The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-01-28
MORE LEoTUREg ON a.WOMAN. .

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This timeit is DR.. Lambert, President
of the Popular Life Insurance Company
of New York, who comes forward with
a lecture upon the woman question.
What would our erudite brethren, who
annually infiict these chronic disserta-
tions about women upon long-suffer-
ing public, think of the impudence of
the mothers of men, if those same
mothers should continually make them
selves ridiculous in the eyes of every
wise person by lecturing upon the man
question? But will they tell US why it
is not just as seemly and sensible for
woman, as mans sister, and indeed far
more seemly and sensible for her, as
mans mother, to lay down rules, occu-
pations, regulations, and duties for her
sons, whom she has nursed aud swad-
died in babyhood, kissed and spanked
in boyhood, and educated and sup
ported in incipient manhood, than for
her SONS to do the same by her as soon
as the cigar gives place to the pinafore,
and knee breeches yield to pantaloons
Scarcely a STRIPPING of twenty in all the
land but foolishly imagines that he
knows more about woman than she
knows about herself, and more about the
"sphere" that she was destined to fill,
and which he, fOrsooth, must assist the
Almighty 10 keep her in Qest she defy
Him, and forsake her natural state and
become self-sustaining in spite of Deity,
than God or woman could imagine.
And yet DR.. Lambert says some very
good things. He says that the consti
tuition of woman is substantially equal
to the constitution of man; that what
one lacks in force is made up by endur-
ance, and Cice UerSd; and, as general
rule, the duration of their earthly ex-
istence is about the same. Then comes
the nonsense. "Every man has a
woman beside him, and should work for
her, instead of having her earn her own
living outside of the household"
Surely, when he got rid of that skim
ble-scamble, the learned Doctor wasn't
thinking of the hslf-million bachelors
in the country; still less did he consider
the equal number of widows and single
women who have no "man" to work for
them, although they must live, in spite
of his buncombe. He forgets, as
theorists usually do, that this is a world
of facts, instead of fancies, and that the
true humanitarian is dealing with what
is, in order that he may more thor
oughly build up his theory of what
ought to be.
Ignoring the fact that women, as a
class, are not, and under the reign of
selfishness which an aristocracy of sex
engenders, cannot be supported by men;
ignoring the fact that labor, whether
performed in the kitchen, laundry, or
sewing room, or in the field, Office, or
blacksmith shop is, and of right ought
to be considered self-sustaining, the
sapient expOunder of "woman's sphere'
talks as though roast chickens and
plum-pudding, and clothing and Iuxu-
ries always come ready-made to women,
without an effort upon their part, and
that every light occupation they engage
in, to relieve themselves of the drudgery
of servitude without wages in the
money-holders' kitchens, is downright
imposition upon the men, who always
/ do fhn runrty Of tho vunrlA
says that he "would like to see women
withdrawn from the post offices, count
ing rooms, and other positions of labor,
where they are half-paid, and the young
men put in and paid double the amount
paid women. Then the men could sup
port the women" But he fails to give
woman any security by which she may
be able to know that her half of this
support would surely come under this
regime. Were woman an idiot, or an
automaton, instead of a creature ot
mind and will and preferences of hel
own, she might thus be moulded into 9
creature of mans selfishness, without g
thought of the Injustice of the condi.
tion ever arising to disturb the equa.
nimity of an inane animalism; but
when man imagines that the mother o.
the race is not responsible being, anG
essays to treat her as though she were 8
mere appendage to his often-failine
philanthropy, he need not wonder thai
the free-thinking institution fails to ap
preciate his patronizing selfishness, anc
plants herself upon the pedestal of hel
own womanhood, in spite of his plati
tudinarianisms.