Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1871-09-08
The Sacred Sex.

Our fair friends are really unreasona-
BILE. They want to fulfill that impossi-
BILE desire of the childish mind, to eat
their cake and have it, to fill their
hands with roses and not prick their
fingers with thorns to gain such graft
fcation as is to be got from notorlety,
vet be exempt from its contingent dis
asreeables of censure and sarcasm.
Above all things, they want to receive
the same homage and honor that were
paid to them when they were content to
live quietly at home and find their chief
happiness in the love and protection of
men, while standing against them foot
to foot, and with arms squared out for
a fierce death struggle; they expect to
be allowed to try conclusions with them
in the coarse, hard life from which they
have hitherto been jealousy guarded,
vet to remain still the Sacred Sex, I'M
blamed, taken care of, given way to,
fiattered and adored. They have thrust
themselves to the front on all possible
occasions of late, and the world has
been filled with their shrill voices de-
handing wild impossibilities yet they
are still pettishly indignant when they
are gravely criticised, or more contemp-
tuously, if more good naturally, laughed
at as too silly for earnest discussion.
They are the Sacred Sex through it all,
and expect to be given the wall while
they roughly elbow their way among
the hodmen of society, and they are
outraged if they get despatched when
insisting on sharing the task of flushing
sewers and cleaning out mud-heaps as
foul as the old Augean stable.
Of those who, like ourselves. think
that woman's place in nature is to be
found in tenderness and quietness, in
purity and modesty, in love and in the
home, and not in the blatent stump ora
tory, the public display of hardened
sensibilities, the unabashed familiarity
with moral denominations that have
lately been fashionable among certain
set, no words are too hard to be said.
We are worse than Cloths and heather
savages for our attacks on the mistakes
of what we are glad to believe is only
the merest fraction of the Sacred Sex !;
but the very persons who howl the loud
est are Just those who seek to abrogate
for women every characteristic of life
and nature by which this sentiment of
female sacredness was created and has
been maintained. Notorious as women
are for the want of logical faculty, there
has been no manifestation of that want
more striking than the anger with
which they receive the blows incidental
to fight, though they have voluntarily
thrust themselves into the midst of that
fight against the advice and warning of
their best friends. If they will push
themselves into the thick of melee
and all such actively competitive life as
they are clamoring for is a melee, grow
ing every year more fierce and deter
mined-at least they should be able to
take their punishment cheerfully, and
not fall foul of the fighters for their
want of gallantry and consideration.
No one wants them to thrust their
pretty heads into the way of mems huge
fists and we, with others of their truest
friends, are shouting to them to keep
back and take care; but if they will
come, why then they must look out
for hard knocks, and not expect to
shelter themselves under a traditional
sacredness which they have willfully
cast aside.-Sa.rday Rerie0.