Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-06-13
IS WOMAN A UNIT OR A FRACTION,

growth from the simple application of
physical force to the subtle recognition
Of spiritual freedom. The word of the
primitive man was might, the word of
the coming man must be fright. The
time was, and perhaps still remains
when Drawn carried or carries regal
authority; the hour cometh, perhaps
now is, when brain wears or will wear
the emblems of royalty. The reign of
muscle is gradually developing into the
reign of nerve. Thought is now the
strongest force in society, and feeling is
better defense of the state than armies.
Under the old regime he who could deal
the heaviest blow became chief of the
clan. Saul was made king because he
lowered head and shoulders above the
others in the camp. Then the most
warlike clan became the center of the
nation, and the conquered became slaves
to conquerors. Then man wooed
woman with bludgeon. The .hus-
band captured his wife as he
would deer, and led her
home as he would horse. Once there
her unquestioned duty was to submit,
Both law and religion merged what little
individuality she may have had as
maiden into that of her husband. She
was lost, and became a part OF the pos
sessions Of her liege and master. All
earlier religions thus recognize the de-
pendence of woman upon man. The Nor
mon faith of to-day, which shuts the
gates of Paradise against all women who
are not led hither by man, is but
religious anachronism, curious revival
of primitive thought. Our courts and
customs are full of such "reminiscences;
our standing army is a relic of the
dreaded king whose prowess was ter
ror to the neighbors, whose strength
was a tyranny to the citizens. Slowly
but surely society finds the finer rhythm
of the spirit, it grows more plastic to the
rights of a soul. In this larger
adjustment woman has steadily
come forward as an individual
character, a separate entity, self-cen-
tered unit in the spiritual common
wealth. The growth Of state may be
measured by the scope it grants to wo-
man. Not because woman has any
special charm of sanctity, but because it
is recognition by the state of the in
tangible, the immaterial forces that per-
tain to spirit rather than to the physical
and brutal forces that pertain to matter.
History proves what the law of justice
would predict, that the most perfect
home, the truest state and the most spir-
itual church are found where man and
woman find their equal counterpoise in
an individuality equally sacred; per-
sonality equally defined, each possessing
spiritual natures committed to the same
law, bound by the same standard, judged
by the same code. A woman can neither
be slave nor an angel in the domestic
relations without marring them. She
must be woman, standing alongside Of
man, shoulder to shoulder with him.
The old ages OF chivalry, around
which romance and minstrelsy have
thrown false glamour of sentimental
light, were ages of coarseness and injus-
tice, because men regarded woman as
an elegant attachment, an angelic lux
ury. Such an estimate generally ended
in treating woman after marriage as a
slave and chattel. We discard the an
gel theory of woman, and for the same
reason discard the devil theory of man.
One is not essentially white, neither is
the other essentially black. Woman's
hands have been capable of all the
crimes that masculine cupidity has per-
petrated, and on the other hand mascu-
line feet have climbed all the heights of
saintliness that woman's feet have ever
graced. Men and women are COM
pounded of the same clay, beset with
the same limitations and endowed with
the same possibilities and the highest do
mestic felicity is found in the frank
recognition of these facts.
What is true of the home is true of the
state. The state that rests upon the bay
onet is either dead or dying; the state
resting upon the brain and conscience of
the individual has come or is coming in
its stead. The state that existed for the
governing is we'll nigh gone out of the
world. Monarchy is but trinket of
state craft; the realm no longer belongs
to the king or queen. but the king or the
queen belong to the realm. Government
exists for the governed now. ''No taxa
ton without representation" carries with
it far-reaching logic. Wherever there
is intelligence, wherever there is con-
science, wherever there is the power to
direct labor or to conserve the results of
labor, there exists, in justice, factor of
government. And these qualities no.
where run parallel to sex lines. Man has
achieved fame in no department of life
which women has not at this time pene-
trated, Even the battlefield has its
Boadicea, its Joan of Arc. and its Mother
Bickerdyke. John Howard is balanced
with Dorothy Dix and Clara Barton.
Herschel, the great astronomer, found
that his sister Caroline could sweep the
skies with a telescope as she could the
floor with broom, and pick up as many
new stars in an evening as he could. In
the field of political economy, Harriet
Martineaw taught as men could not, and
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Francis Will
lard have pierced public sins and aroused
public conscience, developed the con-
seriousness of state obligations in a way
that no mans name outshines them. We
make no special claim for woman sa-
gacity,-no, not even her ethical
sense. We do not think in the large
estimate it will be found to be
much superior to that of man. As Mrs
Poser says. think ''God Almighty has
made the women mostly fools to match |
the men, But in the name of justice. |
in the interest of that poise of sex. the
rhythm of life, in the name of religion
that has endowed men and women with |
living souls, loaded each with equal re-
sponsibilities. we demand the right of |
citizenship to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, !
such as the law already vouches to Jack, !
the drunken fisherman. of whom she has |
written so pathetically. We demand, in
the name of all fairness, that the ulu- !
nicinal nririleces ard RESPONSIBILITIES