Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-10
WOMEN IN PARADISE.
There Is Going to Be a Big Surplus
From France and Spain.
NOT ENOUGH MEN TO 60 ROUND.
How the Sex Is Suppressed From the Very
Cradle to the Grave.
DIFFERENCE IN CHURCH DUTIES
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l

| rwRrTTEN FOR THE pIsPATcH.l
As orthodoxy goes, nothing seems more
certain than that the heaven of the future
| will be peopled with women by very large
| majority, while the great mass of men will
60 to the other place. In his essay on
French women, Jules Simon makes it very
clear that Frenchmen hold that religion is a
matter for women. France, he maintains,
remained Christian country after the revo-
luton, and since the establishment of the
| republic, only through the women, who are
in that country the defenders and support
ers of the faith.
A constant effort is being made by those
in authority-the Socialists, the politicians.
the philosophers-to abolish all laws based
| upon the union of Church and State, or, as
| he puts it, ''combining divine with human
legislation, or uniting earth with God. 1"
To the furtherance of this end they are
taking the schools out of the hands of the
clergy, they are driving the chaplains out
of the army, they are forcing the Sisters of
Charity out of the hospitals. They are de-
termined to have no God-in-the- -Constitu-
tion. and to thoroughly break up the union
of Church and State.
Checked Only by the Women.
They, in short, go as far in this matter as
sisters would let the men alone, we are
told, not man would be married in church,
nor accept the bonds of marriage at the
hands of a clergyman. If the women did
not insist upon it there would be no relig-
ious rites at funerals In Difference to the
women, men yield so far as the forms of re-
ligion go. To preserve peace in the family
they dare not, says Simon, go too far in op-
position to the Church. Louis Philippe, as
the story is told, in endeavorirg to settle
one of the fights with the Jesuits, told his
Cabinet that he cared very little what was
done as long as they 'did not get him into
hot water with his good Queen"
From this picture of France, presented
by an able writer, it looks very much as if
the French heaven-beyond the skies-will
be given over mainly to the women, while
the fathers, husbands and sons will spend
the countless ages of eternity amid the
quenchless fires of hades This scheme of
future happ1ness-with the men mostly left
out-will hardly commend itself to the good
sisters who are fond of the beloved brethren
and desire their company, but if the condi-
tion of things in France is such as repre-
sented, it would seem as if there could be
no other orthodox or logical outcome.
Spanish Men VIII Be Broiled, Too.
Another able writer on the subject of the
"Women of Spain," says that religion in
that country is largely confined to the
women. Men there, it is said, claim free
dom of choice. They are free thinkers, ma
terialists, skeptics what they will, but they
insist upon it that their wives, sisters and
daughters must be pious and attend to all
of their religious duties regularly and
faithfully The brethren there feel them
selves privileged by virtue of their superb
ority to break down the barriers of belief,
to throw off the restraints OF religious duty,
to arrange their lives to suit themselves by
an ''elastic moral system" of their own
devising. but the ideal woman of Spain to
her countrymen is "pious, docile and ignor-
anti
During the last century is was considered
dangerous to permit a girl to learn to read
and write, on the score that if able to do so
she might peradyenture correspond with
sweetheart. A salutary ignorance,
absolute submission to father or
husband, devotion to the practices of re-
ligion, self sacrifice, self efacement were
considered the highest virtues of women.
If they could read, they were confined to
the prayer book and the catechism. This
was the "classic type" of the eighteenth
century, and the men of to-day, says the
writer, have not become resigned or recon-
ciled to any change or evolution in women.
'Tne model wife of to-day is the same as
she was 100 years ago" notwithstanding the
changes of laws manners and customs.
However radical Spaniard may be him
self, however much he may have changed
with the temper of the times, however revo-
lutionarv in sentiment-he hangs on de-
terminedly to the old ideal woman who
must be ignorant, obedient and pious. Men
and not few there are-who have not
been to confession themselves for 80 years
would be greatly shocked # their wives did
not faithfully attend to this bounden church
duty.
Men Are Tricked Into Church.
Only women, says our writer, assist at
the religious exercises, such as 'fnovenas"
and celebrations. While the women are
inside taking part in the services of the
church the men loaf around the outside. To
such an extent have they abandoned the
field of religion to women only-says this
writer upon the women OF Spain-that the
clergy have invented trick when they wish
to secure male congregation. This is done
bv announcing a lecture for men only, be-
cause the subject, as to science, or morals,
or philosophy, is too profound for the
women to comprehend. Thus delicately fat
tered, and tickled by their vanity of super
ior intelligence, the men are inveigled into
church occasionally, and thus get taste of
religious instruction.
But while men insist upon their wives
being pious, they do not want them too
much so, fcr many of them are jealous of
the influence of the clergy, and to this cause
is owing much of the domestic intelicity of
Spain.
"Only two professions are open to women
in Spain-that of tobacconist and queen"
70 these have recently been added those of
telegraph and telephone clerks. The mid |
die class women, like those of France, have |
an undying desire to be ladies, and an ambi- |
tion to do nothing at all in the way of max
ing living, Labor for money is by them |
n 1iuo ood n mi