St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1889-03-09
CovINGTON, TAMMANY

dom does not conduce to virtuous and
orderly behavior. and who desire "a
place tho American girl under re.
straint, need take but snort course d
reading in the Roman literature to dis
cover the baleful results OF keeping
young men and women apart and sur.
rounding their intercourse with artif-
cial difficulties. '
There has never been q period when
the relations OF the sexes were 20 false
and depraved as during the first three
centuries OF the Christian era There
were women who had been married
and divorced eight nine. and ten
times.
From the most fragrant excesses
many Of the early Christians recoiled
to the opposite extreme Of q fatal sever
ance from the opposite sex. Several
OF the early fathers, in their sermons
and other writings. represented women
rs the devils chief ally in Turing men
to eternal perdition. The historian
Lecky has an interesting passage upon
this point:
The fathers regarded women as the door OF
hell. Is the mother OF Ill human ills: she should
be ashamed Of the very thought that she 10 .
woman: she should live In continual penance
on account OF the curses she has brought upsn
the world.
Such opinions led to the most do
plOrable consequences In Germany
alone one hundred thousand witches
were burned at the stake. but very few
wizards; and when a man and woman
committed q murder jointly. and With
equal guilt, the man was hanged and
the womae burned. Many OF those
proverbs adverse to women which fig-
ure in the jest books Of Italy and Spain
come down from those dark ages. Here
are two or three Of them:
There Is one bad wife in Spain, and every
man thinks he has her" "Women aui horses
must he beaten" Trust no woman. even
. wife" women and money are the cause OF
all the evil IN the world" women keep the
secrets which they don't know"
This contemptuous feeling rendered
the position of an unprotected woman
intolerable. The criminal records
show that, in countries SO advanced a.
England, France and Germany, no
woman was safe either in her person
or in her estate, who had not some
adequate protective force behind her.
Widows had no rights, which either
lord or clergy felt bound to respect
The institution of knighthood rose to-
ward the end Of this period to soften
manners and to introduce into the re-
latiOn Of men and women an element
of the romantic and the ideal. Knight
hood was in many respects . foolish.
thing. but it was better than
the unredeemed brutality of former
time. and prepared the way for that
regard for all women. a.
which We hope will ono day
become universal.
The nations have much TO learn
before they can enjoy the solid good
which will come of free and natural
between men and women.
The remarkable popularity of Amer
can girls in Europe will probably have
;Ome effect In showing the safety OF
greater freedom between the sexes.
An English lady. married to a Ger
nan count, and long resident In Ger
many. reports that German girls to-
lay have no Out-of-door fun such as
English and American girls enjoy; no
,Oating, NO riding, no archery. no |
no tennis and not even tho
mild and harmless croquet- The girls
say they do not want such
deeming them bold.
,oarse and unfeminine. Moreover.
uch pleasures can only be fully en-
Dyed in the society Of young men,
I0s,acs pnrlosa 50 Y Ie<3oee