The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-04-14
Woman's Right to Live.
From the Chicago Post.

tAat is quite as vital. Shall it be made
respectable for woman to earn her bread /?
The question of voting is sure to receive
an abundance Of noisy attention, for it is
novel and of the most piquant interest :;
the question of Bread is old, and is much
more likely to be overlooked
From adjoining cradles, our boys are
mainly educated for a life Of indepen-
dence, and our girls mainly for a life Of
The boy is told he must
rely upon his own right arm; the girl is
given to understand that she must expect
to lean on somebody else's. So the boy
is taught selfreliance, self-defense, self
support; W lille the girl is carefully taught
that it is unwomanly to be useful outside
of her mothers kitchen, and that it is a
badge of degradation for her to train her
self to earn her own living.
We regard the incubation of such SEN
timents by society as cruel and vicious in
the last degree For the result is that
the hoy grows to manhood, an important
flctor in the world, unit of power; and
the girl learns to knead bread and make
good butter (perhaps), and, if her father
can afford it, he sends her to boarding
school where she goes through the first
declension of the Latin noun, learns to
sing Captain Jinks," and to construct
leaning castles in crayon. Then her faith
er buys her a chignon of the best and
most ponderous pattern, and she SITS at
the window, as her mother did, and waits
for beau W
Now, if the right man comes, she is
fortunate she lnay GO through the world.
rs well as the boy, held in that indepen-
dent dependence which mutuale love be.
gets But suppose that he does not
come or, suppose that he comes and
goes away again; or, suppose he leaves
her widow; and soppose that her fath
"a is poor, or, losing his property, be-
comes poor. What then? She has been
duously taught by all her male and fe-
male friends that dependence on man is
the only proper condition of woman
that it is her first duty to find some ma
tire male to whom she may attach her
self somehow, somewhere, and as soon as
possible She has not learned a trade,
because all her acquaintances regarded it
as being unfeminine to know how to
make money. D
Now she Is called to face misfortune,
and is unprepared Her hands~are empty
and unskllled She has no relative on
whom she wishes to impose herself, What
shall she do? If she be personally at
tractiveand with only an average Of NOR
al resistance, how far is it to the pave
ment, from where she sands? 8
Society, every time it speaks, eulogizes
the beauty of womanly dependence and
this same womanly dependence is the
mother of prostitution everywhere. TIL
wise world gazes in open-eyed wonder at
:, the. social evil" and sends up devout
prayers that it may be banished from the
land, and then goes home and carefully
instructs It's Harriets, AIMS, and Elias
hat 1T is unfeminine to be useful, and a
dreadful misfortune to be compelled t.
take part in the worlds work go
A young woman or widow thrown
| suddenly upon her own resources, finds
little desirable work that she can do t,
advantages She can list as servant ii
the great Hibernia Mongolian army: OF
she can go into q factory on meagre wa
ges for months; or she can, ii she bt
competent, teach a school or she cal
make shirts at ten cents piece. She il
not generally fitted for the more remun
erative occupations for she has not learn
| ed them - 3hNa s |
Her low wages are not the result of hel
Observation-Disclosures. or of arbitrary dis
elimination against her sex; but of tut
terrible competition which comes of thu
fact that there are so few remunerativt
employments for which women are wei
fitted With such tremendous rivalry
1.-THE Shylock of Chatham street an an
swer the poor girl who protests that SHE
cannot live on the pittance she gets
4 avery we'll there are twenty who want
YOUR chance" And the School Superin
tendent can justly reply to the teachel
VINO asks to have her salary raised: eve
cannot do it; there are half dozen clam
oring for your place." There are laws O
trade as we'll as laws of justice Supply
will regulate demand. In vain shall Be
nevolence fling hard epithe is at avarici
GUS employers, as long as the dismal al
formative is presented to thousands o.
| drspairing women, Do this work, OF
starvei " eI'asY Hfstt
AS long as the multitude of growing
girls are taught, by, father, mother, and
minister, that the only thing that is real
ly fashionable to do, is to stay at homt
and lie in wait for husband, so long
will sharp competition and starvation
prices beset all working women, and So
long will the bagnio be populated to re-
plttion. Unskilled labor never com
mands premium. If all women were
taught varied remunerative occupations
according to taste and convenience. NO
woman would be compelled, in her trial
hour, to rush into an employment low in
the scale and terribly overcrowded
The Citizen and Round Table solemnly
sets forth that"a woman's true place ie
that of wife," and adds, Eve do not
think that women are snittd for the