Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1897-08-05

that woman was created to serve man
and to submit to bis desires. Even
today the English laws in. the spirit of
the Canon law, holds that wife. is the
servant of her husband. i.....-,:
Official Christianity described the most
innocent relations of the sexes as natur-
ally corrupt. .---.t :
Nature was subordinated to a de-
praved theology. Kingsley says, "The
Christian church was swamped by hys-
terra from the third to the sixteenth
century," The Reformation left woman
little better than before. Luther gave
as his opinion and that of six other
great reformers that polygamy was no
where condemned by the Bible. AS to
education, ''No gown or garment" he
said, ''worse became a awoman than that
she should be wise "~<That popular
clergyman, the Rev. Knox Little, in his
Sermon to Women" 1880, says, There
-isno crime that man can commit
which justifes his wife In leaving him.
1t is her duty to subject herself to him
always, and no crime that he can COM
nit justifies her lack of obe dienee. If
| he be bad and wicked man, she may
gently demonstrate with him, but refuse
him neverW -'~~ H,<1.''<>f
tits not to Christianity, but to science,
not to our preachers, but to our think
ers, that the race owes its progression
| and that the bonds of women are being
loosened. No great English woman has
ever appeared but some dignitaryl of
the Church has attempted to smother
her or her schemes of reform. Mary
Somerville was publicly denounced by
Dean Cockburn of York, and as late as
April "a, 1884, Dean Burgon wrote in
a liberal paper, ''The Daily News"
against the proposed admission of
women to examinations for honors at
Oxford University, He described it as
| "a moral revolution disastrous to a
woman's best interests" He went. on
to give the purpose of Creation, how
she was designed to be "the compile
ment of mans being" ''his chiefest
earthly Joy, ""but all this VIII be brought
to an end at once if you teach her to
trv to be (what she can never become)
mans equal, much less mans superior.
Henceforth she will have to be kept
down, and SO on according to the, old
really believe that their Christian offices
require them to oppose, tooth and nail,
every attempt towards iwoman's ad-
vancement? We suppose they do. An
| American song goes: -':''. ...'H
"There was man what had a clock
f.. His name was Mathew Mears,
He wound it reg lar every night .A'
For four and twenty years 'si-'@ -- 80
And when this precious time piece proved
| An eightday clock to be, ~ -r1 7'.' ..
A madder man than Mathew Nfears 80, -.
You wouldn't wish to see." .,r.,.-.. ...ia.
So when the end comes and woman's
cause prevails, will they not feel like
Mr.. Mears, that they have been mis-
taken, in their time-piece and have en-
gagged in supererogatory efforts to wind
up the public clock?g Let US turn from
such pulling specimens of manhood who
would keep womenin perpetual servi-
tude, to one of our great thinkers and
giants in progress, the late Professor
Huxley. In his Lay Sermons" Ire
says, 'What is the first step towards a
better state of things? We reply,
emancipate girls. Recognize the fact
that they share the senses, perceptions,
feelings, reasoning powers, and emo
tons of boys, and that the mind Of the
average girl is less different from that
of the average boy, than the mind of
one boy is from that of another. Let
those women who feeEinclined to do so,
| descend into the arena of life; ;letthem,
If they SO please, become merchants,
barristers, politicians. Let them have
a fair field" .'s''..
The last sentence contains the whole
tsecret of social progress: Let them
haye a fair tieldW How otherwise, can
| the male. half ofzthee community endure
i'll freedom and preserve the integrity
of their manhood? a"Man! be, it yours
Ito help them onto goodG' And although
.Jeremy Bentham laid it down that,
I'No government ever Yielded a right
unless bullied into it, Heaven forbid
that the same be. said of our brothers
and husbands. Let them yield in good
time and give the woman's cause a fair
/ field, for her cause is not hers only, but
mans also. Whatever uplifts her will
elevate him. Her increase Of useful
ness will stimulate him. AS was re-
marked by powerful writer: Society
is raised by every new right that women
| gain" "
Let US have fair .field This is all
we ask, and we Will be content with
nothing less. The finger of evolution,
which touches everything, is laid ten
derly upon women. They have on their
side all the elements of progress, and
its spirit. stirs within them. They are
| fighting not for themselves alone, but
for the future of humanity. Let them
have Il fair field!
/ RidS Wanted