Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-05-11
"ARE WOMEN TO BLAME q

ARE WOMEN TO BLAME?
Five of the leading female writer's of the
country discuss the question in the current
number of the North american Recieu,
''Are women to blame for unhappiness in
marriage?" Rebecca Harding Davis
sensibly declines to make answer. She
declares that such question cannot be
answered. that it has been discussed since
Adams time and must remain an open
one. She is correct in the conclusion she
reaches but we may except to her refer
ence to Adam. There was no doubt in his
mind about the matter, since he very
bluntly replied that it was the woman who
gave him to eat of the cause of the first
recorded matrimonial difficulty. The
most that the mother of mankind could
say in her defense, was to report the
serpent as the source and cause Of the
error certainly she did not lay the blame
al the door of her husband. Seriously,
however the essayist has the courage to
say in this age of doubt and sneering, that
from her reading and observation, she is
convinced that the vast majority of mar
riages are happy. Rose Terry Cooke, while
not disposed to relieve husbands of any
responsibility in the matter, is inclined to
the belief that women are most to blame
for such unhappiness as there is in the
married state. Her reasons are that
women often marry from wrong and mex
cusable motives; that they frequently
enter into the marriage contract with
entirely mistaken views of the relation
and the responsibility involved that they
are often unhappy in marriage, because
the average woman is impatient because
she is exacting by nature and education,
especially in the latter days, when there
is such manifest disposition to arrogate to
herself the strength, authority and capac-
ity of man because women are inconsider-
ate; though not SO selfish as men they
nevertheless find it difficult to understand
them, and therefore Judge them by their
own standard lastly, because women are
almost always jealous. There is enough
Of truth in the essayist's position to sug-
gest q good deal of thought, and Just
enough of error to bring upon her the
maledictions of multitude of her sex, who
will thus demonstrate the soundness of so
much of her argument as is true.
Marion Harland believes truest happi-
ness is found, or is to be made in the mar
ried state. At the risk of seeming dis
loyal to her sex, she holds that women are
most to blame, but charges the fact upon
our system of educating them. 1t is i'm
possible to ascertain from that which, she
writes, what Catherine Owen thinks of the
question. She would divide the blame,
but finds it quite impossible to do so to her
own satisfaction, and she certainly does not
do so to the satisfaction of her readers.
There is, however, truth and strength in
her suggestion that there is not nearly so
much unhappiness in marriage as those
would have us believe who are constantly
pushing the question to the front, SIS mar
riage failure?" The truth is, that we
hear a great deal more of conjugal infe-
icity nowadays than formerly for three
reasons, the augmented facilities with
which news is gathered and made public,
The prying and impertinent character of
the sensational press, and, as the essayist
suggests, because these woes are not, under
the social systems of the hour that have
dulled the sensibilities, concealed behind
the pride and sensitiveness that once made
their revelation a shame and lasting hu-
initiation. She concludes, therefore, that it
is not proved that there is really greater, or
rather more unhappiness in marriage now,
than in earlier days. She holds the num-
Der of love marriages is small, into which
disappointment does not enter, and yet
this accomplished writer, whose observa-
ton has been so extended, and who has
made human nature study, is by no
means prepared to advise that marriage
should be contracted independently of
affection.
Mrs. Amelia E. Barr is more positive in
her opinion. Speaking broadly" she
saws, women are to blame. When they
find that marriage is not lasting picnic
they are not willing that passion should
subside into that nobler tenderness that
springs from mans best nature. They
want constant assurance of affection, and
their husbands walk on egg shells, terrified
to wound feelings which take nothing on
trust. This is the beginning of many mis-
cradle marriages for woman must be-
come bore who persistently refuses to
believe in the love of her husband unless
he is constantly asserting it. Such wives
Judgment that this woman passes upon her
sex, but the most of men will be quick to
concur with her, though their chivalry
may withhold the expression of their opin-
ion. But Mrs Barr has the courage to
go to even greater length, and to assert
another truth, that if weak and gushing
wives have much TO answer for, the snpe-
rior ones, those perfect women, cold and
proper as well dressed tulip, have even
more justly chargeable against them
Themselves "languid and phlegmatic in
temperament, the burning passions thai
send men into danger are inconceivable te
them, and they only wonder that how mer
can commercially fail or morally fall
Bsbbling women on the one hand and the