The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1873-10-30
WOMAN DEGRADED.
Beechpr Points - Moral with
Some UnadOrned NJ o d n


Beechpr Points % Moral with
Some UnadOrned NJ o d n
Tales.
In popular theory, and to certain
extent in law, woman still remains
weak, wavering shadow of man, his
helpless care and absolute property.
It was this most monstrous tradi-
ton which made of Walworth, the
husband, a brutal, domestic tyrant, a
coarse, domestic bully. Should not
man do what he would with his own?
It was this sentimental nonsense that
made of Walwortb, the son, a calculat-
ing parricide. Shouldn not son "pro-
tee" his mother? That the costly le-
gal machinery of a sovereign State
stood ever ready to ~protect' her,
as threatenings and pistols could not,
was fact too commonplace to weigh
with him. Her honor being insulted,
chivalry demanded that he should
avenge it. Smith, who killed man
and tried to kill woman, because
that man paid court to that woman,
justified hundred times over with
the same plea-''She 6elongedto me-
And he died, to his own thinking, in
the full odor of sanctity, and in the
sincere belief that he had committed
no crime. Gillem ccolly stabbed his
wife because she refused to live with
him on account of his debauchery,
faithlessness, and violence. He
thought that he exercised the plain
est right of husband, and said to
the policeman, "You'd have done, the
same if your wife had left you" And
that policeman admitted that he saw
the murderer lying in wait, knew his
mad rage, and feared some violence,
but "did not like to interfere between
man and wife" Goodrich happened
to be the victim instead of the victor,
under his system, which was evident
ly the same, namely, that the woman
is the absolute property of the man
and the creature of his will. To his
thinking she had no rights in the
case.
These are not pleasant pictures;
but it is only in their concrete form
that the bad tendencies of society ar
rest the general mind. Theon hope
of diminishing crime is to reform
those false modes of thought which
generate crime. No one of these is
more dangerous than the notion Of
mans ownership of woman, and oil
woman's accountability to man. II
brutalizes the lower classes from end
to end. Its consequences touch un-
born children, and keep the ranks Of
rogues and paupers full. It makes
the men of the upper classes tyran-
GUS and selfish; the women silly, ex.
acting, frivolous, and weak. 1t leads
to crimes of sensuality and violence.
and sets the code of honor above the
law of the land.
Half the social questions that veA
our souls will be answered when the
world comedies that woman is 6
normal, responsible, individual human
being, as a man is normal, response
BILE, individual; that she must be the
protector of her own honor, hejudgt
of her own duty, the keeper OF hel
own conscience, answerable only tc
the law and to heaven. There vii
be lofty observance of marriage,
noble race of children, only when the
man and the woman are intelligent
equals and friends. And in that day
the world will be ashamed to remem
Der through how many centuries i
ranged men into mock order of de
votees and women into sentimental
riesthood.-- Christian Union.