Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1893-06-01
IN W0MAN'S BEHALF.
AN IDEAL VIEW OF WOMAN.
All Through Human History Her Position
Has Been a High One.

At every rural cattle show or agri-
cultural fair one is pretty sure to md
the very best room in the building-if
building there be-allotted to the
work of the ladies" There may be
found collected the pine-cone frames
and the water-color sketches; the little
dogs in worsted and the little cats in
canvas; but it may be noticed that the
farmers spend most of the time outside
among the mowing-machines and the
two-year-olds 1t is, nevertheless, an
indication of the high position of wom-
an that all through human history
there has been conceded to her some
thing of this aesthetic or ideal attitude;
and as the world becomes more refined,
her position changes, simply because
the ideal or aesthetic aspect becomes of
greater Importance. Even among races
that seem barbarous, this ideal side
often so prevails that it puts woman on
pedestal while she seems a beast of
burden. Thus Lucien Carr has shown
US that among many tribes of American
Indians she really exerts high author
ity in public affairs; and we never truly
began to appreciate the depth and
elaboration of Indian religious rituals
until educated women like Miss Alice
Fletcher and Mrs Erminnie Smith were
initiated into these tribes, and taught
their mysteries And Thierry long
since showed that the ancient Germans
of Tacitus, of whom it was said that in
all important transactions they con-
suited their women, were really in a
condition very analogous to that of our
Indians both in this respect and in
many others.
| But language, even more than insti-
| tutions, shows always this recognition
! of something higher in the feminine
! nature, even where the actual and visi-
| BILE woman was most despised and
wronged. In the new volume of ex-
tracts from Thoreau's delightful diaries
the volume called Autumn-we find
! Thoreau, celibate and a lonely man,
/ dwelling with admiration upon this
/ evidence from language. THE prac-
/ tice of giving the feminine gender to
all ideal excellences personified is a
mark of refinement observable in the
/ mythologies of even the most barbar-
4 GUS nations. Glory and victory even
are of the feminine gender, but it takes
manly qualities to get them. Man is
masculine, but his manliness (cjrtus)
/ feminine 1t is the inclination of brute
/ force to moral power" Among the
/ Greeks, while mind was masculine,
truth, honor and country were femin-
1 inc; and so were strength, force, art.
! Most of these characteristics extend
! into modern languages; thus in Ger
man, while intellect der VerStandl is
masculine, the (die Seel) is feminine;
and though country (das Land has be-
come neuter, yet country in the sense
! of landscape or neighborhood (dle Land
/ Schqft, die Gesend1 is still feminine. OF
course it will not do to press these an
| alogies very far, but there is no doubt
that some instructive feeling of fitness
lies behind the gender of words in lam
guages which still retain that very in
convenient and puzzling characteristic.
! 1t is when we pass into the realm of
/ mythology, and see that every system
! of manifold deities has its goddesses,
often equal, sometimes superior to the
! gods, that we see the instructive recog-
milton Of the feminine element The
mysteriol leity who remains IN the
| backgrouL Who gave birth to the very
gods themselves, and to whom they are
to return, Is quite as likely to be n
woman as a man. Behind the all-pow-
erful Zeus or Jupiter stands his mother,
/ Cybele or Rhea, the mother of the
gods" and, though she had a husband,
Saturn, yet his worship was local and
almost trivial compared TO the wide ex-
tent and vast dignity of hers. Readers
! of Keats Hyperion" will remember
that while Saturn is painted as old, pail
sled and powerless his wife Rhea is
still young, beautiful and immortal
| Even among the later Greek deities it
was not Zeus, but Here and Athene who
could conformity, confer valor on men;
and hey go into battle together, bear
ing the 8gis of supreme power With
Poseidon COR Neptune) to aid them, they
almost succeed in putting Zeus himself
in chains, and he is delivered with diff
Guilty only at the last moment. Indeed,
there is no nation of modern times in
which the power of women comes so
near to equality with that of men as in
the councils of the Greek deities OF
the Oriental and French novel type of
womanhood-the weak, debased, SEN
sual being-there is really not a trace
to be found there. Aphrodite herself is
far above ii; and three out of four of
the greater goddesses-Here Juno,
Athene (Minerva), and Artemis (Diana)
are essentially noble and beautiful ideal
figures 1t is impossible that the young
Greek womanbood would not have been
elevated and digniied by the contem-
plation of types so august
, The extraordinary position of the
priestesses of Yesta at Rome, as ex-
plored and described By Lanciani, is
the most striking illustration of this
ideal or spiritual dignity attributed to
women. A sacred band of virgins, the
depositaries of state secrets. the custo-
dams of the very archives of the com
monwealth, sent as ambassadresses, ap-
pointed as umpires; having all state de
! partments, including that of war sub
| jected in degree to their authority
out themselves subjected to no power
I r. . 10 81