The Forrest City times., 1895-08-23
The New Woman.

The following from the Commercial Appeal of some weeks ago, has been apon the editorial table awaiting it's .ime and turn. It is full of truth and common sense, and we commend it to our readers:
 Who is not tired of the talk. serious and otherwise, about the new woman and her aspirations And yet some things can not be neglected or reme- died or prevented because they are try ing to our nerves. The new woman craze is rather robust if lunatic, and will give considerable struggle be- fore going down. So we must cast our -rathers" aside now and then and handle subjects that are threadbare, if not nauseating,
 One of the most serious results of permitting woman to have her way in ahe present agitation is the danger to the institution of marriage. Growing in love for what she terms indepen- dence, will she not after awhile be dis posed to abjure it :? There can be but llttle doubt of this, and Bishop Doane was not off his balance when, iD his op- position to fema.e suffrage, he said bhat motherhood will be replaced by nanishness if sine be allowed to vote. Neglected homes will furnish candi- dates for mismanaged offices; money will buy their votes as 1t buys them selves, and the evil will continue till a tarrible reaction cemes.
 A female writer in the June North American Review discusses the new woman in sensible way. Her re- marks on the danger to marriage. and therefore to posterity, are as follows
 Homogeneous marriage is the foun- dation stone on which has been built her power n power which, while it has inured to her own benefit, has not been exercised for selfish ends. She has raised the relation between man and herself from mere contract of Sensu- ality or convenience to spiritual sac- rament within whose limits the purest and most eXhated of human emotions find play. For the coarse indulgence and bitter enmities of polygamy has been substituted the happiest of bonds, in which the higher natures find room fpr the subtlest and completest felici- ties, and within which the.man. the woman and the child form holy trinity of mutual love and well-being.
 To this jewel, so hardly won, so long toiled for, it would be natural to sup, pose that woman would cling with all the force of her nature gall the more as education broadened her capacity for reflections and deepened her con- SclouSnesS of self. On the contrary, the little learning she has so far ac. quired seems, as usual, dangerous thing, and with the development of self f-consciouSnesS, the keen, unerrng dalr of her instinct for the one thing needful has been blunted and enfeebled It is, not necessary to give undue weighttO the blatant and empty-headed crew who announce marriage to be a failure, and that women are tired of and will no longer submit to, child bearing. There are growing hens in the barnyards, and their loud antics never materially affect the supply of aggs-but there are other voices, more potent and more threatening than theSe.
 A certain class of optimists always pooh-pooh suggestions of possible change, or danger to an existing com frrtahle state of things, and these will refuse to, admit that the modern wo- man may be rlsking anything serious, or turning her feet in the wrong d- rection. But those sensitive to feel and ohseryant to note the mind of theirgeneration will be aware that it IS not only the half-baked. shrieking sisterhoOd who decry the result of so much patient endeavor and self>sac- riiice. The theory that marriage is a heavy bond, cramping the capacities of the sex. appears in the most unexpected quarters, held py women of ability and education, The loud cry for "devel- opment of her ndiyidualty''-only a auphemistic phrase for the cruel and proiligate modern creed" Everything pleasant is yoursby right you have no duties"--has an ever increasing chorus of applause among women.
 Wonderful. that while knowledge comes, wisdom fingers. Wonderful. that what women have suffered 80 long to win, once wonthey should cease to prize that education should not teach women that man was by nature very lar removed from the gentle domestic animal she knows to- day However the modern woman may, swagger about her individuality may talk of her spiritual needs" and deplore the stupid tyranny of man who Ith"Huo odSliiCeo liolh ltl III return for his tenderness. protection and sup. port, the fact is not changed, that. however much she may be mans intel lsetual equal, or spiritual superior. the axlgencies of motherhood put her at his laercy. She cannot be entirely sef- dependent except at the cost of the well fare of the oifspring.. The factory acts are recognition of the right of the child to its mothers health and vitality. Woman simply may not eat her cake