Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1868-12-11
QUESTIONS ABOUT WOMEN.
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER

DEAR SIR During a discussion aris-
ing from reading John Whites Little
Sermon" in the March number of
Putnam's Monthly, on the tendency
of mothers of this generation to depart
from the walks and ways of our grand
and great grand mothers, the question
WAS asked il the mothers are SO remiss
in duty, what will the children, three
generations hence, do for grandnothers
The Intercepted being unable to give
an answer, fefered the interrogater to
you, believing you can give salts
factory solution of the question. Do
you not think that, if it were put to
the test and our mothers given the
privilege of final decision, the maj
GRITTY would say that they considered
the standard of true womanhood re-
latively as high as the standard of true
manhood Wouldn't they think that
educating their boys for voters was
equally as high vocation as that of
voting
I have referred to you according to
request, and hope to receive reply
through the columns Of the Ledger.
H. E. F.
Maumee City, Ohio, Nov. 10, 1868.
We do not sympathize with the re-
marks so constantly, and we think I'M
refectingly, made about the degeneracy
of the woman of our day. There was
never period when, suitable except
ions being made. woman stood upon so
high level in America as now--was so
generally we'll educated, and, in conse-
quence, was SO intelligent was SO free
and happy in social life; was, except in
lcities, so healthy and SO fit to perform
the duties of maternity. 80
1t is true that there are great num-
Der of women, especially in cities, who
have suffered in health from lack of ro-
bust out door life, from too urgent
pressure in education, and from the
over excitement of unwise, even if not
of dissipated, fashionable pleasures.
But all women do not live in cities.
The great multitude of wives and
mothers who give character to our
times are country born and bred, and
are pursuing such various industries as
give sufficient physical exercise for the
purposes of health. Some observers
seem to leave out of their statistics all
women who do not belong to literary
circles or to the higher plans of socie-
ty They take little account of the
condition of farmers wives, of mechan-
los wives and daughters, of the wives
of day-laborers with their husbands,
and of the vast number of women who
sustain vital relations of society,
though not of distinctively literary or
intellectual character.
Where are the statistics which show
that the physical health and force of
character are diminishing ?--that
women, regarded not in exceptional
cases, but over the whole land, are de-
teriorating? Our own impressions are
the very reverse. Observation, as well
as theory, incline us to believe that
woman was at no former period so well
off, so useful, or living under condi-
tions so directly conducive to her own
health, and that of her offspring, as
now.
Civilization and refinement are inn
mortalities if their general effects are
preiudicial to the vital interests of wo-
men. But they are not Women, in
common with all others, have received
immeasurable advantages from the
progress Of society, and nowhere NOR G
than in America.
| If the plea for woman's rights had
no better ground to stand on than the
relative sufferings of women, there
would be no reason for such an agita-
ton. a9se
Women ask for relief because they
are growing with the growth of the civ
ilized world.
Fetters do not gall their limbs be-
cause the fetters are heavier, but be-
cause their limbs have grown larger. -
They ask larger liberty because they
are coming to powers which cannot
have full exercise without an extended
sphere. Indeed, there is good reason
for finding fault with the phrase.