St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-12-26
WOMEN ALSO WORK.
Hhey May be a Weaker, but Not an
EnEerior Sex.

Phey May be a Weaker, bat Not an
EnGerior Sex.
The unnuestionable claim of woman. the
Difference due to woman. the sacredness of
her physical inferiority and Of her spiritual
superiority. are not only commanding in
stinct. but clearly defined idea in Ameri-
can manhood. writes Gail Hamilton. A
thousand violations on the part of men and
women do not annihilate this fact. Thon-
sands of women earning their own living.
thousands of wives working harder than
self-supporting maidens, thousands Of both
doing their work with or without protest
nay. even with rejoicing. DO not affect the
fact. Even America, advanced as IT Is
has not reache d the ideal life. 1t is much
that we have reached a point where we can
catch glmpseS of the promised land.
At first sight it seems idle to say to
women who are wearing themselves out in
doing work that should be done by serv-
ants. or to world in which large part of
the household work not only. but of out
side work as well. is done by women. that
ultimately and ideally they ought not to
work at all. But in any comparison Of
their effectiveness with that of men, it GER
tainly should never be forgotten. it should
always be kept well in sight, that however
unsuccessful their efforts be, it is in field
which they are not made to cultivate. 1t
is better that they cultivate that field than
that they be idle in their own. or that they
starve in their neighbors'. Many women
are not sufficiently developed to discern their
own peculiar work. Without discerning it
they do great deal of it instinctively in
the lower fields where they are forced to
live but from which they will one day be
graduated. But always it should be held
up Oil all sides to the light that woman's
real work is on character. her SureSt weapon
is influence. She can buy and sell, and
cook and sew. and wash and iron, because
she is still of the earth earthly; but she can
not do it so we'll as man because she is
not so much of an earth creature as he. AS
a matter of fact. even in this favored coun-
try. where men pay to women, as women.
not as ladies or bellies. or beauties. an ex-
traordinary Difference, the mass of wives
work as hard as the mass Of husbands.
Their spiritual superiority is signitied
chiefly in this-that the women work for
love, the men for money. The spiritual
advance made by man is seen chiefly in
this, that so much of the money he earns
goes to the ministry of refinement. educa-
~ InC W ohO Nlli-
dren whom he loves. But the woman
sees no money for her toll.
Her sufficient, her ample reward. is
a husband. content, happy, growing in
grace; in children, bounding to gracious
maturity. The unmarried woman works
for necessity, for love of her dependent
ones, for love of some beautiful or benef-
cent profession, for sweet mercy and char
ity to the ignorant, for horror of depend
ence upon those on whom she has no claim
seldom for business, ambition or material
accumulation. The woman who fails in
hel business is not necessarily the woman
who sinks beneath the toll OF the kitchen.
or who pricks her life out with the needle,
or who cannot make both ends meet in a
dry goods establishment or amilliner'S shop.
Such woman fails in mans business, not
in her own. The woman who makes a rea
failure failure in her own business. is the
unloved woman, the ungraciOuS woman, the
yrasping, the selfish. the repressive, the I'M
.lympathiZing, the censorious. the untruth-
full, the woman who is center of diSconl-
fort source of anxiety, an object of avoid
ance, instead of being that gentle. consol-
ing. considerate motherly magnet which
draws unto itself all human want, and woe,
and bliss, and aspiration.