San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-08-12

and ask yourselves what use eighteen
dollars every Saturday are to the
woman whose life is MANNED like
that?
Now and then a woman rises above
the ranks, of course. But she is just
as unusual in the business world as
in the domestic. She would rise any
where.
There is a deep comfort in these
reflections for all women, working in
either home or office. For the more
you study the situation, the more
obvious appears the truth: that for
thousands of years I'll the conditions
that govern women's lives have been
made by men.
Men have had all the money, all
the power, all the authority, they have
quite naturally and innocently usurp-
ed prerogatives, anG established laws
from their own point of view.
1t is only a few generations ago
that women were rated among a
mans possessions with cattle and
lands, that children belonged to their
father, that infidelity in a wife was
punishable with death, that the least
faithful Of husbands might exact the
penalty, that whipping his wife was
one of a husbands duties, and that
all women's properties were held by
the nearest male.
As for other infamous customs and
regulations, there are persons living
who can remember the days of the
double moral code, when men must
SOW their wild oats" when colleges
debarred women, when the working
woman was unpleasantly conspicuous,
and the woman who mentioned poll
tics was 'strong minded" this last
being a term of bitter opprobium.
One of the greatest nations in the
world still gives all the fathers prop
erty to the first-born male, passing
over the five or six girls who precede
him, and making them his depend
ents, and there is more than one Euro
pean nation where no woman's name
be she American born and a Rookie
Teller, is good on a check.
Greater Changes Ahead.
We have lived to see great change!
in women's estate. And there will b,
greater ones-not when our generous
good-hearted, Loyalty admiring broth
ers and husbands decree that we shall
have them, for they never have re
fused us anything yet, and never will
But when we want them. Whei
we women, ourselves, come to even ;
partial realization OF what our service
is to the nation, of the worth o
homes, and gardens, and back yard
| full &c aN,,n,hI,yo 1.@NIn .-al1 ho,
healthy, beloved children.
Chronologically placed, here are tn
successive steps we have taken, an
must take. toward the day when tn
home shall be more important thai
the most important office, and tn
= block that has the most children on
the Wall Street in every town.
First: when harem life ceased 70
+ women, and they began to be individ
uals, and to adorn and make happ
their homes. In those days men di
: all the marketing and employing c
servants, and were supreme in thei
: authority over wife as we'll as chi
: dren.
. Second: when women realized ths
we'll and efficiently as they wei
, doing their work, graduating to r
sponsibilities and dignities, not mel
child bearers and head servants ov'
servants any more they were final
cially rated with children and whs
they began to penetrate into Il
z world downtown, where women we
8 paid a few precious dollars for u
s natural hours at desks and typewri
~ ers.
z Back to WOman's Field.
s. And third-and this one for Z
s. coming generation: the migration ba
q to our own field, the full realizati'
s. that it is far more important Thu
S. any men fill or ever can fill, the vi
s. fication and communizing of all t
& vital functions of feeding, nursir
81 educating. bearing and 81 elding {
& tiny helpless seedlings of the race.
IS The women who discover this. a
q who begin to use their weapons
81 logic. of political influence. of int
81 ligence, to hasten il, are the phone,
s. of the days TO come. In another IN
q dred years we will have the Off
81 weary women envying them.
AL 1t means prayer, study, self-saS