The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1868-03-05
The Physical Degeneracy of Woman.
BY MRS. T. ID. GAGE.

Are we right, 0 men and women o
this age! when we hurl such wholesome
censure and anathema upon the weaker
half of humanity, for their physical de.
generacy and un6tness for the duties ol
lifei
There is ever a cause for consequence
and would it not be wise to look back a
| few generations among our robust mus
cular grandparents, and see if, among the
much lauded habits of their time, we
cannot discover some of the present
trouble?
| Let US take practical illustration
from actual facts of the past.
Eighty years ago, young man and a
young woman of robust health, abound
ing in vital force and muscular strength,
full of ambition and enterprise, concluded
to become husband and wife.
Not to 60 further into detail, let us fol-
low this young man and his wife. She
married, accepting her fate, and giving
her all into his hands They moved in a
one horse cart from Massachusetts to
Central New York; their entire posses
sions having come from the wife's father
as her inheritance. The husband was
twenty-oue, the wife twenty years of age.
A wild tract of Government land on
the banks of the Genesee was bought 1t
was infested with wild beasts and wilder
Indians. aud covered with heavy timber
At first they camped out, sleeping in
their cart. Soon cabin was rolled up
and clearing was begun. Twenty years
after there was fiue farm here house,
barns, cattle, and horses, and there was a
family of twelve children, born of this
woman. We will let her tell her own
story:
a worked night and day." she used
to say to her daughters. +" | never knew
what is was to sleep enough. 1 never
had nurse girl. There were none to be
had I nursed you through measles,
mumps, whooping cough, fever and ague,
rheumatism = every thing.
"We soon had large dairy, hocks of
sheep, and great corn and wheat fields
These required work hands to wash for,
cook for, and make beds for. carded,
span, and wovc the WOOL with which we
were clothed, | knit the stockings and
did the sewing, and, as child after child
was added. felt that had more bur-
dens than / could bear.
Your father seemed to work harder
than l. He bought wild lands, specu-
lated farmed, was a politician, a great
man, aud never had minute for his wife
and children. He built mills, drained
rivers, laid out towns, and when my
twelfth child was born | was forty five
years of age, aud pretty well worn out.
We were worth thousands upon thou
sands, but We had not one really brave,
strong child Four of the boys went to
college. Two died young. Their father
said they should never work as he had
done for living. They had all the mo-
ney they wanted, and it ruined them.
Ny girls were all good housekeepers
There were eight of them; but they all
seemed weak and good for nothing. L
thought father and l had worked too
hard. l knew | had l noticed that
men raising stock never let their breed
ing animals, male or female, work hard.
The girls and boys all married but
one, and whenr was sixty years of age
had ftty-four grandchildren, but only
three daughters left. All wore out young
aud faded away
We will end the story.
Not one son lived to be forty years of
age. One died drunkard, one of dys-
pepsia, one terrible death of dissipation
and sin.
Of the ffty-fou grandchildren many
died Fery young; but there still remain
of the descendants Of this couple over
two hundred people, down to the great
great grandchildren, and of them all
scarcely one can be considered healthy,
athletic, and strong, among either the
men or the women.
The sins of the fathers have been Wis
tied upon the children to the third and
fourth, aye, even to the fifth generation
Whose fault is it If the fourth genera
ton of the women are feeble and unfit to
be mothers? This hard-working, over
taxed mother, taught her eight feeble
girls that it was terrible to work so hard
and have SO many children.