The examiner., 1886-07-17
WOMAN'S COLUMN.
EDITED BY JusTlTIA.

tuS of the women IN IT,
Men saw women do not want to vote. If
they really believed so, why have they been
so careful in all their statutes to place the
word finale" as qualification for Suffrage.
Woman is called the weaker vessel, :
but it required the sophistry of supernat-
ural being to tempt mother Eve, while it
took only piece of a pippin TO tempt
Adam.
Government has greater influence upon
community than all else. 1t superVlses
our education, our morality, our domestic
relations, our business and property, and
even our religion to some extent. But our
laws deprive women of all voice in it, but
place the whole control in the hands OF
that half of our people from which eman-
ates nine tenths of all the vice and crime,
and drunkness that disgraces the land LIS
it surprising that the tone of public and
private morality is so low
"Johnnle, if you don't behave better I'll
cerI ainly tell your Pa, when he comes
home, and he will give you good whip
| ping.o This from mother to her own
| young son. But Johnnie has heard such
| threats before, and pays no heed to them.
just before the time that PA is expected,
the mother most likely, tells her little
daughter she twill get her new doll If she
will not tell "Pa'' what a bad boy Johnnie
has BEEN" Now, this woman's affectlonal
nature has been cultivated at the expense
of her reason and firmness. Her husband
did not like estrong minded women, and
was so in love with himself that he pre-
| ferred his own echo as wife, rather than
one who would be a companion. He ad-
| mired the coax and IVY simile, but finds,
/ too late, that the vine drags too heavily on
! the oak, and If it does not warp that down
wards it will its branches-the children
most assuredly.
1
The old Common Law of England, upon
which our system of Jurisprudence was
founded, was instituted centuries ago, and
framed in conformity with the ideas and
customs of these semi barbarous days.
| That law merged the individuality Of the
i wife in the husband and she became legal
non entity, except when she committed
crime, then it restored her individuality
enough TO suffer the penalty IN person;
Our own statutes have generally enlarged
her personality so that she can pay penal
ties and taxes, also. But if a wife suffers
by assault and battery, or other injury as
by SANDER she cannot recover damages for
herself but her husband can on her ac-
count, the same as he could for his horse
or other property that might have been in
! iured. The present is transitional period
in every department in human life, espec-
tally in the status of women. She is gen.
orally emerging as an individual and the
J, laws are slowly recognizing her personal
1GV. InlS U61l1S u6ll lEGC 1E1lA O
chattel is a source of endless confusion and
contradiction in the laws and in practice
regarding her. Why not avoid all this by
making her, at once, an equal before the
law with man, for she is destined to be-
come such, unless civilization turns back
Il ward.
In all the oriental religions, from which
, ours has descended, women were denied
the possession of a. soul, she was held as a
slave and every faculty of her mental being
repressed. 1t was a capital offense for a
wife to be seen on the street, unless impen-
atrably yelled. Women in this country are
I being gradually unveiled, and morality and
D civilization has not been impaired by it.
But SO far as having any direction in pub
: lie affairs she is still shrouded in the ORR
: entail veil of exclusion. We have compro-
missed with the oriental idea of her having
Y a soul-given her one, but put it in Chi
4 nese shoe to be cramped, dwarfed and re-
t pressed, deprived it of its free expansion
and its natural symmetrical growth, and
o now its imperfeetions are imputed to ma
b ture instead of the artificial bandages thai
O have stunted its growth, and distorted il
. beauty. This repression and exclusion O.
the feminine element, has made our civil
ization all awry and lOp-sided; the mora
world which woman would naturally repre-
sent, has been far outstripped by the prog
ress of the material world, and disorder
d1lQ olls dlIu SllASI1DS arc Lie ICSult
Those Christian clergymen who inculcat,
!, and preach the limitation of woman,
activities and her participation il
matters of public interest have, perhap.
unwittingly, done more injury to the cause
q of morality and virtue, than all the infidel,
in the world could have done.
Last week, in the Senate, when the joint
resolution for women suffrage came ND oUI
Connecticut Senator Platt moved to omi
!, its consideration. The senate was, nc
doubt, so occupied in considering an an
preparation to improve the navigation Of
] Goose Creek, or some other equally impor-
tant measure, to dissipate the peoples
money for the benefit of the politicians
that in comparison with it, the question Of
: extending the first right of citizenship to
It &c, 0O0, 600 of the most moral and intelli-
n gent people of our country, from whom il
n is unjustly withheld, is a matter of so little
Importance, that it is not worth an hour Of
the Senate's valuable time. / speak adyi-
!, eddy when say most moral and inteIli-
gent" for the records of our criminal
courts prove the first, and the census re-
turns the last, as they give two per cent.
more llllteracy to the severe GINS of our cOun
4 try than to their subjects. But if there
' had been even rumor that a dozen col
. ored men in the Carolinas were by force OF
e fraud deprived of suffrage, Senator Plat
: would have given even Goose Creek the go.
| Oy Al Liz haStO " nave SUCH d wrong re-
dressed, and if necessary TO do it, would. il
! possible have the whole army and navy Of
! the United States called into reduisition
But the rights of millions of cultured won
! en- in the nation are of less consequence
: than those of dozen ignorant colored
men. That is The difference between J
disfranehised and an enfranchised class.
: There is an opinion prevalent i'm some
quarters, due probably to the misrepresent
E alton OF our somewhat interruptions on
ponents, that the women who advocate
their Acknowledgement are coarse. unrefned
women, dissatisfied wives or discontented old
maids. No idea can be further from TIE
truth. The majority of them are cultured
wives and mothers, placed. by fortune above
peeuniary want, and frou unselti> h mo-
tiyes laloF for he Equal Rights of ths
sexes. as the most effective way of eIe, a.
ting the race. A few of them have cbo. or
celibacy, as Harriet Mariineau. Elijah. m
? Blackwell, the first lady medical graduate
, in this country, ara Barton. liz
soldiers friend, Louis al. Alcolt. and
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, distinguished
J writer's, Francis E. Willard, the ereai
) apostle of tempe ance, and Susan b
) nlhony, than whom drawer. nobler