The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-03-22

From the days when Jezebel, seeking
to introduce the gayeties and frivolties
of Pbenicia in place of Jewish rigidity,
set up the worship Of Baal and Astarte in
the court of Ahab she and that latter ante
Christian shrew Xantippe have been held
up to the odium of mankind with hardly
soul to say good word for either of
them. The imperious Jezebel lived while
she lived in some state, but the poor
creature was trampled to death under the
hoofs of the chargers bestridden by
Jehu's horsemen, and her memory has
gone laundering down the centuries
loaded with prophetic opprobrium.
Neither in her life nor in her posthumous
remains is there any hint of happiness or
food for envy. She was probably as
much of an overmatch for Ahab as Kan
tippe was an UNDERWATER for Socrates.
That slouchy but serene philosopher made
use of bis high-tempered wife as q whet-
stone upon which he was accustomed to
sharpen his patience. No doubt he pro-
voked her to the outbursts of household
wrath which have linked her fame to his
and made her name a synonym for shrew-
ishness.
There is no certainty that any of the
great shrews of history altogether deserve
the wealth of opprobrium that has been
cast upon them. Their historians have
been of the sterner sex, and their faults
usually appear to have been in the nature
of intrusions into activities that were con-
sidered as masculine prerogatives. An
able woman, intellectually capable, high
spirited, courageous and ambitious, tied
to fat, slothful, incapable husband would
be very apt to get the reputation of a
ehrew even in this considerate and ad-
vanced epoch. Such woman living 500
years ago would have been lucky, indeed,
had she got through her earthly career
without having been ducked in . horse
pond. ..1
Shakespeare perceived the quality Of
shrew to philosopher whose mettle was
Of her own fiery cast. 1t was happy
marriage. Petruchio. who deserved q
good wife, had the shrewdness to pick
her out. Rip Van Winkle did not de-
serve . good wife, yet found her out
when she had been so tanned as to suit q
gentleman who had risen from twenty.
years. nap. If Mrs. Van Winkle had
been married at the outstart to an indus
trious, temperate and thrifty husband, in.
stead of TO q drunken vagabond, her
shrewishness would have remained unde-
velopsd; and Xantippe would probably
have made happy man Of an Athenian
cobbler if it had not been her fate to wed
An ill-favored, smooth, honey -tongued
Athenian philosoper.
George Eliot has written: "Wooden
folks bad need ha' wooden things to han.
die" It il true. When . wooden man
captures for his wife q bright, quick,
high-strung, fesh-and-blo woman the
clash between stupidity and brillianoy il
sure to make the sparks fy. If the
wooden man be brutish also he may
break down hia spouse 70 his own level :
A the husband u the vita b thou
Art mated 70 . clown.
And the gromness Of bis nature viii
Have weight to drag thss down.
But the greater probability in such
cases il that Whist the censofioue world
| calls . : shreHiah woman r may be desel.
opsd. Out Of drunkenness and neglset
ont Of slouchinass Of mind and body oui
Of greed and parsimony; ont Of the
hypocrisy that y swest III the presence ol
othsgs rid onur beAind tie door; out o.
sapssl4ss jsala1eiess apds reproaoheA and
ont Of . hundred othee cansae, eitheI
apparent OF naaAsssb wives afs mad