Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1871-10-06
From the Independent.
Men and Muscle.
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

In the introduction of women to
the competitions Of sclt-support-
ing life, we are met by an immedi-
ate and powerful difficulty.
The physical strength of men
gives them, at the start, q serious
advantage. Their capital of muscle
and sinew is at once the gift of
heaven and the care of earth. BY
the simplest principles Of political
economy man has as much ri CHIT
to reap the profits of it as any other
capital; reap them he always has
and does; if this great stock in
trade must, in the nature of things,
remain forever in its present pro-
portions in his hands, reap them he
always will.
"Thc ill-hcalth of women," said
an able and experienced physician,
"is, after all, a puzzle to me. |
cannot satisfy myself with any sut-
fcient aud philosophical explana-
ton of it,
Probably the sutiiciency and phi
losophy of any such explanation are
beyond the limits Of anything but
a medical treatise to discuss; prob
ably no medical treatise has as yet
compassed them.
Undoubtedly, however, there are
four causes for the feeble health Of
women, any one of which is enough
to account for an immense amount
of it.
The first in order Of considera-
tion is their dress. First, perhaps,
in point of importance, their occu-
pations. Add to this their unhap-
piness and the character Of their
education. We would have in the
sum total the sufficient reason for
the crippling of a world of IIugger-
Muggers. If men were put under
only these four conditions which
limit women, they would find the
proportions Of superior yigor re-
duced to an extent the effect of
which upon their character, it is no
flight of the imagination to say,
would be revolutionary.
When we consider what an intri-
cate system of defiance to all known
physiological laws woman's dress
has become; the tender age at
which this defiance begins, and the
relentless pressure of it upon the
formative and the recuperative en-
gies Of the constitution; the mur-
derous thinness and scantincss Of
her umder-dress; the effect of the
absence Of fannels, and the custom
of barring the neck and arms, upon
the sensitive tissues of the lungs
and heart; the check to all even cir
culation of the skin inflicted by the
imperfect and compressed covering
of her feet and hands, the unhealthy
heat Of the head, consequent on the
manner in which custom requires
her to collect her hair into wad
Of padding at the base Of the brain /;
the clasp of a rack of steel and
whalcbone about all the vital parts
Of the body; the straight,jacket
shape with which the seams of her
dress meet about her shoulders,
arms and chest; the results newt
able upon making the hips the pivot
upon which her heavy clothing is
hung, and the fulcrum upon which
all the motion of her body must
swing in walking-if, indeed, we
apply that term to the infantinc tod
die with which women are driven
to get about The world; above all,
the unreasonable custom which
compels her to drop heavy skirts
about her lower limbs and feet,
thus endangcring her life on all oc-
casions, her health on any but dry
summer day, and her self-reliance
forever; (We may quote in this con
nection the opinion of well known
New York physician:
GA short succession of sudden
trips, mis-stcps, or blunders will
speedily exhaust the strongest man.
And there is no doubt but that the
present style of long skirts for Ia
dies dresscs-requiring, as it does,
constant, uncertain, often unsuccess-
full efforts to snatch the skirt away
from the advancing feet, to keep
them from tripping; the getting into
stages and ascending stairs in
crouching, unsteady attitudes, hold
ing up the dress meantime; and all
similar spasmodic efforts, require
such fearful expenditure of nerv-
Gus energy that it is, Of itself suf:
ficient in many cases to bring OH a
train Of the most distressing symp'
toms.'o
When we consider the extent to
which the common occupations OF
woman deprive her Of open air, Of
exercise, Of change Of scene, of &C
quaintance with the world; of the
extent to which they are adapted te
produce all the varieties of seden
tary disease; when we consider tn;
unlimited influence Of the mind up
on the body, of happiness upor
health, and the brooding morbid
ness and acute suffering which thu
lives of women SO largely induce il
them-shall we find it matter o
surprise that women as race arr
diseased and feeble, and are bestow
ing upon the world a future lcgac,
of diseased and feeble children
Shall We wrap this creature ava,