Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-09-27

| the future; to regard what has been
! as the prelude to that which has to be.
When the sculptor, painter or poet
desires to present us with the loveliest
i object of contemplation, he gives his
ideal of a fair woman. He presents
her in all her naked glory. How she
! nreathes from the marble, glows on
the canvas. and shines in the page!
Her pose. her contour, her symmetry,
her beWitching curves, her divine
beauty of body and soul, fill us with
admiration and delight. For the true
rtist discovers hidden charms and
gives US eyes wherewith to see. He
shows US woman, not as she is, but as
she will be. For he is nothing if he
be not prophetic. He eliminates all
that is vulgar and debasing, and unites
the perfeclions of many into one. And
whether we call her Venus or virgin,
we forget the SORROWS of the one and
the frailt.es Of the other as we gaze
upon Their lOvelineSs.
How we sigh for the lost treasures
of art, for those earlier conceptions
which foreshadowed so much. How
we eXecrate the barbarOus hands that
neglected, mutilated and destroyed the
priceless object lessons of humanity!
Statues, paintings and poems have per
iShed. Even Campaspe has not sur
vived Others, however, have supplied
their place, and although there is much
that is meretriciOuS, there is also
alone has given US a whole gallery of
lovely and lOveable women-all crea-
tons of his own brain. No such beings
had ever existed until he formed them,
so sweet, so sympathetic, and laughter
loving, so nimble and graceful in body
and in mind. Intellectual gymnasts,
bright-eyed and rosy-lipped, were they,
but, above all, intensely womanly,
and in nothing like the coarse
mOuthed, beef-eating damsels and ma
irons who crowded on dry days into
Black friarS theater. Yet on the retina
of his mental eye those humanly-per-
feet maidens are distinctly pictured,
and his description OF them has been
for us standard of true Womanliness
by which our wives and daughters
have been raised immeasurabl higher.
When we turn from these ideals to
the realities that surround us, from
What woman ought to be to what she
is, we are profoundly shocked. We
then realize to some degree how enOr-
nous are the efforts required to raise
her to her true position. We inquire
why her elevation is so slow, what are
the obstacles that hinder her develop
ment, and why she continues to be
the inferior and slave rather than the
equal of man, thus involving society
in calamity upon calamity? The his
tory of woman is the history of the
continued and universal oppression of
one sex by the other. The emancipa-
ion of woman is her restoration to
equal rights and privileges with man.
For there must have been a time,
however remote, when the sexes were
equal, and when the male performed
many of the functions which now de-
volve upon the female. But during
her frequent periods of CESSATION she
may have become physically untitled
to cope with the male, and this in a
time when sexual intercourse was
prOmiScuouS, must have materially
assisted in reducing her to slavery.
Thus, as soon as the property was
recognized woman became the booty
and chattels Of men, and a rude form
of marriage was instituted. AS in the
song of Deborah and Barak, "Have
they not sped? Have they not divided
the spoil, to every man a damsel or
tWo%
Next, the theOloglans stepped forth
and gave a religious sanction to public
custom. Thus we read in Genesis,
And the Lord God said: 1t is not
good that the man should be alone,
[ will make him helpmeet for him."
This accords with the Mohammedan
idea that woman exists solely fOrs the
comfort and qualification Of man on
earth as the hours do in heaven. Aft
er the Fall we read: Unto the wom-
an He said: L will greatly multiply
thy sorrow and thy conception. In
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,
and thy desire shall be to thy hus-
band, and he shall rule over thee"
Christianity, through st. Paurs teach
ing, also gave its sanction to the eX-
listing ideas. Speaking of public wor-
ship, he says: For a man indeed
ought not to cover his head, for as
much as he is the image and glory
of God; but the woman is the glory of
the man. For the man is not of the
woman, but the woman of the man;
neither was the man created for the
woman, but the woman for the man."
j Who can calculate the injury done
/ to woman by this authoritative asser-
! ton of the inferiority, and that, too,
/ among a people like the gay inhabi-
! tans of COrinth, where she enjoyed
! the highest freedom then known
/ This unhappy position of hers was uni
| versal. In some parts it still exists as
/ at first. in others it has been more or
! less modified; but nowhere, not even
/ with US. with all our boasted civiliza-
! ton and Christianity, has she become
| free. The shackles of her ancient
slavery still cling to her and retard
! her mental. moral and physical devel-
! oCment. Need we wonder, then, at the
sad spectacle which humanity offers
Us? Its hideous massacres, its social
! denominations, its foul creeds, its
! treacheries. vices. cant, diseases, lusts,
tyrannies. and crimes are all the natu.
raj outcome of the subjugation Of one,