Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1889-11-02

selves equal 10 all the responsibilities SuCn power
involves. Especially do wish to speak Of dam
ger to be avoided. We need to create and to
foster among women realizing sense that we are
all alike; that the worst WoTen belong to us as
the best We cannot feel proud of the virtues and
talents of one woman without feeling an equal de-
gree of shame at the vices and degradation of an
other.
There is no third sex and we must see to it
that this feelng-l cannot call it an opinion-that
there exists class of animal women shall never
take root in this country. In order to effect this
we must create a code of morals in accordance
with our free institutions. Never should we look
across the ocean for guiding rod. Nowhere has
woman been so poetized and localized, nowhere
have music and the plastic arts so celebrated her,
as on the continent of Europe; yet everywhere
there can woman be bought. She is legalized mer-
chandise, and inspected such for the purpose of
purchase, which is prostitution. ....#
The nobility and the aristocracy among the men
hold it below their dignity and honor to be traders
or even merchants, because they consider that all
commercial enterprise tends to make men merce-
nary, SO lowering their character Yet these same
men do not hesitate to purchase women; while
the aristocratic and noble lady thinks it right and
just that there should be special class of women
for this purpose.
This is no exaggerated statement it is a fact
that women of education and high standing speak
of a certain class of women as if there were q
sthird sex" a creature resembling woman in all
outward appearance, but sterile in propagation,
sterile in morals, and sterile in intellectual capaci-
ty; slave to men; creature of contempt in
the eyes of women.
| say therefore, one of the laws of our moral
code should be, "Respect the woman in every
woman
This respect for all womankind leads us to con-
slider next the moral relations to children. The
highest ideal code cannot be too high here, and
example should take precedence of teaching.
| would advise a whole code, explanatory of
modesty, purity, chastity, truhfuness, obedience,
self-denia sef-contro, clearly to be comprehended
and strictly to be practsed by every woman-mar-
ried and unmarried, mothers, and grandmothers-
so that example shall teach the boy as well as the
girl the virtues. '..
Moral precepts, admonitiOns, daily repeated in
words, are listened to with Indifference but from
living example are drawn good draughts of
heathful moral strength. For instance speak be-
fore boy, no matter how small (he smaller the
more dangerously with contempt of a woman, and
you may be sure the seed of contempt toward all
womanhood is sown and will grow and mature and
bear fruit for another generation. The same is
true if, in the hearing of girls, contempt for men
is expressed yet here the effect is less bad, for
the girl is, as | said before the passive, not the
aggressive element in nature.
Next we need moral code in relation to men.
Here the first principle should be, what is wrong
in woman is wrong in man. There is no special
right for the man. Although we cannot demon
strate an absolute right, yet the Golden Rule will
always serve as test where there is doubt.
Men are born as pure and innocent as women. We
develop qualities in them from false conception
of aggressive impulses inherent in the masculine
constitution. This is the point which we must
bear in mind the man is not wllfully, nor lnten-
tonally, vicious; but we allow him to practice
&, lo 9 liz