Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-22
THE HAPpIEsT WOMEN.
Dr Aked Says They Are American \ and Gives Reasons,

] The American husband is the best in the world, and his wife the hap piest woman in the world, according to the Rev Dr Charles F. Aked, pas tor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist church. Going into partic- ulars, Dr Aked says of the American woman:
 "She has less drudgery and more leisure than any other woman. She has more money to spend and better things on which to spend it. She has more freedom, independence, more power of initiative and of self-direc- tion. She is 8 person of importance and she knows it. She quietly as- sumes that she is somebody. The assumption is warranted in fact and conceded in practice. The American woman is, up to the present moment, Gods best piece of work, and there are no visible indications of outside improvements upon the product.
 Comparing the condition of women in foreign countries with that of the women of America, class for class, Dr Aked finds that, matching the worst of the old world against the worst of the new, the new is better. He has seen woman and a COW yoked to- gether to a plough, the man holding the handle. He has seen a woman walking along the road with basket of firewood strapped on her back. A man walked beside her with his hands in his pockets, smoking cigar! The man saw a desirable log on the road side, condescended to take his hands out of his pockets, picked it up, plac- ed on top of the woman's load, and continued his lordly way. He has seen, on a Sunday morning, a woman wearing mans trousers carrying a bod of bricks up the ladder to the brick setter, man, working up above. He has frequently seen a woman and two dogs yoked to a cart containing clothes going to or from the wash A man sat in the cart handling the reins.
 Comparing the positions of women in the more comfortably placed classes, Dr Aked paints picture which sounds strangely familiar, the penniless wife of the rich man being not wholly unknown in this country.
 When rich woman," he says, "or, rather, very poor woman, wife of rich man-has to ask her hus- band for every shilling she wants, and must account for every penny of it, her lot may not seem to be quite as dreadful as that of the laboring women just cited, but 1t is not essen tially different. When a woman in a splendid position in society bursts into tears and in moment of abandon confesses that for many years she has not been allowed any money at all in greater sums than half crown eco cents) for cab fares and tips, her clothes and everything else being paid for by her husband by check, the object of the system being to de- prive her of every vestige of freedom and keep her in servile subjection to him, the story is incredible and im- possible 1t happens to be true"
 Dr Aked thinks that Jill is as good as Jack in this country, necessary outcome in his mind of the alleged equality between Jack and his mas ter. In other countries, he says. where the king bullies the noble and the noble bullies the squire, where the squire -bullies the professional man, the professional man bullies the tradesman and the tradesman bullies the laborer, it may be taken for a fact that all will bully the woman" :"
 The standard of sexual morality Dr Aked finds to be higher in this coun- try than in the old lands, "notwith- standing the ten thousand divorce scandals and all the headlines of a sensation loving press"