Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1905-08-04

"o uAot' Tue W11e, Wnether OF the mid |
.le or wealthy class, feels equally the |
weight OF her dependence pressing
upon her. And In a little Flemish |
newspaper that an unknown reader |
sent me read eloquently expressed
tne JOY OF a simple provincial wo-
man over the presaged reforms Of |
the French civil code. 1.-THE city
1olk, she says. have no idea of the |
degree in which the countryman
treats MS wife as beast Of burden?"
Some energetic women have at all |
times, and principally in the latter half
OF the last century. protested against
this servitude, permitted by customs
and laws. They have not lacked sup
porters among men. Nevertheless, al
though much that is practical remains
to be done in order to attain that
which Stuart Mills calls "the enfran.
ch1sement of woman" one may say
that, logically, the cause is gained
In greater and greater numbers wo-
men are admitted to competition with
men in all sorts of activities. The
prejudice for moral and intellectual
1nferiority is no longer defended by
any one. And behold finally that
they are occupying themselves with
the restoration.
This is the moment which certain
women choose for taking fright. The
coach into which they climbed of their
own will goes decidedly too fast; they
cry Stop" They wish to descend.
Curious feminine fear of liberty!
Is this not renewed proof that the
servitude was real? Every time
that serfs have been enfranchised
some have been found who wept for
their old servitude. others who de-
manded to remain serfs, and, finally,
others who persisted without ever
knowing that they had been set free.
Each revolution has some victims and
some malcontents. Already these NAL
contents are appearing among the fu-
ture emancipated ones. When Paul
Hervieu wished to insert in article
PIP in the French code the require
ment of love between the parties to
a marriage it was considered, after
some ridicule, that this new require.
ment corresponded to a new case for
rupture of the contract; the case, to
be precise, in which the requirement
of love could not be fulfilled. And in
the interviews that were had upon
this proposition with some of the not
ables of the feminine world there ap.
peared, as an essential figure, the VIC
lent desire not to be open to repulia-
ton. This gives the whole of the
feminine opinions an unforeseen ap-
pearance of timidity; women seem to
be much less resolved, in the work
of their proper enfranchisement, than
their masculine partisans.
In this confused fear so ingeniously
manifested there is something touch
ing and little sad. Touching is the
weakness, the persistent weakness
that centuries of dependence have pre-.
pared. Woman takes into consider
alton that while it lasts she risks still
more than man in easy divorce. "a
recent inquiry, among women, was
frankly unfavorable to divorced. The
prejudice persists which depreciates
a wife who has come from a former
marriage. Then, educated to be plac.
ed at 20 years under the guidance of
husband, resolved, assuredly, to
make light of the obedience she has
promised, but at the same time to
claim the protection promised by the
other, the wife is frightened at her
loneliness, face to face with life, the
day after the rupture. She knows that
custom, even though modified, still is
hostile to the isolated. She knows,
if she is poor, that the social order
will not admit as readily as to mas.
culine worker her right to earn her
living.
See then the touching condition of
woman. frightened by her repudia-
ton. The legislator, who, reforming
the code. fails to take into account
the genuine disparity between the re-
pudiated young wife and the young
husband made a bachelor, will, to my
mind, make botch of it. l believe,
moreover, that Paul Hervieu, whose
initiative in this reform is preponder.
ant, has forseen the consequences of
it, and has not thought it impossible
to Offset, in some degree, the incon-
venience of this inevitable disparity.
1t is sadly true that many women,
in just the measure that their real en-
reimbursement approaches. show them
selves timid in the extreme, and that
is what seems so sad. One divines
that certain of them wish for re-
form of the laws, not in the sense of
absolute equality between the sexes,
but in the sense of privilege in their
favor, which is purile and unaccep-
table; better renounce at once that
chimera. The day in which equality
of rights and duties for husband and
wife shall be written into the law
when obedience shall no longer be
specified for the wife nor the obliga.
ton to protect her for the husband
it is clear that many things will be
changed in woman's condition, and
that these changes will develop in he1
on their part more energy, more cour
age, more ability to work, and more
consistency than the past has done
Custom follows the law, after this has
broken the path; the fashion of gal
liant suzeranity that men have affect
ed to maintain toward the weaker se1
will disappear little by little. In New
York, when travellers are about tt
lump on a nac~'--~ street car, mar
+ brushes against woman, or the re
, verse; each with such force as he has
. Feminine life will lose some things
just that which is lost when one out
= grows ones childhood; certain care
+ lessness, an impression of security
!, and also of innocuousness, all of which
is precise to most feminine souls. Blu
leaving out the purely sentimental
, and poetic regrets that one experien
!. ced for ones own childhOOd-wha
well balanced being would not volun
tarily quit this epoch of dependence
for the time of responsibility, of lib
erty? II is to be hoped that moder1
:, women will bring to their own destin,