River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-06-06
Extracts from .Wife Torture in Eng.
land.

land,
By Frances Power Cobbe.
What reason can be alleged why the
male Of the human species should be the
only animal in creation which maltreats
its mate, or any female of its own kind2
With the expection. perhaps, of the seal
Dir. Darwin gives sad picture of
amphibions coniugal life CAS- soon as a
female reaches the shore ceomes out, as
we should say in society. the nearest
male goes down to meet her,making mean
while a noise like the clucking of a hen to
her chickens. He bows to her and coaxes
her, until he gets between her and the
water 50 that she cannot escape him.
Then his manner changes, and with a
harsh growl he drives her to place in
his harem' fsDeseent of Man. vol ii, p.
269) What an eo'cr true taien is this Of
many a human wooing and of what comes
later; the blowing and coaxingn first and
the "harsh growln afterwardl / am sur
prised Mr. Darwin did not derive from il
an argument for the descent Of man from
the seal
When | read all the fine sounding
phrases perpetually repeated about the
invaluable influence ola good mother over
herson; how the worst criminals ase adj
mltted to be reclaimable if they ever
enjoyed it; and how the virtues of the
best and noblest men are attributed to il,
as commonplace of biography often
ask myself: s Why, then, is not some
thing done to lift and increase, instead
OF TO depreciate and lower, that sacred
influence Why are not mothers allowed
torespect themselves, that they may fitly
clam the respect of their son7s How is a
lad to learn 10 reverence woman whom
he sees daily scoffed al, beaIen, and a
bused, and when he knows that the laws
Of this country forbid her, ever and un-
der any circumstances, to exercise the
rights of citizenship; nay, which deny to
her the guardianship OF himsetf-of the
very child of her bosom should her
husband choose to hand him over to her
rival out of the streetgn
The general depreciation of woman as
sea is bad enough, but, in the matter
we are considering, the special depreci-
alton of so5eea is more directly response
bic for the outrages they endure. The
notion that mans wife is bis property,
in the sense in which his horse is his
property (descends 10 us rather through
the Roman law than through the Gus
toms of our Teuton ancestors), is the
fatal root of incalculable evil and mis-
cry. Every brutal-minded man, and
many a man who in other relations of
life is not brutal, entertains more or less
vaguely the notion that his wife is his
thing, and is ready to ask with indigna-
ton Gas we read again and again in the
police reports), of any one who inter-
feres with his treatment Of her, May
not do what / will aoiM ma olesg
It is even sometimes pleaded in behalf
OF poor men, that they possess Nothing
else but their wives, and that, conse-
quently, it seems doubly hard TO med
die with the exercise of their power in
that narrow sphere!
Stripped of the euphemisms of courtesy
wherewith we generally wrap them up, it
cannot be denied that the sentiments of
a very large number of men toward wo-
men consist of wretched alienation of
exaggerated and silly homage, and Of no
less exaggerated and foolish contempt.
One moment on pedestal, the next in
the mire, the woman is adored while she
gives pleasure, despised the moment she
ceases to do so. The proyerbial difficulty
of introducing joke into the skull OF
Scotchman is nothing to that of getting
into the mind of such men that a woman
is a human 5eiag--however humble-not
a mere adjunct and appendage of human
ity; and that she must have been created,
and has a right to live, for ends OF her
own, not for the ends of another; that she
was made, as the old j" Westminster
Catechismn says, to glorify God and
enjoy him forever" primarily or express
v to be John Smiths wife and James
Smiths mother. We laugh at the great
who gave as his opinion before
a royal commission that rivers were
created to feed navigable canals; and
farmer would certainly be treated as be
traviDg the a" Ducolie mind who avowed
that he thought his horse was made TO
carry him to market, and his cat TO
eat his mice and cheese yet where
women are concerned beings who arc
understood TO be at least qaasi-rational,
10 whom their religion promises an i'm
mortal life hereafter OF good and glory
the notion that the " final cause of
woman is man, seems never to strike
them as supremacy ridiculous.
The Rev. E. w. Harper, writing to the
Spectator OF January Goth, says. Il make
bold to believe that if ever | should turn
into wife | shall choose to be beaten by
my husband to any extent short of being
slain outright), rather than it should be
said that stranger came between US.
After thus bringing to our minds the
beatings, and kickings, and bindings,
and burnings, and ''cloggings," which
sicken us, he bids us remember that the
true idea of marriage is ''thc relation of
Christi It is not for me to speak on
this subject. but should have expected
that minister of the Christian religion
would have shuddercd at the possibility
of suggesting such connection OF ideas
as these notions involve. Heaven help
help the poor women of Durham and
Lancashire if their clergy lead them to
picture Christ resembling their hus-
bands