THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT
I DO not know who writes the editorials on the "Woman Question" in its various aspects, in our more prominent New York papers. I read them from day to day, with real disappointment at their immaturity, their flippancy, their total lack of manliness, and respect for, or appreciation of, true womanhood. I say this in no spirit of bitterness, but of real sorrow, that men stepping into the responsible position they hold on those papers, have not better considered the subjects of which they treat. That the writers are not known outside the office, seems to me a very unmanly reason for their misrepresentations. Every morning I ask, over my coffee, Have these men mothers, sisters, wives, who so persistently misrepresent the doings of self-respecting, self-supporting, intelligent women? Does Congress make no mistakes, that women should be expected, in their pioneering, to have arrived at absolute perfection? Is there no heat, in debate, on its floor; no uncourteousness of language? Did not one member, a short time since, call out there to have another member "spanked"? Does the speaker's mallet never call to order, men selected by their constituents, because supposed most intelligently to represent the various local and other interests of the country? Does the cut of a man's hair or coat injuriously or approbatively affect his speech upon the floors? Does anybody care what color it is, or how worn? I ask myself these questions when I read reports of "strong-minded women's meetings," as they are sneeringly termed, which consist mainly on the absence of a "long train" to their dresses, or the presence of it; on the straightness of their hair, or the frizzing of it; on the lack of ornamentation, or the redundance of it. This mocking, Mephistopheles-dodging of the real questions at issue, behind flimsy screens, seems to me not only most unworthy of these writers, but most unworthy of, and prejudicial to, the prominent journals in which they appear.
If they think that women make such grave mistakes, – mistakes prejudicial to the great interests they seek publicly to promote, the great wrongs they seek to right, – would it not be kinder and more manly, courteously to point them out, if so be that they themselves know "a more excellent way"? Among all these women, are there none who are intelligent, intellectual, earnest, and modest withal? Have the editors of these very papers in which these attacks appear, never gladly employed just such, to lend grace, wit, and spirit to their own columns, that they have only sneers and taunts for the cause they espouse, and never a brave, kind, sympathetic recognition of their philanthropic efforts? Is the cause so utterly Quixotic, espoused by such women, who make their own homes bright with good cheer, neatness, taste, and wholesome food, that they cannot gallantly extend a manly hand after it and help them over those bright thresholds, and out into a world full of pain and misery, to lift the burden from their less favored sisters?
If they have the misfortune not to know such women among "the strong-minded," would it not be well to seek them out, and better inform themselves on the subjects upon which they daily write?
The pioneer women who have bravely gone forward, and still keep "marching on," undaunted in the face of this unmanly and ungenerous dealing, have, doubtless, counted the cost, and will not be hindered by it. I do not fear that; but I do regret that any editor of a prominent paper in New York should belittle it and himself, by allowing any of his employés to keep up this boyish pop-gun firing into the air.
The other night, I attended a lecture, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to a charitable institution for women.
Now here was a man willing to do this for the particular women's charity to be benefited by it, but he couldn't do it without stepping out of his way to sneer at female suffrage and kindred movements which are advocated and engineered by pure, intelligent, cultivated, earnest women, or fixing his seal of approbation on this particular branch of philanthropy, as the only remedy for all the ills that come of an empty purse and a grieved heart.
And just here is the fly in all these philanthropic ointments. Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will turn out poisons. That is the spirit. Now I don't believe that one society, or one man or woman, is the pivot on which this universe turns; and wishing well, as I do every progressive, humanitarian movement, I deplore that its leaders will not keep this fact in mind. I don't say that I wish women would keep it in mind, for I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I see men every day ignoring this broad foundation of civilization. I see them making mouths at each other over a political bone or religious fence; or I hear naughty names called, because one man grabbed a bit of news for his paper, and scampered off with it to the dear public, before his editorial neighbor got scent of it. Oh, women don't do all the gossip and slander and back-biting in the world. They don't make all the silly or stupid speeches either. Nor do they "rush into print," any oftener than certain unquiet male spirits, "thirsting for notoriety," as the phrase goes, who think they know when a colt is a horse, and vice versa, better than any other man, because they studied Greek at Oxford. Humbug is not always a female, but when humbug is a female, she generally hails from the top round of the ladder! I am happy to say that, though I may be putting a stone into the hands of mine adversary by the admission!
Human nature might be improved, even in the year 1869. How glad the pop-gun clergyman of a small parish is, when some clerical big-gun is supposed to make a false move on the sacerdotal chequer-board! How he rushes publicly to "deplore" that his "dear brother in Christ should lay himself open to the world's censure in this manner"! His "dear brother's" popularity and big salary were not the animus of that criticism – oh, no! Now I'm not one of those who believe that "a minister" is certainly a saint, above his fellows; or that Christianity is benefited by refusing to admit the shortcomings of church-members. I once heard Rev. Dr. Hall preach a sermon on this subject, every word of which was pure gold and ought to be printed in pamphlet form and placed in the pews of all our churches.
"Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will be poisons"! How sick I am of it! There is so much elbow room in the world, why fight only for one corner? But men, set us "weak women" such a terrible example, fighting and squabbling about straws, and whining when they are defeated. Now, if instead of wasting their time this way, or idling it away as fashionable loungers, – I speak after the manner of the New York – to women, – if instead of belonging to useless up-town clubs, where with the heads of their canes in their mouths, they sit in the day-time, measuring passing female ankles, or drinking and talking male scandal, or betting; – if instead they would – each butter-fly son of them – take some good, interesting book, and finding some tenement house, sit down of an evening and amuse some laboring man, who would else flee from the discomforts of such a place to the nearest grog-shop, how noble would this male butterfly of Fifth Avenue then appear! In fact, this particular form of benevolence commends itself to me as the only one that could rescue him from the butterfly existence of up-town clubs.
A thought strikes me! As the "New York – " remarks, when advising women to teach sewing to poor girls, "but perhaps these female butterflies of Fifth Avenue don't know themselves how to sew." Alas! should these male butterflies of the Fifth Avenue club-houses not know how to read, when they get to the tenement house of their poor brother!
Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York – is always throwing a blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel shirts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is not coarse for you to scramble at a matinee for seats, and elbow and jostle, and push men's hats awry – oh, no! that's legitimate – but to subject yourself to this kind of thing at the ballot-box, would be to forfeit man's love, and soil both your skirts and reputation.
WOMAN'S MILLENNIUM
HURRAH for Massachusetts! Read this:
"Chief Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, made short work with a divorce case which came before him at Springfield a day or two ago. It was an application of a wife for a divorce from her husband, on the ground of extreme cruelty. It coming up in testimony that the woman had been beaten and otherwise ill-used by her husband, the Judge at once decided the case in her favor, taking occasion to remark that in case of any violence by a husband to the wife, he should not hear all the points before deciding in favor of the latter. The woman might forgive cruelty toward herself, but the court would not."
Now that's what I call a righteous decision. Let all the wives with bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised hearts are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened State. Here's a man who is just to a woman. Think of the rarity of the thing! Compliments, and flattery, and gifts we can all have, till we get to be old women, and some of us afterwards; but justice, Messieurs! ah! that's quite another thing. Female eyes have grown dim looking for that, all through the ages. Men start up from their tobacco-torpor nowadays and ask, angrily, what means this present restlessness of American women? This wide and deep-spread discontent, which heaves to and fro, developing itself in a thousand different forms? My grandmother was contented enough. My aunt never looked beyond her own family. Are you quite sure of the first, and does the latter deserve praise or blame for the pin-measure view of the world to which she, the God-appointed instructor and guide of future men and women, chooses to limit herself? Has she a right to launch them on the turbulent ocean of life, with only one poor miserable broken oar to paddle their way? Such women are not praiseworthy; no more than they who, busying themselves in public affairs, leave their children to "come up" as chance or accident dictates. Are you quite sure, too, that because only lately this "wail of discontent" has reached your ear, that it has not been stifled under thousands of tombstones? Ah, well I remember when too young to know what life meant for a woman, hearing one who I have since learned had suffered and forgiven much, murmur to herself as she wearily laid her head upon her pillow, "God be thanked for sleep and forgetfulness!" and yet not one who saw her smiling face, or heard her cheerful voice, or was charmed with her intelligent conversation, ever dreamed that she was not "a contented wife," as the phrase runs.
And just in this connection I would quote a remark which, for its truth, should be inscribed on the pipe (for there he would oftenest meet it) of every man in the land.
"Only so far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life, and family life in general. Unless he has 'cleared himself up,' as the Germans say, he can at best but enter into ambiguous relations to another. When a man is discordant in himself, he makes all that he comes in contact with discordant."
Now, candidly I ask you, oughtn't that remark to be in the Holy Scriptures? Perhaps you ask if the same is not true of women? I am not such an idiot as to deny that, either; but what I marvel at is this – that it should be such a perfectly natural and eminently righteous thing for a man to halloo to high heaven that his mate is not to his mind, after he has compassed heaven and earth to get her, and such a crime for a woman to be "discontented and restless under similar circumstances".
Nevertheless, I think woman's millennium is to come out of all this unquiet and chaos. Here's a remark made at a royal-literary-fund-dinner in England, – as true as I live, in England, and in London at that, – and by Charles Kingsley at that, – in response to a toast:
"As for imaginative literature," he said, "if the world continued to go on as it was proceeding, ladies must be called upon to fulfil this duty. Where would they find among men such poets as Mrs. Rossetti, Mrs. Jean Ingelow, or Miss A. Procter? Or who could write such works of prose fiction as the authors of 'John Halifax' or 'Romola'? In former times men only dealt with literature, but the more delicate the weapon became, the more delicate were the hands which wielded it. If he could give any advice to young men how they might escape the trials and troubles that might beset their path in the literary profession – how escape Whitecross Street prison and the workhouse – it would be by marrying a literary lady, and setting himself down to the humble and chivalrous duty of reviewing his wife's books."
The picture of that sublime bit of majesty, a British husband, performing such a feat, is so impossible to contemplate, that I must stop, that my readers and myself may take breath.
I am inclined to believe that there are a great many kinds of women, both in England and America. This idea seems to be lost sight of, by the writers of both nations, who have lately undertaken to describe the feminine element, under such titles as "the Girl of the Period," or "The Woman of the Time;" presenting to our view monstrosities, which no doubt exist, but which are no more to be taken specimens of the whole, than is the Bearded Woman, or the Mammoth Fat Girl.
New York, for instance, is not wholly given over to the feminine devil. Angels walk our streets, discernible to eyes that wish to see. Noble, thoughtful, earnest women; sick of shams and pretence; striving each so far as in her lies, to abate both, and to diminish the amount of physical and moral suffering. Then, I never go into the country for a few weeks' summer holiday, that I do not find large-hearted, large-brained women, stowed away among the green hills, in little cottages, which are glorified inside and outside by their presence; women who, amid the press of house and garden work, find time for mental culture; whose little book-shelves hold well-read copies of our best authors. Women – sound physically, mentally, morally; women, whom the Man of the Period, who most surely exists, has never found. Now and then, some man, fit to be her mate, in his rambles in the sweet summer time, is struck as I am by these gems hidden amid the green hills, and appropriates them for his own. But for the most part, the more sensible a man is, the bigger the fool he marries. This is especially true of biographers! What a wrong, then, to the great army of sensible, earnest women in either country to pick out a butterfly as the national type. Because a few men in New York and London and Paris wear corsets, and dye their whiskers and hair, and pad out their hollow cheeks and shrunken calves, it does not follow that Victor Hugo, and John Bright, and the great army of brave men who won our late victory, are all popinjays. For every female fool I will find you a male mate. So when the inventory of the former is taken, the roll-call of the latter might as well be voiced. Are women so "fond of gossip"? Pray, what is the staple of after-dinner conversation when the wine comes on and the women go off? Do women "lavish money on personal adornment"? How many men are there who would be willing to tell on what, and on whom, their money was worse than lavished? Do women "leave their nursery altogether to hirelings"? How many corresponding men are there, whose own children under their own roofs, are almost entire strangers to their club-frequenting fathers? And yet what good, noble men are to be seen for the looking? Faithful to their trusts, faithful to themselves, unmoved by the waves of folly and sin that dash around them, as is the rock of Gibraltar.
I claim that justice be done by these writers on both sides of the water, to both sexes. Fools, like the poor, we shall have always with us; but, thank God, the "just" man and the "just" woman "still live" to redeem the race. Men worthy to be fathers, and large-brained women, who do not even in this degenerate day, disdain to look well after their own households.
It is but seldom that a child needs the rod, especially if taken from the time it is able to understand language, and firmly yet kindly treated, and given to know that No and Yes mean No and Yes, without any shadow of turning. It is a question, too, whether those who have unfortunately come up, instead of being judiciously brought up, are ever made better by harshness, under the name of discipline.
ENGLISH NOTIONS ABOUT WOMEN
OUR neighbors over the water, judging from an article in one of their leading papers, seem to be greatly exercised at present on "The Woman Question." The old model Englishwoman who sneezed exactly at the same hour her great grandmother did, and sat down, and rose up, and went out, and came in whenever her husband bade her, – and made no objection, at the same time, to any irregularity either in his hours or habits, – it seems, has disappeared. Instead, we have that horror, – the English female-physician; the English female would-be voter; in short, the English female who asserts her right to individuality, in action and opinion, equally with her husband.
John Bull sets down his mug of beer, and says that the thing is monstrous. He says that he no longer can lounge off by himself, as in bachelor days, although he is a married – and, therefore, a more important – member of society. He says that he is not allowed, as formerly, to spend every evening with his bachelor cronies, – Tom, Dick, and Harry. He says that his wife positively expects him to act as if he were married. He says that, when he tells her decidedly that he wont do this, that she pays no more attention to this refusal than as if he hadn't made it; but quietly returns to the same point of disputation the next day, and every day, and every month, and all through the year, with a terrible and feline pertinacity. He says that it is like the slow dropping of water on some sensitive part of the frame; he says he don't like it, and don't know what to do about it. He says, besides, that marriage is not at all favorable to largeness of mind, or breadth of view, which is very obvious, in his own case, in the remarks above quoted! He says that all she says and does "has the stamp of Lilliput;" and that should she even have the right of suffrage, she would barter away her vote for a new gown. He says justice is a quality unknown to woman; which is very true, and I want him to understand that is just what she is contending for. He says, to make a long matter short, that when he married he expected to live just exactly the same life that he did before, and that he finds he can't; and, moreover, he says, with a sweeping wave of his John Bull hand, that no husband was ever made more large-hearted, or tolerant, or in any way benefited by marriage.
Now if a man will marry, with such absurd ideas of what marriage ought to be, and if he will marry a fool, I advise him not to go whining round the world about it: he deserves the consequences. But let him not insist that all women are fools, because he got on his knees to obtain one. I will always maintain that there are twenty bad husbands to one bad wife; and that, that one would seldom continue bad if her husband were just and kind to her. As to marriage "narrowing a man's mind," that which never had any breadth cannot be narrowed. And history abundantly shows how wise in counsel, how judicious in influence, how helpful in sympathy and co-operation have been many such wives.
Now it is often said that a wife, to a literary man, is only a hindrance. Provided she is not a fool, it would pay him, in my opinion, to give her a regular salary, if he could not obtain it otherwise, to give him the feminine side of every great question of the day, as it comes up – which by the way, she does unconsciously, and which has anything but a "narrowing" effect either on his mind or his writings, whether he acknowledges it or not.
It is no small thing to be able to toss her a book and say, "I want to know what is in that book, but I haven't time to read it; run it over, will you, and tell me what you think of it?" – or to get from her the condensation of newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, in the same way; or translations; or to have her assistance in answering letters, without prompting, when pressed for time; to ask her where such and such a passage may be found in certain authors, which have escaped his memory. Is contact with such a woman narrowing?
It is horrible for a man of sense to be yoked to a fool, and vice versa. No one denies it. But the whole kernel of the woman matter is just this: Men no longer are what they were. There are no young men now. Before they have ceased to be young men, the majority of them, by a total disregard of Nature's laws, have unfitted themselves for contact with, and companionship and appreciation of, pure, good women. It is as if a baby should be fed from birth with highly-spiced condiments; and then, at maturity, be expected to have a relish for pure, wholesome food. The fault is not in women, but in the men, who bring to the healthful, simple, sweet pleasures of matrimony, diseased minds and dilapidated bodies.
It is perfectly amazing the quantity of insulting advice volunteered in this day to women. Now here is an extract, I am happy to say, in this instance, from an English journal; the land, par excellence, of wife-beating, and kindred abominations in "high" and "low" life, in which the wife is advised if she would "wind her husband around her finger," – though why that amusement is particularly desirable I fail to see, – if she would do this, "she must carefully study the cookery-book; so that his meals need not be monotonous." How many of his children she must attend to, during this interesting perusal, and while perfecting the results of such study, our writer does not state; nor does he throw any light upon the question – whether, when this delicate animal is gorged like the anaconda, he will, as does the anaconda, go immediately into a state of stupor, and be comparatively harmless until other re-enforcements are needed.
Also he tells the wife that "opposition and contradiction always make him furious; then he stamps and roars and becomes dangerous: she must by all means avoid that." It is so strange, this Solomon says, "that when a wife knows that a certain line of conduct is sure to produce this effect, she will do it, though victory is easy provided" – well, in short, provided she allows him to stamp and roar and become dangerous, like his son Tommy, when he can't have another stick of candy, and whom he himself would severely punish, for imitating his gentlemanly papa.
Are there no lines of conduct a husband persistently pursues towards his wife, though he "knows they are sure to wound and give offence?" And would he think "stamping and roaring and being dangerous" any excuse for a dislike of it? Is the man who sends his dear little child for that which will intoxicate him, or takes that child to bar-rooms and drinking-places to obtain it, never to be remonstrated with by the mother, lest he should be "angry"? Is the man who allows his relatives constantly to interfere with and slander his wife, who never write him letters without containing sly insinuations, intended – howsoever they may fail – to disturb conjugal and family harmony; who institute a court of inquiry into family expenses, probable journeys, &c., location of residence, and insist upon all these things being settled according to their means and standard, is this husband never to be told that such interference is insufferable, "because he will be angry"?
Is there a husband living who would permit a wife's father or brother to insist on managing his business affairs in such a clandestine, down-cellar, surreptitious manner through the wife? If he preferred going to spend the summer at one place rather than another, how would he like that matter settled by a conclave of his wife's relatives, and determined by their probable locality? I do not say that the latter, too, has not happened. In either case, it is a monstrous impertinence, and to be resented. I might multiply other instances of abuse to women, but these will suffice.
Let men, above all, ask themselves with regard to women – to wives – this question – and answer it in a manly, honest manner, whether it is condemnatory of their own "line of conduct" or the contrary: Should I be willing to endure what I expect my wife to bear, were I a woman and a wife? If not – is it just, or right, or manly, then, for me to expect it of her?
It is needless to say that this is the last question asked; and this is the root of all the evil. This making by men a broad easy road of license for themselves, while women are clogged, fettered, penned in, worried, harassed and unjustly treated, till even they – "become dangerous." And though the author above quoted seems to entertain no such possibility, our lunatic asylums and tomb-stones, if they stated the actual causes of insanity and death, might convince the most skeptical.
There is a kind of sentimental preaching to which an audience is sometimes treated, which is very repulsive to the hearty, sincere worshipper. Preaching which is full of poetical quotations; preaching where some of the words are clipped of their syllables, and others chewed, so to speak, indefinitely. Egotistical, drawling preaching, under which people go to sleep, or smile derisively, according to their humor; but from which none come away with the good seed which will spring up and bear fruit a hundred-fold. Essay preaching – walking gingerly round duty, and flattering self-love; milk-and-water preaching – colorless, flavorless, and thin.