The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram., 1914-01-09
Effort of Fen1ir1iStS
to RepOlutiOnize Home

an will liberate herselfThis institution
must be utterly transformed. And
when some critic objects that the
home is div1nely constructed insti-
tuition which has stood from the morn
ing of history until now, the typical
feminist replies, "Ttuff and nonsense!
You display your ignorance of his
tory This beloved institution Of
yours which appears to your child
like eyes as ancient and stable as
the hills is made Of protean stuff and
changes to correspond with every new
social change. Run over the scrolls
of history even curSorily, and you will
see it changing like a dissolving view.
Our recent home Is a novelty on the
face of the earth. You are equally ig-
norant of the world as it now is. No
where, save in a few lands, do you
find any such thing as this home
which you innocently suppose to have
been erected in its place when the
morning stars shouted together
T revolutionize the home, means
of course, also to revolutionize mar
riage and that is a thing on which the
femintsts are unanimously determined.
They will have no more women sell
ing themselves away for the sake of
support Their marriage will be a
love match, purely. They intend to
make divorce much easier and mar
riage much harder. The more radical
among them preach the doctrine OF
free alliances, and hold, as Meredith
did. that marriage should be for
limited time
@l~ Sr IN
open every occupation to women.
Whether they care to take up certain
trades or not, matters little; it must
still be understood that they have the
moral right to do so If they care.
Wages must be leveled so that wom-
an will receive equal pay for equal
work
They also hope to secure for every
daughter and wife a lawful right to
a certain portion of the husbands or
fathers income.
This thing of driving a woman to
rifle her husbands pockets to get
little spending money is disgrace
they plan to sweep from the face Of
the earth.
In connection with his they desire
to secure for those women in preg-
nancy n pension from the govern
! /.
ing the state in a supreme way by
bringing a new being into existence;
and new being they point out, is
the greatest economic asset and as
such should be recognized This
would do away with the present prac-
tiCe of having woman work through
, that period when her body should be
: wholly devoted to the nourishment of
the little creature preparing FOR birth.
FeministS meet the common Ob1ec-
ton to the program outlined frag-
mentarily, that women are not fitted
by nature either mentally or physi-
cally to fulfill such functions as
planned for" by saying that their pro
gram is built on the potentianties of
WOmanhOOd, rather than on her pres
, ent development. Give her the dis
cipline and the training accorded by
these vocations, they argue, and she
will speedily develop the abilities to
cope with them.
One of the most desirable results
Of this revolution, the feminist says,
! will be the raising of the breeding
! level of the race to a new height.
/ When women are free to select the
| most attractive mates, the law Of sex
ual selection as explained by Darwin,
Will come into full and beneficient
/ operation The mismatChes made for
/ commercial reasons, which now give
| birth to stunted and Informed chill
! dren, will gradually be eliminated,
and only the f1ttest, fnally, will sur
! vive.
This startlingly revolutionary pro-
gram has now been in organized force
in England for seventy-tive years. It's
! life in America has been shorter, but
almost as vigorous. Feminists hold
that they have merely begun and are
good for sex war of $50 years, ii
| necessary.
Although many women who endorse
| woman's suffrage would repudiate
any such philosophy as this Of fem
! inism, and although feminists who go
| the whole way with the whole pro
gram are not numerically In a ma
! jority. the radical ones are the most
active and we may expect TO see the
fur fly with increasing regularity in
| this unprecedented, unconventional
surprising sex war. Those OF us who
do not take sides may expect to see
| lively times We may expect even to
get our heads banged occasionally as
the battles rage about US.