The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1870-02-26
Toy Wives.

w hat has become OF the old-taShlonet
helpmate !? Or, perhaps-sinee cher
ished and wonder striking specimens
still linger here and there around us
We should rather say what is becoming
of her? The notion appears to be slow
ly but surely gaining szsund that fol
woman Ther conjugal relation to help
man is an absurd and expkge fallary
If cannot be allowed to pet my wife,
said backsliding rAurmer in the Wo.
mans Convention last week, 81 shall
not go for fema le entrancllisement.' p
The observation IS responsive to the no,
ton we speak of. Women are to be
pets, dolls, toys-creatursss to be fondled,
bpretN5 dressed, played with--anything,
in brief, but co workers or helpmates to
their husbands There is always dan
ger of exageration in the discussion of So
cial = pics; but it will hardly be said that
Wa strain truth in affirming that, in our
great cities at least, femme responsibility
in marriage is getting tJSe sadly attenu-
ated, and that the fact augurs no good
for the average domestic happiness of
the future. t-r.'
Young men complain on all sides that
they are not rich enough to marry
When thought of, all this is commonly
at s'ibutsd to the hard times; but there
were hard times LONG ago. and people
then married in the Spring of their lives,
before the freshness and gaiety of youth
had departed and head and heart had
alike grown gray in the struggle for
gold. 1t was formerly thought that with
health and strength one pair Of hands
could win bread enough tors two--pro-
vided always thrift and cheerfulness abode
in the home to take care of what was
gained and irnpart the needful spirit TO
gain mor@ We have changed or, are
changing all that. More is expected
nowadays from'the man and less from
the woman. A girl with any preten-
sions to beauty or family, looks, ia mar
rying, to be maintained in luxury with
out physical effort of her own, and even !
those moral repayments which of yore
We're things Ct course the tacit ac-
acknowledgements that brighten the fire.
side and smooth the rugged masculine
path-are now, we fear, all too seld m
regarded as obligatory, Instead of these
the average husband is perhap treated
20 daily exposition Of woman's wrongs,
Informed that man is her tyrant and en-
SLAYER. but that, thanks TO Providence
md Mr.. John Stuart Mill, year of de-
iveranec is surely at hand. y w. '...%
W. are not of the number who would
urn deaf ear to the reasonable COM
oiaints OF the sex, or decline to revise
pgal or s'e'al usases that discriminate
unfairly against them But it is sure.
y not without signifi ance, 1t a period
When the clamor is so loud for woman's
lights, and so sharp in reprobation of
Ter alleged slavery, that there should
'e so many useless wives, drones of wo
men, who, whether as girls or mothers.
erm to think--when they think at all
that their sex shields them from res
possibility, and that it is the business
f men to fight the whole of the battle of
ife alone. 1t is no doubt true that this
8 in part the fault of the men.
They want to "pet'" their wives, to
make babies of them, to array them in
purple and fine linen. to see them dazzle
lie opera house and saloon with their
ilks and ermiDe and pearls and dia-
nonds, Too busy to "dress themseles, r
nen have, in fashion, assigned the mo-
lopoIy to wives and daughters. The
act has tended to stimulate the greed of
romcn for dress, and augment their self
ove while naturally weakening their
owers of self-control and draining the
urse of their Husbands The subject
} one that admits Of being estimated
rom many sides and discussed from
ifierent points of view; but there can
e no harm at period when SO much ,
J said about the rights Of women that
re unjustly withheld by man in sug-
esting some slight consideration
the possible rights of man that are
'ithheld by women Whatever the re- !,
nit of such consideration with different .
ainkers, it will hardly bs gainsaid that :
women ought TO- have duties in life
,hether they generally acknowledge /
nd perform them or not; and that in
his struggling century men have but !
doubtful right to have, and women a
till more questionable right to be, what
'es have sttgmatized under the name of
Toy Wives.--IN. Y. Times. @ I,