Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-04-29
WOMEN THEN AND NOW.
A Defense The True Woman in the
Free American Homes.

! IN the course OF MS discourse ne SalQ
! The past is always the golden age
The glamour of distance makes beauty
more beautiful, and valor more hero
ic; and prosaic fate seems to have
thrown us on the lees of time and in
the werlds decrepitude. While we
read, history and poetry seem full Of
the heroic. Philip Sidney, bending
from his saddle to offer cup of cold
water to the wounded soldier, was a
hero. But see that gunner at Gettys-
burg, who, falling wounded and tor
tured by thirst, called out Johnny !
Johnnyi for the love of God drop of
water r 'Ah, Jenny, there is not a
drop of water in my canteen. and if |
go to get any the enemy will take the
gun" No matter, Johnny, stand to
your gun J" and when the line moved
forward. it moved-over Johnny's dead
body. Three hundred years ago it
would have been as beautiful self
sacrifice as Philip Sidney's. All that
was best in the old times we have now.
So experience interprets history and
poetry, and the truth of to-day scatters
the glamour of the past. All ages have
been deplored. We see to-day appal-
ling extravaganza and luxury. They
cry, 1.-THE dress of fashionable wom-
an costs her husband thousands of
dollars 1t was not so in the simple
old times" Softly, softly. Queen
Elizabeth, happy owner of 5000
dresses, issued proclamation against
extravaganza. We bewail degener-
ate socjety-so sordid, so gross. Our
young men are only fit, it is said, to
smoke cigars, play billiards and talk
slang; our young women to be French
dolls perched upon high -heeled shoes,
pinching their waists almost to van
ishing point, piling high upon their
heads died tow and horse hair, making
an afectation of simplicity, but were
they simpler in the old times Dick
Steele, in his account of the mock
trial of young woman for wearing
monstrous silk petticoat embroidered
with diamonds, says that when the
judge ordered it drawn up with pulleys
it covered the places where the judges
were sitting with a silken rotunda
like St. Peters.
We cry out against political corrup-
ton, and justly fear for the moral
foundations of the government. |
have seen man in the lobby of the
Legislature brandish bank bills and
openly boast, That makes the laws I"
While WINGED, / remember that in
the time of Walpole the British King
bought men as he would launches of
meat. When foolish Imagination
sighs for the old time, it forgets that
the old time was cruel, superstitious
and gross. The men of the old time
hated personal, political and religious
liberty; they were times when the
men died faster in the open country
than in the direst lane of our city to-
day. The whole progress of civiliza
ton is IN the emancipation from the
theories and manners of the old time.
We do not excuse our own age, but
when we sigh for return of the past
let us remember that its greatest glory
was the divine discomfort with those
times. One commanding and supreme
indication of the worlds progress is
its higher and better estimate of wo-
men. The position of woman is al
ways the test of society. To-day as
stand in the ample halls of some great
school, filled with the hum ofindus-
trious and happy life, remember that
in the age of Pericles all scholastic
diligence would have been accepted as
evidence of evil design. In the
golden age of Athens the most accom-
plished woman belonged to an out
lawed class. Mr.. Curtis then humor-
ously described the discussions that
were carried on in Dean Swift's time
as to whether it would be prudent to
marry a woman who had good natural
sense, some taste, and was able to read
understandingly the literature of the
day. 1t was said that there were rad
ical objections against an intelligent
wife that the natural levity of women
needed ballast of ignorance and stu
pidity. And such was the tenderness
of the sex that the women consented
to remain ignorant that they might be
equal to their husbands. This was
slow to change. Not more than sixty
years ago Sidney Smith spoke of the
disparity between the knowledge. OF
men and women, and intimated that
women should cultivate household du-
ties to the exclusion of all other ac-
auirements. THAT is an insulting
idea of woman" said the lecturer,
(which makes her happy when her
husband brings her home a bracelet
and screaming when mouse hops
across the floor. She is not the fine
lady of the fashion plates, but HeOe,
Joyous with health and pouring nectar,
fitly married to Hercules, strongest Of
the gods. Is the Portia Shakespeare
has drawn less beautiful because
wise young Judge, less truly feminine
than Juliet whispering her love from
a balcony 2" Mr. Curtis sketched the
great creation with which the Pilgrims
and early settlers of New England
dealt out little education to their
girls, and in a strain of the keenest
irony told how Boston, trembling for
the bulwarks of freedom, opened a
high school girl for girls, and stood
aghast at the immense attendance upon
it and the eager acceptance of its priv
ileges. The notion that the educa-
ton and usefulness of women should
be confined to home, simply because
men had an idea that that was her
sphere" was ridiculed and disposed
of by argument and copious lliustra-
ton. Yesterday is gone. and o-day
has come. The fretted slave OF the
Greek household, and the idle toy and
doll of the age of Chesterfield, has
given place to better idea; and we
go forward with Gods help to find the
true woman in the free American
homes"