The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-22

men, but because women in q wide view
are just about what men make therl. The
Southern woman accepted sincerely her
husbands moral code concerning slavery,
| despite the fact that the concubinage
OF the plantation filled her own home ire
| quendy with blasts from hell in the shape
of that unbridied RIGHTEOUSNESS which digs
the grave of conjugal love. The women Of
the South barked as bitterly at the oppo-
nents Of slavery as the men. Why? Be-
cause the indoor life and culture of woman
make her always more narrow and pro-
vinclal in her thoughts and feelings than
men; she has perhaps often as much if
not more scholastic learning than man,
but she very seldom has as much OF that
knowledge which In distinction from mere
learning begetteth wisdom. The same
narrowness and intensity made the South
ern woman a more bitter and hatetul rebel
than any of her men; she remained
an ugly rebel long after her man
had grown into a phiiosophic sense
OF his folly in the sackcloth and ashes of
defeat. The Southern woman was in this
respect no different from her Northern
sister, except so far as enforced contact
with earbarous social system hurt her
something, even as this repuisive environ
/ ment did the most humane men of the
south, like Henry Clay, who made no
disguise OF keeping slave mistress, bu:
| the fact that the women of the South not
only Endorsed but enjoyed slaveryas much
as the men shows that women, as rule,
faithfully reflect their men, and real
humanity and real virtue, despite the
alleged superior tenderness of women's
hearts and superior moral refinement of
their natures, rise just about to the level
OF the average masculine sentiment-with
this disadvantage, that the indoor life and
culture of women make them mere mar
row, provincial and unreasonable when
they step out of their indoor life and
culture into politics than men.
Archibald Forbes, in his terrible story
OF the horrible cruelties practced on both
sides during "the War of the Commune"
points out the women rivaled the men in
barbarity. When the army of the Com
mune was beaten the soldiers of the gov
eminent went about hunting the poor
wretches who had hidden in obscure places
OF concea!ment, hoping for clemeney when
the worst of the fury was over. 1t was
women who in almost every instance vol.
unteered to betray the hiding places of
these fugitives and who stood by and
watched the brutal French soldlery beat
out the brains of the captiyes with their
dubbed rifles. just as a swarm Of cruel
boys might stone frog to death.
The unfortunate influence Of women in
politics is due to their indoor life and Gull
ture, from which women cannot escape
without becoming desheltered and de-
se1ed, and the next evolution after de-
sheltered and desexed woman is demon
alized woman. No woman ever yet was
an able ruler except at the expense of be-
coming a desexed woman, an absolutely
masculine woman in education, experience,
training, temper, manners, speech, thought
and general environment. Every woman
who has really governed in politics has been
In this sense desexed woman and a de-
moralized woman in the sense tha4 units
q woman to be home-maker and house
keeper.
Every woman, we repeat, who has really
governed. has been a desexed woman, who
escaped from the indoor culture that is
the fate of her SEX mingled with men,
and became absolutely masc uline from
masculine associations and outdoor life
associations and life to which the vast
mass of women must ever be strangers,
because nature intended them for the IN
door life and culture that is inseparable
from housekeeping and home-snakng.
This is not said in any spirit Of desraction
or degradation of women; 1t is only just
recognition of the fact that we Cannot eat
our cake and have it, too; we cam
not deshelter our women without
desexing them: and when We have de-
sheltered and desexed them We have
taken a long step toward their democrat
ization, so far as their function RS home
makers and housekeepers is concerned.
Any man Of the world knows that demor-
aization is most common among women
who are most desheltered and dese4ed.
This explains why there are SO many
shady" persons among the women high
and low who people the operate and dra-
matte stage; they are to degree deshel-
tered and desexed, and the ultimate is de-
moralzation; they get something of the
outdoor freedom and lack of re-
straint and shelter of masculine life,
and they soon learn to adopt masculine
habits and the coarse code of masculine
morals. Contrast the life of thousand
girls living under the shelter of home
with the life of a Thousand girls without
homes TO go to; herding together in fac
tories, hotels, tenement houses. exc. The
nearer You bring a woman to q mans out
door life and desheltered experiences the
sUrer she is on the average to get desexed
and demoraiized. All women do not get
there perhaps. bu, the drift is downward
from the deshelterment to the demoral!za-
ton of women.
A woman was meant to love and be
loved; 10 be tenderly cared for as the
mother of children; or the MAKER and
keeper of a home for somebody that she
loves, and she was not intended for any,
thing else and she never succeeded very
well at anything else, and the constant
efor; of nature is to return women 10 the