San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-06-20
SHOULD WOMEN PROPOSE?
A PARCHMENT UPON A SUBJECT
or INTEREST TO THE FAIR.
What Is Meant by a Proposal of Marriage.
Are Women willing to Assume Such
Responsibility?-The Old Fashion OF
Courtship Will Go on for Awhile.

Courtship viii Go on for Awhile.
Apropos Of the mooted question, "Shall
women propose" which for some time past
has been the subject of more or less serious
discussion, it may not be amiss to consider
what woman's proposing" implies,
Most of the advocates of a new departure
seem to look at it merely as a short cut to
matrimony and the securing Of husband
and home.
True, there is an assumption that the agita-
ton of the question is as much in the interest
of the male as of the female.
This presumption is based upon the suppos
ititious bashfulneSs of our brothers, who,
but for the manful, or rather womanful, COM
ing forward of the ladies, might miss matri-
mony altogether.
But though civilized man is just now, per-
haps, somewhat backward in coming for
ward to choose a life partner, his shyneSs is,
we surmise, due not so much 10 fear OF the
young woman in the case as of what said
young woman will ultimately cost.
ModeSty and shrinking shynesS are not
characteristic of the sterner sex. AS rule,
men are not afraid to ask for what they want
they have been Lords of creation" too long
for that-and, while there may be here and
there bachelor who needs nothing but en-
couragement to become a benedict, these are
but sporadic cases, and prove nothing unless
it be the rule.
WHAT PROPOSING" IMPLIES.
Indeed, men take it for granted that what
folks don't ask for they don't want-that is,
unless they take it without asking.
Witness the matter of woman suffrage.
They say women, as a body, don't ask for
suffrage. Ergo, women, as a body, don't
want suffrage.
Which proves what poor reasoners men
can be, for all their extra area of brain and
boosted superiority of intellect.
They might as we'll say that women don't
want husbands because they don't ask for
them!
But as the late Mr.. Greeley used to say,
1.-THE way to resume is to resume" and our
crusaders in the cause of courtship evidently
believe that the way to propose is to propose,
and they valiantly proclaim themselves ready
to share the ante-nuptial siege with the hith-
erto monopolistic male.
Which is kind of them-if they are as dis
interested as they would seem, and what is
much more to the point-if they realize the
responsibilities they would shoulder
And that brings us back where we began.
What does woman's proposing" implya
Does it mean not only securing home and
a husband, but providing the one and sup
porting the other' Does every woman who
advocates this new departure really mean
that she is not only willing but that she ex-
poets to maintain the man to whom she pro-
poses marriagef
That is what a man means-or is supposed
to mean-when he proposes marriage to a
~
do not mean as much they put themselves in
most humiliating light.
What right minded woman would not be
too proud to offer a man less than he would
tender her under similar circumstances
1t is one thing for a woman to allow her.
self to be worked for and supported by a
husband who has sought his position as pro-
wider as privilege. But it is quite another
thing for a woman to seek husband to sup
port her. and one that no self respecting
woman could condeScend to think of if she
realized the situation.
1t is not enough for women to say they are
willing and ready to do their share of the
work necessary to the support of the family
they must be ready in an emergency to do
it all if they are going to exchange places
with the other sex. They must be prepared
ton, but also to make money.
1t is no answer to this to say that many
men are now supported by their wives The
point is that the husband is not only looked
upon as, but is in law, the natural head and
support of the family-the money maker, the
bread winner
And although the world is semi-occasion-
ally Frightened and bettered by the sight of
iIaal yySbora apJ yrif 10
thoroughly and admirably interdependent-
each helpmeet to the other; and although
the same world is embittered and blackened
by mockeries of marriage where the burden
is all on one side, and that the woman's, do
we not also see all around us men who are
breaking not only the laws of health, but
sometimes the laws of the land as well in
their mad pursuit of the elusive but mighty
dollar, while their womankind toll not
neither do they spin," and by the side of
whom Solomon in all his glory wouldn't get
a 'stickful" in a newspaper notice.
THERE'S NO LAW AGIN IT"
When men work to support their wives
and children in idleness and luxury it is
taken as a matter of course. When woman
works to support husband in that sort of
fashion she may be called fool, but he is
called knave. And public opinion in both
these cases is founded upon the fact that the
man sought the woman, that he asked her to
marry him. And there lies the moral!
If women propose to propose" that they
shall be active and equal partners in the bust
ness of life, that they shall submit to the
same rules that obtain in ordinary business
partnerships, where each member of the firm
may be held responsible for the whole con-
Germ, well and good. Let them go ahead and
may God speed them.