Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1871-03-21
STAUNTON VA. TUESDAY, MARCH 81, 1871.

the retort is SO true and just and the result ha
actually gone to so deplorable an extent, tha
were the female side Of our social organization
as corrupt as the male side has already become
American society would crumble in ruin by it
own putrescence? It is better to save half th,
fabric than to lose ALL And especially is i
better to save the purity of the mothers wht
are, under God, to form the characters of oul
| future citizens, and of the wives who are tt
restrain and elevate them, whatever else we
endanger. Is it argued that since women are
now confessedly purer than men, theig en-
trance into politics must tend to purify poll
tics? We reply again that the women Of the
present were reared and attained this compar-
atlye purity under the Bible system. Adopt
the inhdel plan, and we shall corrupt our wo-
men without purifying our politics What
shall save us then?
But there is another reply to this retort.-
Political excitements will corrupt women ten
fold more than men; and this, not because
women are naturally inferior to men, but be-
cause they are naturally adapted to a wholly
different sphere. When we point to the fact
that they are naturally more emotional and
less calculating, more impusiye and less-con-
tanned, that they have quicker tact but less
logic, that their social nature makes them more
liable to the contagion of epidemic passions,
and that the duty Of their sex make it physi-
cally impossible for them to acquire the knowl-
edge in foreign sphere necessary for political
duties, we do not depreciate woman we only
say that nature has adapted her to one thing
and disqualified her for another. The violet
would wither in that full glare of midsummer
in which the sunAower thrives this does not
argue that the violet is the meaner flower
The vine, left to stand alone, would be hurled
prone in the mire by the first blast of that
wind which strengthens the grasp of the stur-
dy oak upon its bed: still the oak may yield
no fruit so precious as the clusters Of the vine
But the vine cannot be the oak it must be it
self, dependent, clinging, but more precious
than that on which it leans, or it must perish
When anything, animate or inanimate, is used
for function to which it is not adapted, that
foreign use must damage it, and the more the
farther that function is from its own sphere
So it will be found land it is no disparagement
to woman to say it, that the very traits which
tit her to be the angel of virtuous home unfit
her to meet the agitations of political life,
even as safely as does the more rugged man.
The hot glare of publicity and passion will
speedily dehower her delicacy and sweetness
Those temptations which her Maker did not
form her to bear will debauch her heart, de-
veloping character as much more repulsive
thansthat of the debauched man as the fall has
been greater The pollticating woman. un-
sexed and denaturalized, shorn of the true glo-
ry of her femininity, will appear to men as
feeble hybrid mannikin, with all the defects
and none of the strength of the male. In
stead OF being the dear object of his chival-
rous affection, she becomes his importunate RI
val, despised without being feared
This suggests a third consequence, which
some of the advocates of the movement even
already are bold enough to foreshadow "Wo-
mems rights mean
THE ABOLITION OF ALL PERMANENT MARRIAGE
TIES.
We are told that Mrs. Cady Stanton a.
vowed this result, proclaiming it at the invita-
tion of the Young Mems Christian Association
OF New York. She holds that weman's bon
dage is not truly dissolved until the marriage
bond is annulled She is thoroughly consis-
tent. Some hoodwinked advocates of her Rev
olution may be blind to the sequence; but it is
inevitable. 1t must follow by this cause, if for
no other, that the unsexed politicating woman
can never inspire in man that true affection on
which marriage should be founded Men will
doubtless be still sensual but it is simply i'm
possible that they can desire them for the pure
and sacred sphere of the wife. Let every wo-
man ask herself: will she chose for the lord of
her affections an unseXed efeminate man? No
more can man be drawn to the masculine wo-
man. The mutual attraction of the two COM
Elementary halves is gone forever. The abo-
lition Of marriage would follow again by auoth-
er cause. The divergent interests and the ri
val independence of the two equal wills would
be irreconcilable with domestic government, or
union, or peace. Shall the children of this
monstrous no-union be held responsible to two
variant co ordinant and supreme wills at once
Heaven pity the children Shall the two par
ties to this perpetual co-partnership have
neither the power to secure the performance Of
the mutual duties nor to dissolve it? 1t is a
self contradiction, an impossible absurdity.-
Such co-partnership Of equals with indepen-
dent interests must be separable at will, as all
other such partnerships are The only rela-
ton between the sexes which will remain will
be a cohabitation continuing so long as the con-
venience or caprice of both parties may sug-
gest; and this, with most, will amount to va
grant concubinage.
But now, what will be the character of the
children reared under such domestic organi-
cation as this? If human experience has es-
tablished anything at ALL it is the truth of that
principle announced by the Hebrew prophet
when he declared that the great aim of God in
ordaining permanent marriage tie between
one man and one woman was ''that He might
seek gody seed." God s ordinance, the on
ly effective human ordinance for checking and
curbing the first tendencies to evil, is domestic,
parental government. When the family shall
no longer have a head, and the great founda-
ton for the subordination of children in the
mothers example is gone; when the mother
shall have found another sphere than her
home for her energies; when she shall have
exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love
and sympathy for the fierce passions of the
hustings; when families shall be disrupted at
the caprice of either party, and the children
scattered as foundlings from their hearthtsone,
it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons
will be reared nearer akin to devils than to
men. In the hands of such bastard pro-
geny, without discipline, without homes. with
out God, the last remains Of social order will
speedily perish, and society will be over
whelmed in savage anarchy"
Anecdote Of Judge Marshall.
An anecdote is told of Chief.J ustice Marshall,
evincing his ready humor. The old gentleman,
like Miles Standish, was very fond of always
doing everything for himself, and objecting