The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-02-14
WOMEN ARE SUPPORTED BY MEN.


has been accepted in lieu of the fact that
all labor is self-sustaining.
A young couple start out together in
life, generally speaking, with very little
property except the wealth of loving
hearts and willing hands. The hus-
bands business being outside, he has
the control of money, and for that rea-
son feels that he is its sole rightful
owner. The wife, employed in domestic
duties, including the pains, penalties
and inconveniences of motherhood,
spends her life in an endless succession
Of exhaustive duties, which are consid-
cred wholly unremunerative by her
partner in the marriage firm. The hus-
tand feels that her services are due to
him as a right, and so the years roll on.
The wife grows dispirited and hopeless,
her health fails, and she drags out q
wearisome existence, happy indeed, if
the Death Angel frees her fettered spirit
and looses her from hopeless vassalage.
This is not an over-drawn picture. Be
cause women have endured, and died,
pretending that they were satisfied and
happy, fading beauty and failing health
proclaiming the falsehood, men have
cajoled themselves into believing that
no secret rebellion was in their souls.
Just so the old slave owner reasoned,
and just so the old slave would declare
that he was satisfied with slavery, while
secretly rebelling against its injustice
in every fiber of his being.
We call to mind a widow, living not
a hundred miles from Portland, whose
husband, recently deceased, left her
with ten children, the youngest babe
of two months. The husband was a
widower, with five children at the time
Of the present widows marriage, MAX
ing a household of fifteen children in
all at the SINE Of the fathers death. He
was wealthy and influential. The five
children of the first marriage, having
inherited their mothers dOwry, of course
no claim was made upon it by the sec
ond group of ten, or their mother, who
had brought up the first family without
prospect of peeuniary compensation.
This woman, to our personal knowledge,
has been an industrious, economical
wife, depriving herself from her youth
Of everything which her fancy craved
or soul delighted in, that she might add
to her husbands happiness and aid him
to accumulate vast possessions. Disease
attacked and death recently claimed the
husband, leaving the helpless wife with
ten children, one an infant, as we have
stated, at the mercy OF the first set of
children and the law; and these now
proceed to divide the property, appor-
tioning to each child its appropriate
share, and to the mother her third Of the
mutilated, crippled and hampered es-
tate.
Did that man support this woman ?
What nOnsensei Had her labor been
awarded just pecuniary recompense, she
would, at her present period of life, be
thoroughly independent. Or had she
been, in reality legal partner in the
marriage firm, she could now go on with
the business, just as her husband would
have been free to go on with it If she
had died i'm his stead.
This unjust discrimination between
the rights of husbands and wives, based
on the assumption that married women
are nonentities, supported (?)-heaver
save the mark-by the men they drudge
and delve and suffer for, is beginning tC
receive the severe condemnation among
: women which its usurpation of privilege
deserves. We have often said, and here
emphatically repeat, that the only
women who are in reality supported by
men are the prostitutes, who "toil not
neither do they spin," and yet, we know
: that wife-hood, in all its glory, is no
supported like one of these.
In our more inexperienced days, wheI
we toiled in the farmhouse, we wer
; verdant enough, after having done tn,
work of half dozen during seed tim,
and harvest, without so much as an ex
) pectation of recompense, to believe tina
our husband had made us q Dresen
when he would sell the grain, butter
poultry and dried apples and bring III
home clothes wringer or patent churn
"Where ignorance is bliss tits folly L
be wise," tits said, but somehow W,
couldn't help learning when we would
see our liege count out to each one o
the men, whom we had fed for months
for nothing, a sparkling sum of silYe
and gold, that if 1ce had been repaid il
J like proportion for our services, W,
might have set up a hardware store OF
our own responsibility. So, every
where, the women are learning thes,
} truths, and it is useless to try to curl
the fount Of knowledge. Women viii
soon be Legislators, and we shall ther
see if they are willing to remain, a
= most of them are now, impeeuniou
vassals, nominally supported by men
l but in reality doing as much and evei
= more than they TO bless the world an,
: make it brighter.
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JUST so.