The San Francisco call., 1896-03-08
Some Of the Revolving Travesties
on Love Are Laid
Bare.
WOMEN RUINED BY SOCIETY.
Sacrifice of Honor, Morals and Home
Happiness for Social
Duties.

.
well-known man, who had gone away
from his home because he was i'll, there
occurs this line-which may be true or un.
true-"His wife would have been with
him but her social duties prevented her."
Her social dutiesl What is the world
coming to? Are the social duties Of a
woman to rise superior to her duty and
devotion to her husband? Shall your
social duties, or my social duties, make US
the less loving, the less quick to recognize
that which is really right, or that which a
woman should do? OF how much worth
is society when put in the bal
ance against true love? There fell
on the newspaper as l read this a
little valentine sent me by child lover,
and below the flaming heart and the smil-
ing Cupid were the words. "'Tis love that
makes the world go round" Is it? Or is
it ones social duties? Did the wonderful
women of the past who gave their lives,
dav to day in such a way that life was
daily death-did these women consider
their social duties as most important or
did they believe that it was love that made
the world go round2 Think of all the
great women in history, think of all the
women of tradition, think of all the
women of Biblical lore, and be sure it was
love of God or man that ruled them and
not their social duties.
Do you suppose that when Ruth clung
to her mother-in-law, claiming that "Thy
people shall be my people, thy God my
God, It was because she thought it So
clal duty or was it reflection of the love
she bore her husband, of the duty she felt
she owed him, and which made her help
the woman who bore his name and needed
her help? The comic papers and the vul-
gar people laugh and jest about mothers
ln-law-lt always seems to me dreadful
thing. A woman wins the love of your
son-the pride of your heart-the child
that has been cared for by you through
long illnesses, possibly nursed back by you
when close to death, and to whom you
taught everything that was beautiful and
noble. Because OF this new love, shall he
love you any the less? And shall not the
woman to whom. he has given the strongest
love of his life, who feels honored by bear
ing his name, shall not this woman give to
you who bore him, cared SO much for him,
a great love- an enduring love- a love not
governed by the law, but by the heart
and its rules? Think it all over. Haven't
you known mothers-in-law who were veri-
IdDlc refugees III QlStIeSS1 L SOneLlm0S
wonder if woman ever thinks of her son
when she is disagreeable to the mother of
her husband. NY friend, even in this
world the law of compensation holds
good, and as you treat the mother of your
husband SO your daughter-in-law will
treat. you. If you find that your social
duties are too great to allow you to con-
slider the woman who is the mother of your
husband you can look into the future and
you will see that to you will come just
such treatment from the one who wins the
heart of that son who, to-day, is nothing
but baby boy. / despise these so-called
mother-in-law Jokes, and cannot imagine
how woman with either heart or brain
can smile at them.
But that wasn't the text OF my sermon,
for am moved to sermonize bit to-day
Suppose the social duties of the two Marys
had kept them from arising early that
morning, would they have met the angel
at the tomb? Suppose his social duties
had kept Christ so busy that he could pay
no attention to the poor and the blind, and
the sick of body and the sick of soul,
what would have happened then9 My
friend, did you ever try to think out what
are simply what you owe to the society in
which you live. But sometimes l think
they go further than that, and the society
in which we really live is that in which
love reigns, and no other society can
demand a duty from rs. Women
are wonderfully true to the demands
of the heart, but sometimes there comes
a curious, mean ambition. It is to
be at the bead of gossiping. frittering
silly set who are friends, dear friends, in
prosperity, and who are Indifferent when
sorrow comes unless that sorrow is draped
in the most expensive Grape and lived
down according to the rules of etiquette,
to burst out at the proper time in great
gladness and In overwhelming merriment.
This society, 1t is true, is made of men and
women, men and women with hearts, but
hearts SO we'll covered with social draperies
that except in physical way they scarcely
know how to beat. / don't know whether
it is for gooa or for ill that in the social
world you and l and our neighbor wear
the conventional mask-we teach ourselves
to smile when our hearts ache; we teach
ourselves to overlook neglect when we are
in trouble, because it is wise to be on good
terms with the social rulers; we throw
ourselves down before the social car of
Juggernaut and are rolled over, crushed,
wounded, hurt, and we rise up with
smile.
But always somebody is misjudged by,
society. Yeste rday it was woman, who,
throwing back the great Grape veil that
society had ordered her to wear, claimed
ueT I gnu TO OOQ Almighty SunSDlne ana
to hope. The day before it was a woman
seen coming out of pawnshop. The
looker-on told the story, and society made
up its mind that she had pawned her jew
els to pay her dressmaker's bill, whereas in
truth they had been put there to get the
money to bury the dead. The day before
that it was girl-society criticized her be-
cause it said she affected religion-she
knelt so many hours in church-and the
truth was that the church was warm, and
her tiny room in the fashionable boarding
house was cold and cheerless. And she
had not the courage to go where life was
simpler and more comfortable because
she feared society and because she believed
she must live up to her social duties.
Another day. 1t is man, and somebody
laughs because he always seems SO hun
CRY at dinner or at suprer-he will not
work, and the pittance that comes to him
monthly barely pays for his fashionable
clothes and a room in well-know wn
apartment house. Do you wonder that
he is hungry? And he isn't just one;
there are hundreds like him. And there
is another. No word is too vile for
what he is now, and yet there was a
day when he was truthful, honorable and
gentleman. But he felt the demands of
society. He thought his social duties of
most Importance, and not having money
enough to live as be wished he m managed
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