Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-12-04

because men demand that they shall do
so. This demand does not consist of
an injunction to spend money. 1t comes
upon women in the requirements of So
ciety, In the obligations of tradition, in
the necessities of sex. The modifca-
tons of fashions are as irresistible by
women, as that sex is now socially
placed, as the incoming tide is irresisti-
BILE by the sand on the beach. Men
make the fashions men manufacture
them men indorse their patronage and
purchase after manufacture and the
great bulk of men not engaged in evolv-
ing bonnet-frames and cutting dresses
and shipping the models and the new
materials to the four corners of the uni
verse, are as abjectly slavish to women's
adoption of the new caprices as are wo-
men themselves.
The men who contrive fashions desire
merely to make money. The men
whose united opinion compels women
to patronize their contrivances, are
aware that each succeeding season ne
cessitates the spending of more money
than common sense approves, or the
profits of the years business justify !;
yet tllC VI lHCsc lncu Will Spcuo
the money, for two reasons:
l. Because they want their wives and
daughters to look as well as Other mems
wives and daughters.
2 Because they know that, as society
is constituted, the majority of women
hold their rank solely by the expendi-
ture of money. Men have made So
ciety.
"Halt, nowr' cries the indignant
father ''let us unmake society,"" Very
we'll, let us. How? Time cannot be
annihilated. Women must have occu-
patton as well as men. There are
twenty-four hours for her, as well as for
the sex whom a kind Providence and
society permit to be daily employed in
active, honorable work work that sat
isles the brain, that fills the mind to
repletion, and keeps the faculties and
the hands busy. Suppose men did not
work during the day, what is to prevent
them from becoming the frivolous,
fashionable fools that idle, uneducated
women are? We halt again Women
should not be idle; need not be unedu-
Gated. Very true. But men are re-
sponsible for the idleness and they
have insisted on the medication. Men
have had the mold in their hands since
the creation. Gcd made men, and men
have made the mold and women. 1t is,
as Milton said, "He, for God only she,
for God in him ;" and quoted the Scrip
lures: "Man is the image and glory
of God she is the glory of the man -
if she be any glory unto him.
The idleness and uneducation of
women are directly the result of sex
policy; that policy, begun by men
handed down, maintained and per-
sisted in by men. They have COM
PEELED her to be idle i; they have refused
her education. If she work, they frown,
and cast her out of-God help us -
out of "societyl" If she seek for
higher education, they turn the key in
the college gate, and one President
says, You are not strong enough ;"
and another writes, Education would
unfit you to be wives and mothers as
if mothers ignorance were an essential
quality in milk for babes And another
gravely argues that it is violation of
religion, as if Gods religion for woman
includes faith only, and he shall adj
NIT her to salvation in proportion as
she shall lack reason The time is
that women cry out against the uned-
ucation and the idleness which men
have imposed upon the sex by ordi-
nance. The time is that panic comes
and men trace it to woman's extrava-
gance, and trace that extravaganza to
idleness and uneducation, and men re-
proach women for that vice and this
fault. But who is responsible ?sThere
is not active work for all women to
do; it is not desirable or necessary
that all young women should go out into
the world and work.
Now, we halt again. All young men
do not go into the world and work.
What is done with son who does not
need to go into employment at sixteen?
He is sent to college. What is done
with daughter at the same time? She
is sent into society A young womaH's
education is completed just when a
young mans begins The young men
come home mentally robust, intellect
ually arrogant. They patronize their
sisters, and other young mems sisters.
They are certain women are unable to
bear the labor of college education.
They are convinced that higher educa-
ton for women is against the spirit of
Christianity They laugh at women's
weaknesses; they sneer at intellectual
inferiority they denounce her extrava-
gance in dress, while insisting on it !;
and they publicly insult and defame the
few ultra women who dare tell these I'M
deniable truths ON stolen rostrums !; and
whose lives, upright, self-sscrifcing,
honorable, and pure as the snow falling
from heaven are living and eloquent IL
Illustrations that women need not be idle,
may not be ureducated. While the sons
have been away at college, acquiring the
dogmatism of sex, amid the rest of their
learning, what have the daughters been
doing? What men demand of them
learning the profession of extravaganza,
making of themselves birds of plumage,
with proper regard to keeping their
throats closed, because the voices of
women are offensive to mans public ear
ALI the birds applaud the peacock s
plumes, but they unite in request that
the lovely creature remain silent.
The proposition that women have