The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1873-08-28
TIFFIN TRIBUNE.
TImn. Thursday Eve. August ss, 1873
NHnershIn Knmen

Ownership In Women.
A man was recently hanged in Mas |
saehusetts for taking vengeance on
one who had practically disputed his :
property in 8 girl. The man was a
brute, Of course, but he had an opinion |
that q girl who had given herself to
him, in the completest surrender that
a woman can make, was in some sense
his-Jhat her giving herself to anoth-
er invoked his dishonor-and that his
property in her was to be defended to
the extremity of death. A prominent
newspaper, while recording the facts
of the case, takes the occasion to say
that this idea Of ownership in women
is the same barbarism out of which
grow the evils and wrongs that the
"wOman movement" is intended to
remove. II we were TO respond that
ownership in women, only blindly
apprehended as it was by our brutal
gallows-bird, is the one thing that
saves us from the widest doctrines
and practices Of the free-loyers, and is
one Of the strongest conservative fore
es OF society, it is quite likely that we
should be misunderstood but we will
run the risk, and make the assertion.
There in an instinct in the heart of
every woman which tells her that she
is his to whom she gives herself, and
his alone-an instinct which bids her
cling to him while she lives or he
lives-which identifies her life with
his-Whieh makes of him and her
twain, one flesh. When this gift is
once made to true man, he recogniz-
es its significance. He is to provide
for her that which she cannot provide
for herself; he is to protect her to the
extent of his power; she is to share
his home, and be his choicest COM
panion. His ownership in her covers
his most sacred possession, and
devolves upon him the grayest du-
ties. II it were otherwise, why is it
that woman who gives herself away
unwOrthily feels, when she finds her
self deceived, that she is lost ?-that
she has parted with herself TO one
who does not recognize the nature of
the gift, and that she who ought to be
owned, and, by being owned, honor
ed, is disOwned and dishOnored?
| There is no true, pure woman living
who, when she gives herself away,
does not rejoice in the ownership
which makes her forever the property
of one man. She is not his slave to
be tasked and abused, because she is
the gift Of love and not the purchase
of money; but she is his in sense in
which she cannot he another mans
without dishonor to him and damna-
ton to herself.
Our gallows-bird was, in his brutal
way, right. II he had been living in
savage society, without laws, and
with the necessity of guarding his
own treasures, his act would have
been looked upon as one Of heroism
by all the beauties and braves of his
tribe The weak point In his case
was, that his ownership in what he
was pleased to call "his grip was not
established according to the laws un-
der which he lived. He was not le-
gally married, and had acquired no
rights under the law to be defended.
What he pleased to consider his rights
were established contrary to law, and
he could not appeal to law for their
defense. He took the woman to him.
self contrary to law, he defended his
property IN her by murder, and he was
hanged. He was served right. Hemp
would grow on q rock for such as he
anywhere in the world. There is no
cure for the man who seduces and
slays but a broken neck.
There is nothing more menaeing in
the aspect of social affairs in this
country than the effort among GER
tain class of reformers to break up the
identity Of interest and feeling among
men and women. Men are alluded to
with sneeIs and blame, as being OPP
posed to the interests of women, as
using the power in their hands--a
power usurped-tO maintain their own
predominance at the expense of wo-
mans rights and WOman's well-being.
Marriage, under this kind of teaching,
becomes a compact Of convenience,
into which men and women may en-
ter, each party taking along the per-
sonal independence enjoyed in a single
state, with separate business interests
and separate pursuits. In other words,
marriage Is regarded simply as the
legal eompaniOnship of two beings of
opposite sexes, who have their own
Independent pursuits, with which the
bond is not permitted to interfere. It
cOntemplates no Identification of life |
and destiny. The man holds no own |
eship in women which gives him a |
right to family of children, and a |
life devoted to the sacred duties of |
motherhood. The man who expects |
such a sacrifice at the hands of-his-l
wife is regarded as a tyrantor brute. |
Women are to vote, and trade, and |
practice law, and preach, and go to |
Congress, and do everything that a |
man does, irrespective of the marriage |
bonds. Women are to be just as free |
to do anything out of their homes as
men are. They are to choose their 1
careers and pursue them with just as
little reference to the internal admin
istration Of their families as their hus-
bands exercise. This is the aim and |
logical end of all the modern doctrines
concerning woman's rights. The
Identification of woman with man, as
the basis of the institution of the FAM
lily, is seoffed at. Any ownership in
woman that comes of the gift of her
self to him, and the assumption of the
possession by him, with its lifelong
train of obligations and duties, is con-
temned. 1t is assumed that interests
which are, and must forever remain
Identical, are opposed to each other.
Men and women are pitted against
each other in a struggle for power.
Well, let it be understood, then, that
men are opposed to these latter-day
doctrines, and that they will remain so.
They are determined that the identity
of Interest between men and women
shall never be destroyed; that the sa-
cred ownership in women, bestowed
in all true marriage, shall never be
that the family shall be
maintained; and that the untold mil
lions of true women in the world who
sympathize with them shall be pro-
teeted from the false PHILOSOPHERS and
destructive policies of their few mis-
guided sisters, who seek to turn the
world upside down. Political conven-
tiOns may throw their sObs to clamOr-
ing reformers, but they mean nothing
by it. They never have redeemed a
pledge to these reformers, and we pre-
sumo they have never intended to do
so. They expect the matter to blow
over, and, if we do not mistake the
signs of the times, il is rapidly blow
ing over, with more or less thunder
and with very little rain. In the
have grown out of these questions
have tended to open q broader field to
womanly industry, or oblit-
Grated unjust laws from the statute
book, let every man rejoice. Nogood
can come to woman that does not
benefit him, and no harm that does
not hurt him. Humanity is one, and
men and women rise or fall together.
-[Dr. J. G. Holland, Scribner's for [
Nothing like Grammar.
An instance, in point, comes from
areenVille, Alabama, where profess
3Or had labored with the Youths of