The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-14


One of the oldest things in this strange
contradictions life of ours is The disagreement
continually occurring between material fact
and moral reality. Things are not what
they seem," in very truth; and we
should seldom be far out if we
took appearances, rs the witches of
old used to say their prayers, backwards.
And foremost among these contradictions are
certain circumstances touohing the written
and the actual condition of the women of
England. BY law n wife is nowhere. Ranked
with infants and idiots, she is the property of
her husbands; her rights are vested in him,
her very individuality is merged in his; of
herself and disallowed by him, she can do
nothing either to defend or to maintain her.
self; all of which is bad enough when the
marriage is q failure, and the home
falls asunder, and the wife has to bear the
brunt of two evils at once--fetters on the one
hand and want of protection on the other
And yet what is the moral reality in the face
of this positive legal fact p? That nine times
out of ten the woman is the mistress and the
man walks in leading strings; that
the law assigns her as property, but society
grants her possession; and that she, being
more exclusive, more jealous, more arbi-
trary, and narrower than he, is able to i'm
pose her own will and code on him, and to
make him accept her will unconditionally.
IQc man mubb 10 very hdIu VI very bndIp
whom woman cannot sail round as she
chooses, and manipulate to any form she
takes fancy for. She has but to adapt her
battery to the character of the citadel-sur-
face submission for the clustering, coaxing
for the soft-hearted, fattery for the vain,
deception for the obtuse-and she gains the
day on her own terms.
Unfortunately for herself, she generally
gains it by something less than the rigid
present an extreme case, still the type is true,
if exaggerated, nature, which denied woman
strength, having made up for it by double
share of subtlety. 1t all comes to the same
thing in the end; and that end is mastery.
The SaDlnaetm bOl1um of life, the thing for
which all nations, all religions, all men have
striven since the world began, that desire for
supremacy and mastership which is to human
history what iron is to the blood and lime to
the bones is by no means specially mascu-
line characteristic, still less q specially mas
culine possession; albeit compassed by diff
ferent methods and exercised in different
ways it is as much the central desire of
women as of men, and their sUnanaIn 6on,tnn
too, when they can attain it. And they do
attain it, in spite of Blackstone and the laws
touching and regarding the rights and condi-
tion of baron and .feme.
In nothing do women show their mastery
over men more than in the extent to
which they carry their exclusiveness. No
women in the world, not told off into castles,
are so exclusive as the English, none so
Jealous of sharing their good things. 1t is
not in one thing, but in everything alike
dress, station, domestic happiness, the COM
panionship of men; they would if they could,
keep all they call distinctively their own,
rigidly to themselves; they would suffer no
longing eyes to look over their park palings,
still less allow another to share in their fruits
and flowers. AS rule it is not the mans
fault that the English home is so dull as it
generally is. 1t is the wife who prevents all
easy intercourse, all simple friendliness be-
tween her husband and other men, and yet
more between her husband and other
women. 1t is she who bars the house
door, and forbids it to be opened
save with such pomp and ceremonial
as makes the opening weariness to all
concerned. The very woman who, as a
spinster living with her sisters, is glad
to have a facile unceremonious society about
her, as wife sets her face decidedly against
that kind of familiarity which let's person
feel at home in her house; and above all
she fears and dislikes female friend who
admires her husband though in the most in
nocent way and who says 80. The profound
moral skeptcism which has penetrated society
from end to end has eaten away feminine
trust with the rest; and even pure and vir-
tuous women, incapable for their own parts
of anything like immortality, are not ashamed
to suspect their sisters of improper feelings
and naughty practices, and to think them
selves safe in their married homes Just in
proportion as they are isolated. Especially
are happy wives suspicious of those who have
made shipwreck of their own venture On
married women and contented wives may be,
if rarely, admitted into the heart of the
charmed circle-if the husband is conspicu
ously Indifferent to them; but an unhappy
wife is held to be kind of pirate in disguise
rival who will steal away the husbands
affections if she can, and on whom it is more
than probable he will bestow them unasked
Very few women have generosity enough
to befriend one of their owl
sex when in matrimonial difficulties, il
their friendship is to include their husband s
OF all things most abhorrent to women w
may count duality, under any name o
aspect. Only man, and a masterful man
could have written as Coleridge did about th
''two beloved women in his ''Day Dream,
with Asra's eyelashes playing on his cheel
and Marys hand upon his brow, Mary's lal
the pillow of the two lovers, and her heat
leaning on the tree where the two name
were carved. This sharing of mans affec
tion, though in widely different proportion
and in quite distinct spheres, is thing n
woman could be found to praise, if even sh
enforced herself to endure it. 1t is not gene
rally seen, however, that women are as rigi
in their exclusion of male friends froI
their own hearts, most women havin
set up a tame cat of their own some time O
other in their lives, though not liking tam
mice for their husbands. The fact is, a wifi
in England claims to be her husbands al