The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-29

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wv field which the Lord had
made tempted the mother
of mankind to eat Of the
forbidden fruit. the Voice in the Car
den said to her-"I viii greatly null
fipIv thv sOrroW.'' It can scarcely be
denied that this curse has been Iul-
llled. So manifold and lnceSsant nave
been the sOTrOWs of w Woman SINCE the
legendary account of the creation OF
the world. that one cannot help think
Ing the whole business somewhat un-
fair, n-f0r merely being 'begulled'
by a beast of the field VINO was known
to be more 'subGP than any other, and
afterwards being given away. by Cow
ard Adam-Eve and all the descend
ants Of her sex should be compelled to
suffer centuries Of torture me m
justice is manifestIy cruel and arblt-
Tary-yet it would seem to have fOl-
lowed poor accused Eve from then till
now. Il will greatly multiply thy sOr-
FOWL" And sorrow has been mu.ti-
piled to such an aggravated and par
barOus ext INT upon her unfortunate
head that IT, the Jewish e'tU9l to this
very day there is a part Of the service
wherein the men, standing in the
presence of women. individually say:
81 thank thee, o God. for not having
ma de me q woman thus deliberately
insulting, in their very house Of wor-
ship the sex of their mOthersi
But from the earliest times. if we
are to accept historical testimony, the
jews or LILG ancient WOIiQ appear 10
have treated women III the ma OTity
as Something Worser than their dos,
a little lower than their horse Save
and except those rare cases where the
Jewish woman suddenly found out her
latent powers and employed them to
advantage, the Jewish man made her
fetch and carry for him like a Verit-
able beast of burden. He yoked her
to his plough with OXen,-he sold and
exchanged her with his friends as
r@AI- toll rr
merce,-hfs base uses" of her We're
various, and seldom to his credit
while, such as they were, they only
lasted so long as they satisfied his i'm
she was cast out The kind of cast
ing out to which she was subjected
is not always explained. But it may
be taken for granted that in many in
stances she was either killed outright
or turned adrift to die of starvation
and WEAKNESS. The Jews in their BIB
lical days were evidently not much af-
fected by her griefs. They were Gods
chosen peOple,-and that women
were the mothers of the whole chosen
race, appeared to call for no claim on
their chivalrOus tenderness or cOnsid-
Grafton.
Looking back through the vista of
time to that tabled Eden, when she
listened to the tempting of the sub
III one the wrongs and 1nJuStlceS en-
dured by Accused Eve at the hand of
Coward Adam make up a calendar Of
appalling, almost superhuman crime.
Man has taken the full license al
lowed him by the old Genesis story,
vented by man himself for his own
convenience. "Thy desire shall be to
thy husband and he shall rule over
thee" And among all tribes, and in
all nations he has ruled with a rod of
iron! The Christian dispensation in
terfered somewhat with his former
reign of tyranny, for with the birth of
Christ came, to a certain extent, the
idealization and beatifcation of wo-
manhood. The Greeks and Romans
however had a latent glimmering idea
of what Woman, in all her glory
should be. and of what she might pos
sibly attain to in the future,-fOr all
their grandest symbols of life, such as
Truth, Beauty, Justice, Fortune, Fame
Wisdom, are represented by their
sculptOrs clothed in the female form
divine. 1t is a curious fact, that in
those early periods of civilization
when Literature and Art were Just
daWn1ng upon the world man, though
aggregating to his own Ego nearly
everything in the universe, paused be
fore representing himself as a figure
OF Justice, Mercy or Wisdom. He evil
IDENTIFY realized his unfitness to stand
even in marble, before the world as a
symbol of moral virtue. He therefore
with grace which we'll became him
in those pagan days, bent the knee
TO all noble attributes of humanity as
represented in Woman. Her fair face
NeE peduEeOuS ngureS, greeted him in
all his sacred temples of Worship
Venus and Diana she smiled upon him
as the goddess OfFOrtune or Chance
she accepted his votive wreaths.-as
Fame or victory, she gave him bless
ing whenever he went to war or re-
turned in triumph from the leblanc