The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-02-18
Q q 8 9 Q Q q o q O q O Q Q
WIVES. .
. Q eeeee Q 9 e0 Q Q 9 Q Q .
The State.

seeeeeoeeseee . Q 90 .
The State.
The following article, of brilliant
literary quality and tseming with
scholarly allusion, it is scarcely
necessary for The State to say, is
from the pen OF Major J. F. J. Clla-
well of Newberry.
Being ''the devoted advocate Of wo-
man., as my learned and discrimiuat
ing friend, Judge ". c. Benet, has
styled me, I think it about time Cor
me to speak of this very interesting
and important class of persons.
Poets do not usuallp undertake to
give us history, or accurate accounts
of mems manner of living; but good
deal may be inferred from thei: writ
ings regarding the status of women.
Gray, in his Elegy, says, of dead heads
Of families:
No more for them the blazing hearth
shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening
care;
No children run to lisp their sire's
return,
Or climb his knees the envisd kiss to
share.
And Lucretius, from whom Gray
may have derived his thought, tells
us that the dead man is no longer re-
ceived by his family AMI his excel
lent wife, nor do his children scram
Bile to kiss and embrace, him. And
Virgil, speaking of the pleasures OF
winter, mentions the family presery-
ing chastity, and the sweet children
hanging thoNt the fathers bosoza.
None of them indicates a salutation,
much less kiss or embrace, to or
from the wife. The very ancient Ro-
man men, ne are told, commonly kiss
ed the women OF their. families, after
absence from them, but it is added
that this vas done to discover wheth-
er the women had been drinking wine
that beverage being then by Law
forbidden to men unde: 80 years OF
age. and to all women.
Among the Asiatic nations wives
were slaves to their husbands. in an
cient days, and are about the same
now; the existence of polygamy Of it
self demonstrating their condition.
Ancient Greek ;. intellectually and
taste placed them in better position
as We see in the literature OF that
people-axcept. at Sparta, where they
raced, wrestled and threw quoits; ETC.,
half,nakcd, in public, and, naturally,
were immoral. Leonidas, the. Spartan
king, and hero of Thermepylae, at his
last parting from his wife, gave her
no Injunction except to marry after
his death and raise soldier sons-as II
breeding children was her calling. Of
the wife in ancient Rome we find little
except that she was kept in & very
subordinate position. About the be-
ginning Of the Christian era wives
were allowed much more liberty, trs a
pretty general result was not only
license, but also q good deal Of licen-
tiousness. Juvenars sixth satire s
not as exaggerated as it is commonly
supposed to be. What state Of I'M
morality must have existed when the
Emperor Justinian. otherwise a ccr-
rect, useful ruler, in the sixth century,
married a notoricEs prostitute. Yet, i
must admit that, more than thcrsand
years later, Peter. commonly Gale!
the Great, Of Russia, took another
e. man MlSIESSS, ailcINdfuS iN&'iiS
her. and left her Empress CatteTia.;
the First.
Wives, and women generally, we're
more fairly regarded in Germany
than elsewhere, in ancient times.
There men had only one wife. There
the wife's right of dover originated
And there their Importance was rec
osnized. There also, in about the
eighth century, the socalled age OF
chivalry had its origin-the age when
woman became the object Of roEaap-
tic love and effort, and the chaste
wife received honor and trust. Mills.
in his History of Chivalry, says: Pix
ed by the gallant warriors of chivalry'
in nobler station than that which
bad been assigned to her by the petite
nations of antiquity, all the graceful