The herald., 1895-10-27
DOES IHE WIFE NEED SUFFRHGE

The following address by Mrs. Colista
Willard Scott of Fairmont, Los Angeles
county. was delivered before the womans
parliament held in this city, October
$40:
The infallible index of true progress is
found in the leading questions that con-
Germ the world today. We take ID for
grated that the policy and nature of our
own governm ent-insoiar as it represents
the problems which agitate the present
age-is on the size of liberal and enlight-
ened sentiments. 1t would be impossi-
bic for us, if We were so disposed, to pre-
vent our principles and our example from
producing some effect upon the opinions
and hopes of society throughout the civ
ilized world. Never before has tho in
tellect of man and woman been brought
SO directly face to face with the subject
of wife's Advancement cit is now. The
age is extraordinary, the spirit that actu-
ates 1t is peculiar and marked and our re-
lation to the times we live in andsto
questions which interests them is equal
ly marked and peculiar. We feel that the
time for argument and experiment has
almost passed. Woman's suffrage limited
and unlimited has been successful wher
| ever tried. 1t has been declared by both
men and women that higher education
| of woman and co-education would dem
| onstrate her inferiority and lead to the
| degradation OF both sexes and to the rum
alton of home instinct in woman, but
the trials of these has been so successful
one of our bitterest opponents in recent
article has said: ''No sane man doubts
the wisdom and duty of the highest edu-
cation for woman" The admission of
| married woman to control her own prop
erty, which has only come to pass within
| a generation, is due tc the efforts of a
few and was strongly opposed by the ma
iority of WON en-.
We need only to turn to Greek letters.
art and poetry. in all it's periods from
Hervie or Homeric age down to the do.
mestic life of the Athenians and
Spartans, four or five centuries later, to
be convinced that from tho earliest ages
the wife has been in a state OF bondage
to man. And at the present day III Ori-
entail nations the higher her position in
the social scale, the more secluded. worth
less and pitiful her life becomes to herself
and the world. mlseraoly dwarfed intel.
lectually and spiritually-tke property of
her lord and master, valued according to
her youth and beauty.
The present inequality between hus-
band and wife is due to the law of force
necessary to the times and conditions
that existed ages ago when our ancestors
were forest dwellers,' and TO a genera
ton of inherited submission on the part
of Sur forem othhers, just as the modern
temple preserves the gradual semblance
to the wooden cabin in which the Doran
dwelt. Science declares that there are
| for ha
balance, evolution and degeneration. The
world has reached stage in evolution,
when the intelligent wife refuses to re-
oede one inch from the vantage ground
of personal freedom and intellectual life.
which she as only gained in America by
her own efforts within the last twenty
five years.
She refuses to be again degraded into
the so-called ornament of chiyalry or the
reproductive animal of the Greeks and
Romans.
Motherhood is truly the great privi-
lege and browning glory of the wife; it is
the nature and need of this relation that
she should reproduce the race. but to full
fill her noblest mission has vast respons-
Utility. The true wife will never foTsake
the cradle nor the sick chamb Der for pOlit-
ical honors. She who would do SO would
have,done,so for some other reason.
Though mans understanding leads
him to look for good housewife. his
heart and Imagination compel him to
look for other qualities as well. Willis he
must often pursue one straight coarse,
the ideal wife of today must expand her
activity in every direction. She must
have clear discernment. readiness in all
emergencies. courage in adversely, care
in the smallest trifes, and soul able to
mprehend the greatest matters, and yet
lay them all aside if necessary. 1t was a
grand tributee paid to her sex by De
Quincy when he said: "Ah, woman,
you can suffer nobly and Gle grandly for
Just cause.
The thinking intelligent wife has no
desire to antagonlze man. She haa no
desire to usurp one masculine privilege.