Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-20
WOMAE'S POSITION.
THE HOME THE FOUNDATION OF HER
PRIVILEGE.
Rev. C. P. Massey Discusses the Subject
sympatheticaIly and Conserva-
lively.

| ton regarding the position and influence
of women in the body polite. It is sub
ject, however, upon which it would be
exceedingly easy to say words that would
engender antagonism, offend propriety
and wound the sensibilities of those for
whom every knightly gentleman should
entertain the sentiment of profound respect.
A temperate treatment of the subject
should therefore be adopted and especi-
ally because no rightly constituted mind,
even if aIrayed in opposition to what is
Familiarity called the cause of a higher edu-
cation and emancipation for women, can
fail to look with sympathetic concern upon
any movement which has for its aim the
enlarging of the sphere of her rightful in
| huence, or the securing to her of any pos
sible happiness that can be legitimately
! enjoyed. But after all qualifications have
been stated, after every concession has
been made by which any inalien-
able right that woman can claim
shall be duly respected, the truth
still seems patent to many of
US, that the question must be discussed
apart from any considerations of taste or
culture or ambition or any new fitness for
service or responsibility, and must be car
ried up to that broad and exalted plane
which overlooks the realm of duty, as duty
| is seen in relation with the happiness and
| moral welfare of the world. II seems the
veriest truism then TO say that in this realm
| of duty, in which woman is particularly
| equipped to move, the home would occupy
| the most prominent place in her regard,
and it is, | think, because seemingly in the
! estimation of many women the importance
| of the home is becoming temporarily OBJ
hat itaffn hat
| a larger enlightenment, albeit it may come
through larger experience, will eventually
| still. There is, l am afraid a growing
| temper of mind that would resent as some
| thing containing almost the sublimity of
| insult Abraham's reply to the visiting
stranger upon the plains of Mamre, when
| to his question, Where is Saran thy wife ?
| Abraham answered, Behold, in the tent.
| That other estimates OF home and of
woman as sovereign there have come to be
entertained, is l think, a grave mistake.
| In limiting our consideration of our SUBJ
| ject, then, to the home, and to the home as
| the theater of woman's largest opportunity,
| let US glance for moment at the home as
in the progress of history it has come to
possess the place in our regard which it
has acquired in what we term our Christian
civilization, while at the same time we ap-
preciatingly consider how just as the home
has been raised to greater grandeur and
significance, woman has acquired station
and honor and has been given an oppor-
tunity for the Developments of her especially
distinguishing powers. An examination of
this question may, however, occasion a re-
adjustment of some of our ideas respecting
Christian civilization In the loose think
ing of the world it is the common habit 10
trace everything which we account as an
indication of Christian progress back to
Jesus of Nazareth, with the implied belief
that new order of things, Immediately
finding expression in the intellectual and
moral, and especially in thesocial life of the
people, was at once imposed upon the
world. The contrary of this belief is OBJ
vious to anyone with only a superficial
knowledge of the teachings of history.
Jesus proclaimed great principles which
the world has been very slow to adopt, and
which it has only adopted to any marked
extent as causes which are generally re-
garded as almost outside the pale of relig-
ious influence, have conspired to enforce
the recognition of these principles. These |
considerations are important, because of
the emphasis they give to the truth that
woman's exalted position does not rest
upon any foundation of law, sacred or
other, but simply upon that moral reason
of things which now recognizes the home |
as the unit of the State and the most i'm |
pOrtant factor in our civilization. But to |
speak Of the home as the unit of the State, |
and its most important factor, is almost |
meaningless as these are thought of in re-
lation to any other civilization than that |
" hich has come to mark the very latest |
of the Christian centuries. We have
to idealize from present standards, |
to consider the home of any earlier time |
an integer, representing in its completed |
unity, the type of the accomplished civil |
progress of the world. Neither Oriental,
nor Grecian, nor Roman, and let me en-
phasize the fact, early Christian life, sup
piled any illustration of it. In all these |
various phases of human association, the |
home in our present estimation of it did |
not exist, and so woman was degraded, en-
shaved, and all the consideration she re-
ceived was based upon purely economic |
and political reasons. Now the constant |
agitation of what has come to be called the |
woman question, is an agitation which |
seems to have for its object, or which, at |
| least, seems to point to the effect of unset |
| Ting some of the foundations upon which |
modern society is found 10 rest. An inte- |
| grail portion of these foundations is the |
| home; not the home which religion or law |
ever established, but the home as it came |
10 be recognized only after Christianity had |
been in the world nearly one thousand |
years. The truth is. that the modern |
home, and the crowning of woman to be |
the honored Empress there, was the pro-
duct of feudalism, and NJ. Guizot has
pointed out how these ends were accom-
plished. And it is important to consider
| that it was not until these truer home re-
| lations were established, that chivalry was
| born; and l do not think that woman
can indifferently pass the need of
praise which has been hers ever
since. The man she meets upon the
street, if he is a gentleman, lifts his hat
and remains uncovered while she passes;
| he may be physically weaker than she is,
and yet be will carry her burden for her,
and scorn to leave her unattended when
danger might possibly assail. 1t seems,
| however, that woman by very large rep
| resentation is willing to reliDquish her
grasp upon the very institution which has
| exalted her, and which still sustains her,
and now the question is, upon what else is
she to rely? If it is upon religion in any
technical acceptation of the term, she leans
| upon broken reed. What We Familiarity
call religion is most frequently minging
| of ignorance and fanaiicism, based upon
something which is regarded as transcen-
dental and classed among theological mys-
teries. The ethics which has moved the
world, the moral reason found in the con-
stitution of things is, as Mr.. Lilly has
pointed out independent of these nyster-
les and would subsist to all eternity though
Christianity and all religions were swept
into oblivion" And then quoting from
Susrez, Mr.. Lilly continues: Natural
reason indicates what is in itself good or
bad for man. Natural reason indicates
what is good or bad for rational creature"
Now, it was entirely in the exercise of this
natural reason that man learned as in a
revelation from on high, that the
great interests of humanity were to be
henceforth conserved by according to
woman an exceptional honor, and assign
ing her duties within her exclusive sphere
duties which no one but herself could
perform. And l do not scruple to say
that this honor will be accorded to
her no longer than she continues to per-
form these duties, and that 10 religion IN
the world can else be counted upon to con-
tinue it to her. This honor. this equality
of privilege, was only accorded to her when,
as wife and mother in a singularly pro
tectei circle, she evidenced the quality of
her endowments, and when commanding
the opportunity TO give conspicuous evil
dence of them in the line of duty which
fell immediately within her province, man
was brought to see the import of her ac-