The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-06-29

let the brother not spurn Tue SIS er Tor any
question of which he himself is most guilty,
and our laws will be based upon Divine in
spIration, instead Of being coined from the
selfshness of superior men.
Is not the well being of humanity more
dependent upon woman than upon man2 Is
il not the mother who bears, educates, feeds,
clothes, and ins.ructs the generation2 Yet
she is allowed no voice in the matter of the
government of these same generationsl
If woman is not mans equal, n now
not even the equal of the emancipated slave,
why is she made an equal companion and
sharer in all his joys and SORROWS by the
marriage ritual3 LII she is only the toy and
tool OF a higher being. why does she not
purchase his concubines as the Pacha of the
Oriental harem; and rolled in tinsel cloth,
and couched upon damask, waited upon by
eunuchs, and ted upon nectar and ambrosia,
keep them as he keeps his precious jewels,
bedded in cotton, TO be gloated over in
frenzies of ecstasy, with no shade of respon-
sibility upon their fair brow, no hunger for
sympathy in their demi-sensuous eyes, and
no agony of want tearing at their souls2
But the position Of the modern wife of
Western countries is no such fairy bower of
bliss. Her weight of burdens is quite as
heavy, her cross quite as prickly, and her
cup Of bitterness equally full. While she
shoulders a deep responsibility, she is de-
barred her share of privileges.
The ideal woman is like last years SHOWS,
melted into oblivion; or an extinct volcano,
whose light and glory nave been seen for
the last time, and now lie quiescent in the
bowels of the earth. The vision is beauti-
full. but, like unreal things, it is doomed,
when the age comesto unlearn imagery and
rest only on the practical.
She is described by Mrs. Vaughan, in on
of her celebrated appeals for reform in
temperance, as. GA creature, all ~softness
and sensibility, Who must, necessarily,
enjoy and suffer in the extreme
while sharing with man all the
pleasures and ills of life; bearing happiness
meekly and sorrow with fortitude; gentle,
mild, submissive, forbearing under all cir
cumstances; a softened reflex of the opinions
and ideas of the masculines, who, by relation
ship, hold mastery over her; without indi-
vidualism, a mere adjunct of man, the chief
object of whose creation was to adorn and
beautify his existence, or to minister to some
form of his selishnessl"
This is the traditional and generally ae-
cepted orthodox picture of woman, and
woman endeavoring to follow the likeness
created by has turned her nature out of its
course, and dwarfed her intellect.
But what an ineffable benson we have in
the congress of the brave, independent. nat
ural women, who are courageous enough
TO let the inspiration os their souls and the
laws of nature be heard from pole to pole,
as they clamor for utterance in their hearts,
falling in fearless sentences from their pro-
phetic lipsl
The rights of female suffrage do not mere
ly consist in woman casting a vote for polit-
zeal government officials, but the ballot is the
cabalistic lever that is to elevate woman to
her just plane, the charmed pivot upon
which her dawning position hinges, the
phylacteric principle that is to guide the
mind and morals of the body polite in the
womb oftime.
Ballot in the hands of woman is like
money in the purse of man; before it all
ways do lie open.
See what Robert Dale Owen says regard
ing the connubial relation in his own mar
riage-contract, framed by himself. His as
ISOLATION with Mary Jane Robinson was the
marriage par excellence of Divine ordina-
tion-a mingling of souls not a mere Joining
of hands. lands, and destinies:
This ceremony involves not the necessity
of making promises, regarding that over
which we nave no control, the state of hu-
man affections in the distant future, nor of
repeating forms which we deem offensive,
inasmuch as they outrage the principles Of
human liberty and equality"
Upon the marriage theme Elizabeth Cady
Stanton speaks in the tones of a sibyl; and
descants at length, revealing such sacred
truths as need no advocacy to establish. In
one case she SAYS:
THE object of law is to secure Justice.
But, inasmuch as fallible man is the maker
and administrator of law, we must look for
many and gross blunders in the application
of its general principles to individual cases.
The science of theology. of civil, political,
moral, and social life, all teach the common
idea that man ever has been and ever must
be sacrificed to the highest good of society.
Look what thunderbolts of power man has
f. rged in the age or his own destruc;ioni
AT the organizations to enslave HIMSELF
Man knows not himself, and knows not God
"a mere slave to symbols-and with holy
water signs the Cross, whilst He who died
thereon, declared man God. l place mar
above all Governments, all institutions-ec-
clesiasitcal and civil-all constitutions and
laws"
From such noble sentiments we gather the
spiritual truths, the gospel OF life, that there
is but one divine law, the law governed by
the promptings of nature. The highest code
of existence is the ordinances traced upon
our souls by the infinite God, the omnipo-
tence of our being.
Margaret Fuller, the SaPpho of the nine.
teenth century, said:
at is the fault of marriage and the present
relation between the sexes, that the woman
belongs to the man, instead OF forming a
whole with him. Woman, self-centered,
would never be absorbed by any relation;
it would only be an experiment to her as to
man. 1t is a vulgar error, that love, a love,
is to woman her Whole existence; she is also
born for truth and love in there universal
energy. Would she but assume her inner
itance, Mary would not be the only virgin
motherl'
Society, in its present stage, is a W
reeking with foul morals and a permeating
pollution of yelled basenes. What is to be
the sedative in this fashionable charnel-
house of ethics but the education, employ
ment, and independence of woman2
Education and the ballot are the only
causes to the great end of woman's equitable
position. The first gives her a proper place
in the Church and society by enabling her
to become a power exempt from reliance or
control; the latter, in the State, by according
her civil privileges.
Without thaea w0poan Aloe 20 roarr;ooo