The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-03-08
FEMALE EDUCATION.
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became the subsection of the people to their
rulers, until at last God of justice swept
the nation into ruin. Rome, too, marks
her age of decline from the time when vir-
tue and beauty were merely the objects for
the lust of such rulers as Tiberius or Nero;
the Latin counterparts of some of Israefs
kings. Moses made the same mistake of
most old time law-givers in teaching the
supection of women; permitting the hus-
band to divorce the wife at will, while she
had no remedy against him. Christ was a
true philosopher and taught the equality of
women, but Christianity borrowing as
much of its faith from Judaism and Pagan
ism as from Christ, forgot this part of his
teaching, and Paul, forgetting his great
exampler, surrendered, coward like, to the
dictum of worshipers of Apollo, and accept
ed the very principle that wrought the
ruin of Greece; female subserviency.
Christ alone of all religious teachers
taught the equality of women, but those
who have professed to accept his teachings
have forgotten this part ofthem. One touch
of common sympathy on this question has
made all religions kin. In all ages the
child has received it's first ideas from the
mother and she knowing nothing of any
thing but submission has made her chill
dren like her. The eastern world has had
a sleep of centuries. Her early civilization
has become effetc and her religion power
less. Reason why; the jealous seclusion of
prove the truth of this idea. The degrade
ton of her women has done more than the
arms of her enemies to make the "sick
mas what he is. Railroads and steam
may do something to improve his general
health, but we cannot look for any COM
plete recovery until the seraglios are broken
up female submission is destroyed and her
women come fairly out to the world. This
a religion that can see no room in heaven
for women, except as the property of the
men can never effect. India has one of the
worlds oldest civilizations, but has been
asleep for thousand years. To-day, but
for the blows of outside christianity, she
would be in all material respects where
Tamerlane left her. The laws of Manu-
teach as the chief virtue of woman their
absolute subsection in all things to men.
A woman could sit in the presence of
man without leave. She could not cat at
the same table with him, although she
must be ready to obey his slightest wish,
and when he died she could have no hope
of heaven without immolation on his
funeral pyre.
1t is strange to me how any fair minded
man can look down through the records of
the worlds history, and see running
through all its pages the subsection of
women, and still claim that her failure to
keep pace with men intellectually is the
result of native incapacity. Stranger, still,
how any intelligent woman can read the
story of her sex from Eve to the present
and not Indignantly demand that her sub
lection shall cease.
Another fact that no student of history
can fail to notice, is, that Just as the sphere
of women has widened, nations have i'm
proved We still have laws of the age of
Edward III. on our statue books, but We
have widely different ideas. Those laws
are now much like the Holsters old shell,
we have outgrown them so entirely that
even our lawyers find them in their own
way. Compare their life with ours; then
women were shut up in the dun
geon like castle, disposed of without con-
of their wishes; life was, to say
the least, insecure, and tn only power
was that of the strongest.
If the Crusades did no other good, they at
least brought the age Of chivalry, the eff
fects of which are still seen in the defer
ence paid to women. Your ordinary gen.
tleman of to day prides himself on his gal
lantry without thinking that he is merely
carrying out the idea of the old Crusaders,
while he as little as they would be willing
to admit that women are his equal. Now,
while conservatism still insists on woman's
the public admits her right to a
hearing. The seclusion of the home is
over and at last her sphere is the world.
We have no need to admit woman's in
tellectual inferiority, 10 account for any
failure she may have made to keep step
with men in intellectual triumph. Her
enforced subsection to the will of man in
all ages and by all religions is enough to
answer all cavilS. We must first give her
an equal chance, which she nowhere has
ever had. and then if she fails it will be
time to talk about intellectual weakness.
Athens, with all its culture, insisted on
regarding any woman who might gain an
education, as of necessity of infamous char
acter; ignorance on the contrary being a
badge of virtue. 1t seems strange how
Aspasia gained her influence,-the reason
was a simple one,- educated men preferred
the society of educated women, even if
regarded as infamous. From the time of
Pericles to ours, the world has insisted on
it, that the strong minded women OF his
tOrS nave ul1ScAeu lLclllStlNcS. lCl
some people seem to think the very con-
centration of bitterness. Those who have
tried to make themselves places among
the scholars or thinkers of their age have
ever been looked upon as out of place: the
place which custom assigned them.
Civilization has been an armed one
Women were not deemed capable of bear
ing arms, and as an essential consequence,
interiors where strength, was the only stand
ard of right; yet that exemption has been
as much due to masculine selishness as
feminine weakness. Through the past,
whenever a woman has risen to distinction,
it Las been in spite of obstacles that would
have kept any ordinary man in hopeless
obscurity. The idea, that education I'M
fits women for home life, comes down to
us in many of the vaporings of writers
against what is now inevitable-tbe equal
ity of women. Such objections are merely
perpetuations of the old Greek idea.
At last we have reached an era when war