Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-02-03
MUSCLE AND wOMAhHOOD.
What Eliza Archard Says Of
American WOmen-A Lib
eral Dose >Of whole
some Truth.


perhaps, doctors, to whom II exists, not
as reality, but only as a possibility OF
that good time TO come alter the present
generation OF American women will have
all died out, as indeed they ought TO do
rapidly; the sooner the better for those
ofthem who, in their willful helplessness,
are already beyond the reach OF hope
and mercy.
MAKE sheep Of yourself and the
wolf will eat you, says the old German
proyerb. There is but one animal weak
enough TO be compared TO the average
American woman of these times. It's to
he regretted that the animal is a sheep.
A sheep is weak, cowardly, helpless, and
very foolish at times. SO is fashionable
American lady. But the sheep does not
make q virtue Of its cowardly helpless
ness. The lady does. That is the differ
ence A sheep will insanely follow in
the exact track of the sheep next ahead,
though il break its neck down precl-
pice. Sheep-lke, we women blindly fol-
low the patriarch of the flock at Paris,
no matter how crazy his leaps are. We
have made sheep of ourselves for five
wears. and the wolf Of Ill-Health is eating
us every day. And we let him devour
us, body and bones, by the thousand,
year after year and year after year,
rather than throw off our sheepshness,
and break away, at once and forever,
from the national flock of sick women.
| | remember once seeing four women
try to kiss one man. IN. B. Against his
willy. There had been a sportive wager
made, and though the four young ladies
brought their united strength to bear in
endeavoring to pinion the active young
gentleman, they were obliged to give up
beaten. They lost the wager. The
gentleman was man Of average muscle;
the four girls, as ladies go, had decidedly
more than the average of physical
strength.
And that is what full grown girls
amount toll But something very like
the millennium will approach, before wo-
men can be made understand that they
ought to be ashamed to let one man
have more strength than four women.
This is the worst OF it all. 1t is their
religious conviction that the crowning
glory of womankind is physical degene'
racy Their chief delight is to believe
themselves born to cling to whatever is
nearest, in droopy, like-the-ivy-to-the.
oak way, and to be viney, and twiney,
and whitney, throughout. Like the ivy to
the oak exactly, if we are willing to
learn anything from nature; for. In
point of fact, the ivy generally smothers
the oak to death at last.
Woman conquers by her weakness,
| VI -. nd q
! nonsense! Woman's weakness is des-
picabe. Weakness of any kind is a
credit to nobody. How can it beY Do
we admire man more because one arm
is paralyzed, or because he is blind Of an
eye2 Is there anything particularly
lovely in the ghastly sight off man who
is starving to death? And what more
claim to our admiration has woman
/ who, in manner, paralyzes herself all
| over. and starves every drop of good red
life blood out of her body? The lovely
| creatures who choke the breath out OF
themselves, and eat chalk and pickles,
/ and drink vinegar, may be counted by
the hundred. You know them and l
know them. So grounded into the very
| souls of women is this notion OF the ex-
cellent beauty of woman's weakness,
that there are those who think 1T isn't
pretty to exert even the scanty strength
they have. / know a woman weighing
two hundred solid pounds avordupois,
who will allow her puny, contemplate
little puppet of husband, weighing
scarcely one hundred, to beat her like
dog. whenever his lordship is inclined to
Give her a Furnishing" And the poor
creature simply takes refuge in woman's
weakness, and meekly sheds tears for an
hour or two. She deserves her whipping,
she does, for being so mean spirited
| Sbs deserves it all, for not treating her
| liepe lord to a bit of the McCoolJones
| game. and trying whether pure science
cannot be overcome by the force OF maui
whether two hundred pounds cannot
turn and give one hundred most un-
merciful beating. Think oftwo hundred
pounds and woman's weakness.
To fight to death the idea that there is,
that there can be possibly. anything
praiseworthy in physical weakness, will
be at once the first duty and the hardest
work of all who would elevate what is in
very truth the weaker sex. thiak that
| reformers in the field of woman's rights
and duties bave mostly lost sight of part
| of the work before them. They seem to
have forgotten the fact that unless there
be a two-fold development, one of body
as of mind, the body will lag back, and
fret and fetter the mind, SO long as the
mind is in the body. To be mental or
moral force, the human animal must hrst
be physical force.
Woman's want Of muscle is a crying
shame and a sin. In truth, this want of
harmonious muscular development is
the one need of the whole American ma
ton. We all find it more than anything
else. but the race of American women IS
diving out for want of it. Women sacri-
fee health, usefulness, happiness, life
even. to the one insane desire for deli
cate beauty" Delicate beauty may do
for heaven, but something more than
that is wanted to bring up children IN
this world. You want bone and blood
and muscle to do your duty here below.
Women are asking loudly and more
loudly for the rights of human beings.
Sometimes when one sees their punlness'
their voluntary helplessness, one IS
almost angry enough TO doubt whether
these feeble, half-bodied creatures have
any business with the rights of whole hu-
man beings. When women make boast
of their utter incapacity to take care OF
themselves, it is hard to see, sometimes,
what possible rights they ought to have.
And indeed this very argument Is the
great gun of those who oppose woman
ri.hts, so.called. Woman is physically
too YEA. they saw. 10 discharge the du-
lies which the obtaining of political and
social rights would involve, shame to
the vanity and laziness which have