Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1873-12-04

now that the roof has fallen-ask them
selves whether this extravaganza of wo-
men is not an effect instead of a cause.
Are not women just what men have
made them?
They are.
Women attire themselves gorgeously
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 modiica-
tions 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 the majority of these men will spend
the money, for two reasons:
1. Because they want their wives and
daughters to look as well as other mems s
wives and daughters.
2. Because they know that, as society
Of J0T1an N
hold their rank solely by the expendl-
ture of money. Men have made So
ciety.
"Halt, now !" cries the indignant
father islet 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-
isfies 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 uneducation. Men
have had the mold in their hands since
the creation. God 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 a sex
policy that policy, begun by men ;
handed down, maintained and per-
sisted in by men. They have com
PEELED her to be idle /; they have refused
her education. If she work, they frown,
and cast her out of-God help us p'-
out of I" "society ]" 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 ad-
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 There
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 mer
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 p? She
is sent into society A young woman's
young mans begins The young mel
come home mentally robust, intellect
ually arrogant. They patronize thei
sisters, and other young mems sisters
| They are certain women are unable t.
bear the labor of college education
They are convinced that higher educa
ton for women is against the spirit o
Christianity They laugh at women
weaknesses they sneer at intellectual
inferiority they denounce her extrava
gance in dress, while insisting on it
and they publicly insult and defame tn
few ultra women who dare tell these un
deniable truths on stolen rostrums an
whose lives, upright, self-sacrificine
honorable, and pure as the snow fallin
from heaven are living and eloquent il
lustrations that women need not be idle
may not be uneducated. While the son
have been away at college, acquiring th
dogmatism of sex, amid the rest of thei
learning, what have the daughters bee
doing What men demand of them
learning the profession of extravaganza
making of themselves birds of plumagt
with a proper regard to keeping the
, throats closed, because the voices {
women are offensive to mans public ca,
All the birds applaud the peacock
: plumes, but they unite in request thu
the lovely creature remain silent.
/ The proposition that women hay
, nothing to say worth saying, is prove
, by prohibiting her from saying al.
, thing. The proposition that she is NJ
{ capable of college training is demol
strated by keeping her out of colleg
, The proposition that she is inferior I
t man intellectually, is established /
throwing a challenge in her face, al
then refusing to choose weapons or a.