The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-08-19
A sUPERFLUOUs BEING.


There seems to be preconcerted and
simultaneous movement on the part of
many uneasy women in Europe and
America to dispense with man. Not
that they would drive him off the earth;
but he is no longer regarded by them as
anecessary part of the machinery of the
world. The idea that he is lord of crea-
ton was exploded long ago. 1t is true
that there are women who are not averse
to marriage, and, therefore, there may
be excuse for mans existence. Other
wise in the evolution of the race he
would be merely superfluous and
singular portion of the new organism
that might be allowed to remain or
might be extirpated without serious re-
suit, like the spleen in the human body.
There is new school of female think
ers, of whom Miss Beatrice Potter of
London is an illustrious example. They
teach new doctrine, one not wholly
disconnected with Ibsenism. ''Mar
riage is all very well, if it does not inter-
fere with work; but marriage as pro-
fession is obsolete. Her own develop
ment is the principal thing that woman
has to compass" And so we find wo-
men engaged in the trades and callings
that were for long time thought pc
culiar to man. There are female clergy
men, doctors, lawyers, confidential
clerks; women control great business
enterprises they are known in the
haunts of brokers; they collect fares in
horse cars; they play in orchestra; and
in Western town there is female sue
cessOr to Elihu Burritt. They sound
each tone of the gamut of journalism.
And it is claimed that in few years
women will handle iron with greater
dexterity than is now shown by strong
men in the mills. Their knowledge of
their power has led women to look down
on the other sex, and the man hater is
now more common than is the man eater
of the Oriental jungle. A female jour
nalist expresses this sentiment in the
following pleasing words: "Men and the
ways and the habits of men are uncOn-
genial to women. Strength greater than
their own repels them, manners differ
ent from theirs, habits that they cannot
share, appall and disgust them"
In former days, when the annex was
unknown, q girl was educated by her
mother, friends and the subtle influence
of her surroundings for matrimony. The
young man whom she met in drawing
room or at a ball was to her possible
husband. The mother was an anxious
and loving establisher of households for
two and often three generations. The
novels of England until a recent date
were full of billing and cooling and WOO
ing. From Fielding to Trollope, from
Richardson to Thackeray, all novelists
agreed that girls and boys were created
chiefly for marriage. The end of the
mothers duties was synchronous with
the conclusion of the story, and the cur
tain was rung down to the peal of we'd
ding bells.
But the higher education Of women
has changed all that. Man is no longer
an object of alteration. Take the case
case of Miss Beatrice Potter, for exam
pie. She apparently has no time to in
vestigate the merits of man, even if she
has suspicious concerning the justice of
the sentence pronounced against him.
She is an economist. She wakes en-
thusiastic at the sight of statistics. She
is a contributor to the Nineteenth Cen
tury and writer of book on the CO.
operative movement. She is rent col
lectoI in the East End. She is an active
Socialist. In her leisure moments she
studies philosophy with avidity. Nor is
she great exception in her habi S. The
female heart of to-day is, first of all. an
anatomical organ; its palpitations come
from anything but the sudden presence
of man. Bushes are now due to
ignorance alone. Smiles and tears are
only provoked by scholastic success or
failure. And it is left for French wo-
man, Madam Adam, to regard home as
the true dominion of the female ruler
and domestic occupations most worthy
of her intelligence.
Man might well be disturbed if he took
feminine opinions, protests, deiances
and denunciatiOns as wholly serious. He
the judicious conduct of
Brer Rabbit in time of danger. The
actions of these modern Amazons belle
their words. Take again the
case of Miss Potter. She was married
this month to Mr. Sidney Webb, l.. c.
LIE q, L.