The record-union., 1897-07-19
MANNISH WOMEN.
DIR. PARKHURST TALKS ABOUT
"ANDROMANIACS."
Woman DivineIy Preferred-Her
Supremacy Lies in Her Woman
illness, and She Should Make the
Most of It-Her Sphere of Best
Usefulness the Home.


mannish," which he apparently be-
lieves to be characteristic of many
women of the present generation. The
doctor has been saying some interest
ing things upon the so-called woman
question. He emphasized the superior
! ity of womanhood and is emphatic in
regard to the way and the purpose for
which it should be developed.
1T is my pleasure he says, ''as well
as my duty to insist, in the first in
stance, upon woman's intrinsic super
| iority." This is considering purely
and simply her womanly fiber. Quite
apart from all that she does and the
! sphere of her activities, the question
comes upon the matter of her personal
texture, the refinement of its organiZa-
! ton, and it is with that only in mind
! that l want to claim for her a clear
and easy supremacy"
/ In other ways in which woman and
| the complimentary SEX can be COM
pared and contrasted, DR.. Parkhurst
believes that in some way one and in
some the other would take precedence.
The first important suggestion COM
! ing to us from the Bible records that
the production of woman was the con-
!
| When God had finished her he stopped,
! knowing of nothing better or higher
that he could design 1t is woman
upon whom the Scriptures regularly
put the stamp if divine preferment.
Sex is not an accident of personality,
| but is an element that is constituent
in every thread and fiber of it. If a
man is a man, the flavor of manhood
/
woman is a woman, the flavor of
womanhoOd will permeate her in her
entirety. The instant you begin to an
imalize the idea of sex and limit the
difference of physical organization, you
cut into the tissue of the deepest part
of the entire matter and, unfortu-
nately, there is very strong tendency
at present in that direction.
WOMAN'S SUPREMACY IS IN
WOMANLINESS.
ANY civilization that transforms or
! tends to transform, a woman into the
! female duplicate of man, is a false
| civilization. If women want to retain
! the supremacy which belongs to their
sex, they will have to keep it by maxi
! ing more and more of their womanli-
ness, and not in trying to be mannish
! The security of a Woman's hold the
| security of a wife's hold, upon her
companion, is not that she is a female
! but that she is a woman. Womans
proper destiny is on a distinct line
| from that of masculinity.
There is an element in the feminine
world which is suffering from what
shall venture to tandromania' 1t means
passionate aping of everything that
| is mannish. 1t is an attempt on the
part of those affected with the disease
| to minimize distinctions by which man.
| hood and womanhood are differenti-
ated, whether as regards their culture
! their interests, or their activities. [
am not criticising any particular act of
the 'andromaniacs, still less am [
| urging that these acts proceed from
| any desire or intention of being un-
womanly. My criticism is only upon
| the disposition apparent in many quar-
ters to narrow the distinctive features
| Of woman to the smallest possible area.
The contention is that if she broadens
out into new lines of employment or
service, at the impulse of a conviction
| that activities that are suitable for
men are therefore suitable for women.
/ and that the supreme distinction be-
] tween the two is physiological, she is
miSconstruing her own nature and do
ing herself an irreparable injury"
Going on to speak of the home as the
unit of society, DR.. Parkhurst says:
"A bachelor is a dislocated fragment.
His female counterpart is in the same
category. 1t may not be their fault: it
may lie in the necessity of their case.
Still, all in all. it is condition reproved
by nature and foreign to divine inten-
! ton. The pew system of worship is
the deft way that our church architec-
ture takes to teach the doctrine that
each home is a little religious organism,
a miniature church in itself
/ HOME A PHYSICAL CONVENIENCE.
Marriage is not taken so much as a
matter of course as it was formerly,
either by young men or young women
The home is degenrating into physical
convenience place to eat in and to
sleep in, but not the local axis of all
that concerns its members in the higher
relations and aspects of their life.
When l was a boy [ was always ex-
/ pected to be at home, except when there
was some special reason for my being
away from home. Unless appearances
are deceptive, children now ex-
pect to be away from home except
When there is some special reason for
their being at home. And what holds
good of the children holds also quite
/ largely, in a good many cases, of their
parents"
Speaking of woman as the wife, moth
er and homemaker, DR.. Parkhurst SAYS:
Nature has so wrought its opinions
into the tissue of woman's physical con-
stitution and function that any femi-
nine attempt tof mutiny against wife
hood, motherhood and domestic 1imita-
tions' is hopeless and rather imbecile
attempt to escape the inevitable. All
the female congresses in the world
might combine in colossal mass meeting
and vote with passionate show of hands
that womans sphere is concident with
the sphericity of the globe or even of all
the heavens; but the very idiosyncracy
OF her physical build and the limita-
| tions essentially bound up in it, will
sponge out her mass meeting resolu-
tons as fast as she can pass them. God
and nature had very different intentions
for her from what he had for her broth
er, and He recorded his intentions in a
way that He has taken some pains to
prevent her being able to forget.
| A true mother says DR.. Parkhurst,
going on to the subject of motherhood,
lives for her children, and knows no
other ambition but to live in her chill
| dren. She aims at nothing more than
unrecognized survival in their manhood
AID WomanhoOd, and asks to be monu-