The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-04-13
INDEPENDENCE.

Men are constantly placInga premium
upon single blessedness. This was es-
pecially noticeable at the recent school |
election, whereat all the tax-paying and |
widowed mothers of the city were al |
lowed to vote, while the tax-paying
mothers whose husbands were not dead |
or divorced were forced to remain in the |
political company of "insane persons,
criminals, idiots, Cinnamon, and I,adi-
ans not tdred."
AS we looked into the happy and in
telligent face of Mrs. B. A. Owens, NJ.
D., as she grasped her well-earned tax
receipt and went forward to deposit her
ballot amid the deferentiaI smiles of ad-
miring gentlemen, whose faded and
sickly wives were at home wondering
how the election in which they were al
lowed no voice was going to terminate,
and thought of her condition fifteen
years before when men protected herr
according to matrimony, we could not
but liken the men Of this generation
unto one of old who pulled the pillars
down about the multitude and buried
himself under the ruins.
There is no wonder that women of
brains, whose independence of thought,
action, and selfhood are shocked at
every turn, are becoming more and
more restive, not under matrimony, but
under the bond of inequality that mat
rimony enforces. Women who are not
overstocked with intelligence are like
men in the same category-they care
very little for causes, being unable to
comprehend them; but when endowed
with intellect sufficient to enable them
to see the causes that produce certain
effects in other women more happily
situated than themselves, the only won
der that remains is in the fact that more
domestic insurrection is not incited
among them than we already behold.
Mrs. DR.. Owens began her independ
ent career as a milliner and dressmaker.
Succeeding in her efforts in this direc-
tion, her expanded intellect brought
forth expanded ambition. Going to
Philadelphia, she obtained diploma as
a physician, after which she returned to
Oregon and began the practice of her
profession, which she has now followed
for two years in this city with such con-
stantly increasing success as to COM
mand the admiration of the medical fra
ternity of all schools. She is eminently
successful in the treatment of chronic
diseases, and the numerous ills to which
married ladies are subject yield readily
to her remarkable skill. We never see
her but we thank high heaven that one
woman who could not rise under fetters
has had the moral courage to break
them and rise anyhow. Thrice happy
will they be who shall rise in spite of
the fetters, however, and all honor to
the noble husbands who stand beside
them, giving them aid and encourage
ment as they struggle for the fullest
recognition of that freedom to do right
in all things that can only come from
thorough independence in everything.
The widows voting day will not be
forgotten by the married men who wit
messed the pride the widows felt in their
liberty. Let all men take timely warn
ing, that the political shackles may be
removed from the spirit of every sensi-
BILE woman, and that premiums on sim
gle blessedness shall cease. If men ex-
pect the expanded intelligence of wom-
an TO remain contented in the marriage
relation they have but to remove the
cause of the discomfort that the effect
may gradually be outgrown.