The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-04-14
IN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
AN IDEAL VIEW OF WOMAN.
All Through Human History Her Position
las Been a High One

cultural fair one is pretty sure to find
the very best room in the building-if
building there be-allotted to 1.-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 moving 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
a 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-
buttons, shows always this recognition
of something higher in the feminine
nature, even where the actual and visi-
bic 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 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- |
Gus nations Glory and victory even |
are of the feminine gender, but it takes |
manly qualities to get them. Man is |
but his manliness (rirtus) |
feminine. 1t is the inclina ton of brute |
force to moral power" Among the |
Greeks, while mind was masculine,
truth, honor and country were femin- |
inc; and so were strength, force, art. |
Most of these characteristics extend |
into modern languages; thus in Ger |
man, while intellect (d9 TeyStdnd) is |
the Idle SeeJe) is feminine;
and though country (das LaEd) has be-
come neuter, yet country in the sense
of landscape or neigh borhood Dir Land
Sch,Jf, die Ge end 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
guagcs which still retain that very in
and puzzling characteristic
II is when we pass into the realm of
my thOlogy, and see that every system
Of manifold deities has its goddesses,
often equal, sometimes superior to the
gods, that we see the instructive recog-
L /
deity who remains in the
background, who gave birth to the very
gods themselves, and to whom they are
to return, is quite as likely to be
as a man. Behind the all-pow-
erful Zeus or Jupiter stands his mother,
Cybele or Rhea the mother of the
yods;" and, though she had 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, pal
sled and powerless, his wife Rhea is
still young, beautiful and immortal
Even among the later Greek deities it
vas not Zeus, but Here and Athene who
,ould. conformity, confer valor on men;
md they go into battle together, bear
ng the BCis of supreme power. With
Tor Neptune) to aid them, they
almost succeed in putting Zeus himself
N chains and ne is delivered with diff
,ulty only at the last moment. Indeed,
here is no nation of modern times in
which the power of women comes so
near to equality with that of men as in
he councils of the Greek deities. OF
he Oriental and French novel type of
weak, debased, SEN
'ual being-there is really not trace
70 be found there. Aphrodite herself is
far above it; and three out of four of
he greater goddesses-Iiere (Juno),
Athene (Minerva), and Artemis (Diana) |
ire essentially noble and beautiful ideal
igures. II is impossible that the young
ircck womanhood would not have been
Elevated and dignified by the contem-
olation of types SO august
= he extraordinary position of the
1riestesses of Nesta at Rome, as eX-
olored and described by Lanciani, is
he most striking illustration of this
deal or spiritual dignity attributed to
A sacred band of virgins, the
lepositaries of state secrets, the custo-
iians of the very archives of the COM {
sent as ambassadresses, APP
pointed as umpires; having all state de-
,artments, including that of war, sub I
ected in degree to their authority. !
,ut themselves subjected to no power ;
,ut that of the pontifex maximus or
ugh priest; they unquestionably oc-
upied the highest worldly position
yer held by women, and this among !
he most peculiarly masculine and Wig
rous race that ever trod the earth.
When we add that the largest and most
powerful bodies of Christian believers {
till look to a woman as the highest OBJ '
ect of religious veneration-the high |
st because adding tenderness TO power,
nd so reaching the HEARTH is plain
hat the association of womanhood with !
he ideal side of life is not an accidental I
r occasional thing, but permanent