The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-01-02
HOW SHE PROGRESSED.
Modern Woman Fought Her Way to the
New Position.

Modern Woman Fought Her Way to the
New Position.
The question of mixed clubs being
under informal discussion, a distin-
guished New York judge expressed his
disapprobation of any attempt to model
associations composed of men and wo-
men on the lines followed by mems So
ciaI clubs, says writer in Vogue. Such
experiments would, he contended, in
cvitably result in complications which
would conduce neither to the comfort
of the members nor to the dignity of
The clubs. Fearing, apparently, that
he was laying himself open to the
charge of being ungallant, the judge
went on to explain that, outside OF
mixed clubs, he, in common with men
generally, was in favor of granting
woman every opportunity or privilege
Tor which she asked. In view of this
attitude of generous acquiescence, the
learned judge could not account for the
hostility displayed for many women
authors and lecturers toward men, he
did not know which was the more aston
tshing, the keen desire evinced by the
conciliatory, yielding attitude OF men
to grant woman all they asked Tor, OF
the bitterness able women displayed
when they discoursed upon men. When
away back in the '4Os the reviled wo-
mans right advocates, Susan B. An
thony, Matilda Jos1yn, Gage, Lucretla
Mott, Cert Smith, William Lloyd Car
rison and others, began the agitation
for the recognition of woman as the
peer of man the old English common
law as the law of the land. Under this
the married woman was deprived OF
power over any property of which she
may have been possessed, over her
earnings or her children. The PROPOSE
ton to abolish such Ubiquitous laws as
not received with eager acquiescence
on the part of men. Quite the con-
trary. The advocates of justice for
women were bitterly assailed, and their
opinions branded as subversive of NOR
Glity. Well may a worker of that day
exclain: ''It is incredible sane meu
should argue day after day that it
women were allowed to control their
own property it would strike at the
root of Christianity ruin the home
and open the door to license and de-
bauchery. And yet these legislators
did argue through many weeks of
stormy debate, the bitterest feelings
being shown with regard to the rights
OF women to acquire and possess prop
erty to their sole use and disposal dur
ing the husbands life time" It took
some fifteen years of continuous agita-
ton to get a state legislature to ex-
punge such outrageous laws.
This was forty odd years ago, but
the same spirit of p-her-in-her-
place has characterized the average
man ever since. What the pioneer wo-
men medical students, art students,
college students, endured here and in
England and France is already a mat
ter of history, and it all constitutes a
Gcathing commentary on the boosted
chiyalry of man. But women have
greater cause for resentment Men have
not been, nor are they to-day, eager to
give women larger concession Of lib
erty, and the removal of every injustice
and every inequality has had to be
stubbornIy fought for by a few cour-
cgeous and philanthropic women, aid
cd here and there by man less, infat-
cd than his fellows with an overWhelm-
ing pride of sex. To women and not
to men belongs the credit of sucn
measure of liberty as the women of to-
Gay enjoy.