The San Francisco call., 1909-09-12
By Marion r. Dewey

@HE century that has just passed
has witnessed. among its many
developments. striking change
in the position of woman. This
is not due altogether to the efforts of
herself alone; the advance of our civ
ilization, or perhaps it would be more
exact TO say the progress of invention,
has rendered II Inevitable that womans
status should have altered since our
grandmothers' day. Countless acces-
sories Of life which were formerly
made by hand and in the home. are now
manufactured in factories ana by ma
chinery A hundred years ago the
woman spun and wove the material
from which she made her clothes; she
made her OWN soap and candles; her
work centered in her home and she had
TO interests outside of it. But time
has changed all that; the former prod
ucts Of the home are products of the
factories; the factories have drawn
many women within their doors along
with their work. and others, whose
means relieve them of the necessity for
working. have found the interests of
the outside world encroaching in the
place Of the interests which. the outside
world took away from them Money
counts for more in these days when
everything must be bought than it
did in the days when the great bulk OF
the necessities of life could be produced
al home; and this is what has pushed
woman into competition with man in
the industrial world. 1t may or may
not be a good thing for the woman; the
have no choice between that and STAR
walton.
With all this. however. the position
OF woman has certainly advanced since
the time when a mans wife was his
property as much as his horse or his
dog. Not one hundred years ago an
Englishman could sell his wife in the
market place If he chose In view of
this fact. 1T is not surprising TO note
that wife beating was legal in Eng
land up to the end Of the same period.
In Russia, before the reforms of Peter
Ll6 tTItdls Nlit BC0l1A6 was a lc6 uidA
institution, quite as much as the spank.
ing OF children. and there is story
told of a foreigners Russian wife, who
thought that her husband did not love
her because he did not beat her. The
statement has been made that there
are parts Of Germany today where
wife beating is legal among the lower
classes. Throughout the occidental
world however, that practice has hap
PLY been given up, and such men as
care TO try il run the almost certain
chance OF paying for It,
Up 10 about so years ago very small
opinion was entertained of woman's in
teilect IF she showed any indications
Of possessing one il was considered
very unwomanly, and a woman who
wrote books or engaged in other in
tellectuai pursuits was regarded as
quite as much of freak as we regard
Carrie Nation in the present day. An
amusing example OF this sentiment is
noticeable in Garrick's witty old COM
edy. The Country Girl" where Spark
ish is made 10 say Cad. I see virtue
makes a woman as troublesome as a
little reading or learning"
Little attention was given to girls
education outside of her household
training but the lapse of century
sees women in colleges and unfversi-
ties, both as students and instructors;
and women both IN and out of college
engaging in practically all the intel
lectual professions that are open to
men
Having attained to this point, some
women want still more. They want
the ballot Charles James Fox said in
1877: 1T has never been suggested in
all theories and projects of the most
absurd speculations that il would be
advisable to extend the elective suf-
rage TO the female sex" Today
women have equal suffrage in Colora-
do Idaho Utah and Wyoming, in Aus
ltalia and Finland. All women do not
want It; some would not vote if they
could; some that want 1t make them
selves disgrace to their sex by their
rowdyish agftations for it; but there
are other women of education and re-
iinement, many of them mothers of
families, who desire the ballot more
for the benefit of protection of their
children and the home than for any
thing else
It is probably the opinion of nine
people out of ten. first, that the post