that Yer
mont statute was a specimen, which confscated t
the State half the property Of every ehildless wild
ow, thinking that the State could probably fin,
better use for it than she. But / speak now rath
or of that more common position Of the woman
who. Graded in comfort or luxury, finds no plac
in life for her energies, and has to take her chanc
for existence in the choice between o husband an,
nothing and as some one has that is ofte,
q chance between two nothings. And yet thes
women thus wasted and weary, what is there i
existence (which they might claim? What plac
in the universe that they might not nobly fill?
"A women are now educated, their whole live
are dependent and accidental. | said to a phys
clan once, speaking of a certain woman who ha
been under his care, How great she was in tina
emergency 'Don't you know, said he, that a
women are great in emergencies? And so it is
they are. But emergencies do DOT come to all
and those who are thus great when they come, al
not educated to create them. | take it, every W.
man that ever lived had wings enfolied in her b,
ing. and it was only time and circumstances whic
decided whether she should prove an angel or
moth. Every woman becomes a Madonna by tn
-- - IL. e. - Il - H. II -
may ennoble her also. | have seen a inshionabI
beauty who seemed as if she thought buiterhic
were only made that she might initiate them
the waving lustre of her garments | have see
her forget oil that gorgeousness, and throw herse
down in the mify street to save a beggar-chil
from, the horses Of an omnibus. From the othC