North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1868-02-26
EQUALITY AT HOME.
Women Of 1867.


His master thundcred as he let him go,
with you still remsn Count Mirabeau!"
Women Of 1907.
A woman who wrote used to be consid-
cred sort of monstrosity. At this day it is
difficult to find one who does not write, or
has not written, or who has not, at least. a
strong desire to do so. Gridirons and
darning-needles are getting monotonous.
A part of their time the women of to-day
are content to devote to their consideration
when necessary bnt you will rarely find
one--at least among women who think
who do not slightly rebel against allowing
them monopoly.
What? you inquire, would you encour-
age, in the present overcrowded state of
the literary market, any more women
scribblers? Stop bit. 1t does not fol-
low that tehy should wish or seek to
give to the world what she has written. l
look around and see innummerable women.
to whose barren, lovelcss life this would be
an Improvement and solace. and say to them
write Write, if it will make that life
brighter, or happier. or less monotonous.
Write it will be safe outlet for thoughts
and feelings that maybe the nearest friend
you have has never dreamed had place in
your heart and brain. You should have
read the letters l have read you should
have talked with the women | have talked
With IN short, you should have walked
this earth with your eyes open, instead of
shut, as far as women are concerned. to
endorse this advice. Nor do | qualify
what | have said on account of social po-
| sition, or age, or even education. 1t is not
| safe for the women of 1867 to shut down
| SO much that cries out for sympathy and
expression, because life is such mael-
| strom of business or folly, or both, that
those to whom they have bound them
selves, bilv and SOU > recognize only the
needs of the former. Let then, acl'ite if
they will One of these days, when that
diary is found, when the hand that penned
it shall be dust, with what amazement and
remorse will many a husband, or father,
exclaim: l never knew my wife, or my
child, till this moment. All these years
she has sat 10y my hearth, and slumbered
by my 81 e, and | have been a stranger to
her. And you sit there, as you read sem
tence after sentence, and you recall the
day. and the month, and the week. when
she moved calmly, aad you thought happi-
iy. or, at least, contentedy, about the
house, all the while her heart was aching.
| when kind word from you, or even a
touch OF your hand upon her head, as you
passed out to business, or pleasure, would
| have checred her. oh so much When
have you sat down by her side after the
days work for both was over. and talked
| with her Just a few moments on something
| besides the price Of groceries, and the
| number of shoes Tommy has kicked out,
all OF which, proper and necessary in their
place, need not of necessity form the staple
of conversation between married pair.
Had you done this had you recognized
| that she had soui as well as yourself,
| how much sunshine you might have thrown
over her ccorlcss life.
"Perhaps, SIR" you reply shut + ave
thought 1t would only distress her to do
this = How do you know that? And if
| it were so. are you content to leave her
the mother of your children--so far be-
hind? O,yht you to do it? Should you
not, by raising the selfrespect you have
well nigh crushed by your indifference and
neglect, extend manly hand to her help
think SO. The pink cheeks which first
Won you may have faded, but remember
| that it was IN your serricc, when you quiz
city accept the fact that ''you have left
wife far behind you in mental improve
ment.' Oh it is pitable this growing
| apart of man and wife, for lack Of little
generous consideration and magnanimity
| 1t is pitable to see husband without a
thought that he might and should occa-
sionally have given his wife lift out of
| the petty, narrowing details of her woman $
life, tugp from her, in company, to address
| his conversation to some woman who, hap
pier than she, has had time and opportu-
| nifty for mental culture. You do not see,
| sir--vou wiU not see--you do not desire to
| see how her cheek fiushes, and her eye
moistens, and her heart sinks like lead as
you thus wound her sef.respect. You
think her "cross and illnatured. if when,
| the next morning. you converse with her
| on the price of butter, she answers you
| listlessly and with total want of interest
| in the treadmill- subject.
| say to such women; WRITE! Rescue
| a part Of each week at least for reading,
and putting down on paper for your own
private benefit, your thoughts and feelings.
Not for the world's eye, Unless you choose,
but to lift yourselves out from the dead
level of your lives to keep off inanition
to lessen the number who are yearly added
to our lunatic asyums from the ranks of
misappreciated, unhappy womanhood,
narrowing by lives made up of details
Fight it oppose it, for your own sakes
and your childrcn's! Do not be mentally
annihilated by it. 1t is all very well to
sneer at this and raise the old cry of a
"woman's sphere being home''-men
whose home is only place to feed and
sleep in. You might as well say that a
mans shere is his shop or his counting
room. How many of them, think you,
would be contented, year in aid year out,
to eat, drink, and sleep as well as to trans
act business there, and nerer desire or take,
at all costs, some let-up from it's manoton-
Gus grind? How many would like to
forego the walk to and from the place of
business forego the opportunities for con-
| versation, which chance thus throws in
their way, with other men bent on the
same or other errands? have, literally, no
variety in their lives? Oh, if you could
be woman but one year and try it! A
| woman--but not necessarily butterfly
not necessarily machine, which, wound
up by the marriage-ceremony, is expected
to click on with undertaking monotony till
Death stops the hands. FANNY FERN.