The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-08-26
THE WOMAN WHO RULES.
Men May Be Wiser and Better. but
She Gets There Just the Same.

There are some among us who are
not content to rule their own affairs,
but they must have a hand in ruling
the affairs of everyone else-the ont
going and incoming of all within there
radius, the dress, the acquaintance,
the reading, the conversation, the
whole conduct of life of all others-as
far as they EAR. These women rule
their houses, they rule their hus-
bands, they rule their neighborhoods.
but they have never learned to rule
their W spirits.
To these women it seems impossible
that the world should go right except
on the lines of their own direction; it
would be a little wonderful that they
could see the starry system sweep by
without a suggestion, or an e~ndeavor
to arrange to their own convenience
the hours of the rising and the setting
of the sun, if it were not that to every
tide the mandate of nature says thus
far and no farther;' and the tide Of
self-will is subject to the laws that
govern all other tides.
EARLY in life these women succeed
either in bringing their husbands into
subsection or in alternating their affec-
tions; or else they bring into the
household an element and atmosphere
of perpetual strife. They are women
usually endowed with great vitality,
so that they live through everything;
and although often fretful invalids,
they arrive at old age still administer
ing Epower. Perhaps, indeed, old age
is the happiest time of all their con-
quest, for then they receive, on ac-
count of their years and the probable
approach of death, an obedience and
Difference of willing subjects, only a
shadow of which was rendered pre-
viously, and that gfudgingly and by
unwilling slaves.
1t does not matter to one of these
women that her husbands experience
has undoubtedly given him a superior
knowledge of his own business, she
directs there as everywhere. II it
would be for the advantage of his
affairs to move to another place, and
she prefers to remain where she is,
then the business remains with her,
even to its extinction; if she prefers
to move, although the business be
best where it is, all is uprooted and
put on wheels. 1t does not weigh
with her that her children have this,
that, or the other bent for their walk
in life: if it is not what she likes, they
must be bent differently, and to her
will. Her children marry as they
choose only if they have inherited
her own spirit, OR if by chance her
| selection and theirs coincide; and
even then she interferes, controls,
and restraints, or endeavors to do so;
| and the wife who has her fora mother
| in-law knows that calamity is of
long life. If any of her children are
unmarried and remain at home, the
life of the famous toad under a har-
row is no worse than theirs; the food
they eat, the dress they wear, the
book they read, the street they walk,
the hours they keep, are not matters
of free choice, and as such a mother is
| apt to transmit her traits in more or
less degree, that house is a seething
volcano, and it is we'll realized there
that better is a dry morsel and quiet
ness Herewith than a house full OF
luxuries with strife. Not content
| with all her queening at home, she
| administers her charities-of which
| there are many, for they are part of
her subjugating influences-with feu-
| dial maintenance of her right of saying
| how those charities shall be
| used. She gives the min
| lister, too, instructions as
to the conduct of his calling, and
would fain tell the doctor what treat
ment he had best pursue at the sick
| bed. When at last this masterful
person dies, the local prints, the
| neighborhood, her little world in gem
| eral, have a great deal to say about
her marked character, her keen intel
lect, the strength of her personality,
the work that she accomplished, and
the power for good that she was in
the community; but no n has much
! to say of any love that was extended
| to her. As soon as decency and self
| respect allow after her departure, all
| her practices are reversed; ii she de-
| tanned the family at home, theyare off
to Europe; if in confusion, now there
is peace; the emotions that were kept
under now show themselves, those
that were exaggerated are now de-
pressed; company Is made welcome it
it was previously forbidden, is ex-
Guided if it was previously enforced;
there is extravaganza where there
was economy, there is restraint where
| there was profusion; the whole action
of the family resembles nothing SO
much as that of the imp in the bottle
when the pressure is removed, and al
though usually, of course, nothing OF
the sort is intended, she is just as dis
tinctly set at naught as if the fingers
of derision were snapped in her face.
--Hagper's Bazag.
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