History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 108

The young and lovely mother of five little ones procured a divorce from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations of a period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as proof of his generosity, his friends.h.i.+p, and his good-breeding. His father, on whom the family were dependent for support, urged it upon the wife, as a duty to her children and due to her own self-respect, to procure a divorce, when, at last, the miserable husband had been sent to prison for a forgery, involving a small sum, and which he had thought to meet--before the note came to maturity--undetected.

She submitted, and, before the period of his imprisonment expired, married again, by the advice and persuasion of her kind father-in-law, to a wealthy and excellent man, who offered a father's care and home to her children, in proof of his affection for herself. But the heart never yielded its first love; and, when more than twenty years had pa.s.sed, she confessed to a friend "that, should he reform at the eleventh hour, she must be the most wretched of women." He did reform!

and for many years has exhibited those cheerful graces of the Christian, which, added to his naturally amiable disposition and unselfish deportment, make his three-score and tenth year seem rather the morning than the evening of a life, stretching far away into the glories of eternity.

And now, tell me, friends, if the picture of that youthful affection, strengthened and intensified in the hearts of both by long years of unavailing regret, does not awaken in you a conviction of some better way for protecting helpless women and children from the evils of drunkenness? Oh, say, can you calmly contemplate the hundreds and thousands of hearts which would throb with repressed anguish, when the wretchedness which drove them to divorce shall have vanished with the doomed traffic, and reformed men, by the strong arm of law, reclaim their children from the weeping Rachels of the land?

But think not, friends, that I am unmindful of the misery of years, or months even, when I plead that divorce shall not be made the necessity of hunted and betrayed affections, the fact.i.tious barrier against abuse and starvation. I present to your consideration a remedy equally effective, and far more grateful to the delicate sensibilities and hopeful affection of the woman and the wife--a remedy which possesses the merit of a preventive power, and the collateral security of a reclaiming influence.

The advantage proposed to be secured to the wife of the drunkard, by divorce, is the release from his control of her property and person.

Secure to the innocent and suffering wife the guardians.h.i.+p of her children, and the control of her own earnings--in short, make her a free, instead of a bond-woman--and you secure to the family of the drunkard all the alleviation in the power of legislation, and without compelling the wife, from pecuniary necessity or self-immolating regard for her children, to sever her conjugal relation, and quench the hope of a future of rational companions.h.i.+p.

The pauperism and extreme degradation of the drunkard's family is mainly chargeable to the laws, which wreck the energies, by merging the means of the wife and mother in the will of the irresponsible husband and father.

With these views--gathered from facts and heart-broken confidences open to few--I appeal to you in the name of the most sacred affections--I protest, in behalf of humanity, against compelling the unfortunate of my dependent s.e.x to choose between their present bondage of means and divorce.

To the Christian, who shrinks from divorce, as separating what G.o.d hath joined, I appeal to carry out the principle, preserving everywhere what G.o.d hath joined. Hath He not joined mother and child in body and spirit? Sever them not. Hath He not joined in each human being necessities and ability to supply them? But, alas! by man's carpentry, the ability of woman to supply her wants is pressed into the service of man's carnal and wicked appet.i.tes, to supply him with liquid fire, while herself and babes become miserable paupers in body and in mind!

I leave the subject here, praying that G.o.d may bless your deliberations, and guide you into all truth.

Yours, for the oppressed, ever, C. I. H. NICHOLS.

SYRACUSE CONVENTION, SEPT. 8, 9, 10, 1852.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON'S LETTER.

SENECA FALLS, _Sept. 6_.

MY DEAR FRIENDS:--As I can not be present with you, I wish to suggest three points for your sincere and earnest consideration.

1. Should not all women living in States where woman has the right to hold property refuse to pay taxes, so long as she is unrepresented in the government of that State?

Such a movement, if simultaneous, would no doubt produce a great deal of confusion, litigation, and suffering on the part of woman; but shall we fear to suffer for the maintenance of the same glorious principle for which our forefathers fought, bled, and died? Shall we deny the faith of the old Revolutionary heroes, and purchase for ourselves a false power and ign.o.ble ease, by declaring in action that taxation without representation is just? Ah, no! like the English Dissenters and high-souled Quakers of our own land, let us suffer our property to be seized and sold, but let us never pay another tax until our existence as citizens, our civil and political rights be fully recognized.... The poor, crushed slave, but yesterday toiling on the rice plantation in Georgia, a beast, a chattel, a thing, is to-day, in the Empire State (if he own a bit of land and a shed to cover him), a person, and may enjoy the proud honor of paying into the hand of the complaisant tax-gatherer the sum of seventy-five cents. Even so with the white woman--the satellite of the dinner-pot, the presiding genius of the wash-tub, the seamstress, the teacher, the gay b.u.t.terfly of fas.h.i.+on, the _feme covert_ of the law, man takes no note of her through all these changing scenes. But, lo! to-day, by the fruit of her industry, she becomes the owner of a house and lot, and now her existence is remembered and recognized, and she too may have the privilege of contributing to the support of this mighty Republic, for the "white male citizen claims of her one dollar and seventy-five cents a year, because, under the glorious inst.i.tutions of this free and happy land, she has been able, at the age of fifty years, to possess herself of a property worth the enormous sum of three hundred dollars. It is natural to suppose she will answer this demand on her joyously and promptly, for she must, in view of all her rights and privileges so long enjoyed, consider it a great favor to be permitted to contribute thus largely to the governmental treasury.

One thing is certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation, and we shall need lawyers of our own s.e.x whose intellects, sharpened by their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat. Laws are capable of many and various constructions; we find among men that as they have new wants, that as they develop into more enlarged views of justice, the laws are susceptible of more generous interpretation, or changed altogether; that is, all laws touching their own interests; for while man has abolished hanging for theft, imprisonment for debt, and secured universal suffrage for himself, a married woman, in most of the States in the Union, remains a nonent.i.ty in law--can own nothing; can be whipped and locked up by her lord; can be worked without wages, be robbed of her inheritance, stripped of her children, and left alone and penniless; and all this, they say, according to law. Now, it is quite time that we have these laws revised by our own s.e.x, for man does not yet feel that what is unjust for himself, is also unjust for woman. Yes, we must have our own lawyers, as well as our physicians and priests. Some of our women should go at once into this profession, and see if there is no way by which we may shuffle off our shackles and a.s.sume our civil and political rights. We can not accept man's interpretation of the law.

2. Do not sound philosophy and long experience teach us that man and woman should be educated together? This isolation of the s.e.xes in all departments, in the business and pleasure of life, is an evil greatly to be deplored. We see its bad effects on all sides. Look at our National Councils. Would men, as statesmen, ever have enacted such scenes as the Capitol of our country has witnessed, had the feminine element been fairly represented in their midst? Are all the duties of husband and father to be made subservient to those of statesman and politician? How many of these husbands return to their homes as happy and contented, as pure and loving, as when they left? Not one in ten.... Experience has taught us that man has discovered the most profitable branches of industry, and we demand a place by his side.

Inasmuch, therefore, as we have the same objects in life, namely, the full development of all our powers, and should, to some extent, have the same employments, we need precisely the same education; and we therefore claim that the best colleges of our country be open to us.... This point, the education of boys and girls together, is a question of the day; it was prominent at the late Educational Convention in Newark, and it is fitting that in our Convention it should be fully discussed. My ground is, that the boy and the girl, the man and the woman, should be always together in the business and pleasures of life, sharing alike its joys and sorrows, its distinction and fame; nor will they ever be harmoniously developed until they are educated together, physically, intellectually, and morally.

I hope, therefore, that in the proposed People's College, some place will be provided where women can be educated side by side with man.

There is no better test of the spirituality of a man, than is found in his idea of the true woman. Men having separated themselves from women in the business of life, and thus made their natures coa.r.s.e by contact with their own s.e.x exclusively, now demand separate pleasures too; and in lieu of the cheerful family circle, its books, games, music, and pleasant conversation, they congregate in clubs to discuss politics, gamble, drink, etc., in those costly, splendid establishments, got up for such as can not find sufficient excitement in their own parlors or studios. It seems never to enter the heads of these fas.h.i.+onable husbands, that the hours drag as heavily with their fas.h.i.+onable wives, as they sit alone, night after night, in their solitary elegance, wholly given up to their own cheerless reflections; for what subjects of thought have they? Gossip and fas.h.i.+on will do for talk, but not for thought. Their theology is too gloomy and shadowy to afford them much pleasure in contemplation; their religion is a thing of form and not of life, so it brings them no joy or satisfaction. As to the reforms of the day, they are too genteel to feel much interest in them. There is no cla.s.s more pitiable than the unoccupied woman of fas.h.i.+on thrown wholly upon herself.... Does not the abuse of the religious element in woman demand our earnest attention and investigation?

Priestcraft did not end with the beginning of the reign of Protestantism. Woman has always been the greatest dupe, because the sentiments act blindly, and they alone have been educated in her. Her veneration, not guided by an enlightened intellect, leads her as readily to the wors.h.i.+p of saints, pictures, holy days, and inspired men and books, as of the living G.o.d and the everlasting principles of Justice, Mercy, and Truth.

There is the Education Society, in which women who can barely read and write and speak their own language correctly, form sewing societies, and beg funds to educate a cla.s.s of lazy, inefficient young men for the ministry, who, starting in life on the false principle that it is a blessing to escape physical labor, begin at once to live on their piety. What is the result? Why, after going through college, theological seminaries, and a brief struggle at fitting up skeleton sermons, got up by older heads for the benefit of beginners, and after preaching them for a season to those who hunger and thirst for light and truth, they sink down into utter insignificance, too inefficient to keep a place, and too lazy to earn the salt to their porridge, whilst the women work on to educate more for the same destiny. Look at the long line of benevolent societies, all filled with these male agents, living, like so many leeches, on the religious element in our natures, most of them from the ranks of the clergy, who, unable to build up or keep a church, have taken refuge in some of these theological asylums for the intellectually maimed, halt, and blind of this profession.

Woman really thinks she is doing G.o.d service when she casts her mite into their treasury, when in fact not one-tenth of all the funds raised ever reach the ultimate object. Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies--those most opposed to any change in woman's position; yet no sooner does one of these find himself out of place and pocket, than, if all the places in the various benevolent societies chance to be occupied, he takes a kind of philanthropic survey of the whole habitable globe, and forthwith forms a Female Benevolent Society for the conversion of the Jews, perhaps, or for sending the Gospel to the Feejee Islands, and he is, in himself, the law for one and the gospel for the other. Now, the question is, not whether the Jews are converted, or whether the Gospel ever reaches the islands, but, Does the agent flourish? Is his post profitable? And does woman beg and st.i.tch faithfully for his support and for the promotion of his _glorious mission?_

Now, I ask women with all seriousness, considering that we have little to give, had we not better bestow our own charities with our own hands? And instead of sending our benevolent outgus.h.i.+ngs in steamers to parts unknown, had we not better let them flow in streams whose length and breadth we can survey at pleasure, knowing their source and where they empty themselves? Instead of any further efforts in behalf of a pin-cus.h.i.+on ministry, I conjure my countrywomen to devote themselves from this hour to the education, elevation, and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of their own s.e.x. If the same amount of devotion and self-sacrifice could be given in this direction now poured out on the churches, another generation would give us a n.o.bler type of womanhood than any yet molded by any Bishop, Priest, or Pope.

Woman in her present ignorance is made to rest in the most distorted views of G.o.d and the Bible and the laws of her being; and like the poor slave "Uncle Tom," her religion, instead of making her n.o.ble and free, and impelling her to flee from all gross surroundings, by the false lessons of her spiritual teachers, by the wrong application of great principles of right and justice, has made her bondage but more certain and lasting, her degradation more helpless and complete.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

GLOUCESTER, Ma.s.s., _August 24, 1852_.

_To Mrs. Paulina W. Davis:_

DEAR MADAM:...--I have never questioned what I understand to be the central principle of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe that every mature soul is responsible directly to G.o.d, not only for its faith and opinions, but for the details of its life in the world.

In every crisis of duty there can be consultation, at last, only between one spirit and its Creator. The a.s.sertion that woman is responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any theory of "Woman's Rights," but as a believer in that religion which knows neither male nor female, in its imperative demand upon the individual conscience.

This being true, I know not by what logic the obligation of woman to form her own ideal of life, and pursue the career which her reason and conscience dictate, can be denied. The sphere of activity in which any person will s.h.i.+ne, is always an open question until answered by experience. I may admire the wisdom of the mind which has discovered that half the people in the world are incompetent to act beyond one circle of duty; but until the fact has been established by the universal failure of your s.e.x, everywhere outside that fatal line, I must admire rather than believe. Every real position in society is achieved by conquest. I must convince my people that I am a true minister of the Gospel, before I can claim their respect and support.

And when a woman, in the possession of the powers and opportunities given her by G.o.d, tells me she must trade, or instruct the young, or heal the sick, or paint, or sing, or act upon the stage, or call sinners to repentance, I _can_ say but one thing--just what I must say to the man who affirms the same--"My friend, show your _ability_ to serve society in this way, and all creation can not deprive you of the right. If you _can do_ this to which you aspire--can do it well, then you and everybody will be the gainers. And whoever says you have forfeited any essential grace or virtue of womanhood by your act, betrays, by the accusation, an utter incompetency to judge upon questions of human responsibility and obligation."

.... I therefore believe the method of this reform is that declared by G.o.d when He said to Adam: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." There is no "royal road" to womanhood, as there is certainly none to manhood. _You_ must achieve what you desire.... Woman must do much before man can help her. I suppose the s.e.xes are about equally culpable; and I make no peculiar charge, when I say that until I can see more individual consecration, more clearness of perception and firmness of conduct in regions outside of the walls of the household among the ma.s.s of women, than now, I shall not cherish extravagant hopes of the great immediate success of your n.o.ble object.

.... Your movement is a part of the great onward march of society, and must be exposed to the reverses from outward hostility and inward faithlessness, that have always hindered the progress of the race....

This reform will be a sword of division, and you will not be surprised when those who have entered it from any motive less exalted than consecration to duty, fall away in weariness and disgust. Yet all the more honorable will it be to those who are content to remain, and abide the fatal conditions of sincere human effort. You are not very near your journey's end; but you are doing much for your s.e.x, in a mode which will "tell" inevitably upon society. I often encounter a new spirit of self-respect and honorable independence; a new hope, and works corresponding to it, among young women, which I can trace back to these Conventions. I believe cultivated men in all professions are becoming ashamed to treat your arguments with open ridicule or quiet contempt, and occupy a position, at least, of fair-minded neutrality, to a greater degree than ever before, while the popular sympathies are every year more enlisted in your success.--With great respect, I remain your friend and fellow-laborer in the cause of truth,

A. D. MAYO.

Samuel J. May read the following extract from a letter from Wm. Lloyd Garrison, of Boston:

"Much, very much, do I regret that I can not be at the Woman's Rights Convention which is to a.s.semble to-morrow in Syracuse; but circ.u.mstances prevent. I shall be there in spirit, from its organization to its dissolution. It has as n.o.ble an object in view, aye, and as Christian a one, too, as was ever advocated beneath the sun. Heaven bless all its proceedings.

"Yours for all Human Rights, WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

"Rev. S. J. MAY."

COMMENTS OF THE PRESS AFTER THE SYRACUSE CONVENTION.

_The Syracuse Standard, Sept. 10th_ (a liberal Democratic paper).

Great interest was manifested in the proceedings yesterday, and the hall was densely crowded during the day and evening. Much difficulty was found in getting out of the Convention after the adjournment. Each lady covered at least three steps of the stairway with her dress, and little groups of ladies gathered in the pa.s.sage-ways and went through the ceremony of shaking hands and kissing each other, as though they had been separated for years and never expected to meet again. This operates as a serious obstacle, and we noticed some ladies exhibiting a petulant spirit in being jostled by the crowd which they themselves had occasioned, as their dresses were torn and soiled by the feet of those who were using their utmost efforts to keep the crowd from pus.h.i.+ng them all down-stairs together. This is a great annoyance to those who are not fond of going through the world at the slow and steady pace of a fas.h.i.+onable lady, and we suggest the practice of making the outside of the hall a place for retailing gossip. Those who sweep the dirty stairway with their dresses should don the Bloomer costume without delay.

_The Star_, belonging to that portion of the press called "the Satanic," held to its original character while speaking of the Convention. It was through this paper that Reverends Sunderland and Ashley made public their sermons against Woman's Rights.

_The Star, September 10th._

The women at the Tomfoolery Convention now being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and G.o.d's teachings in their speeches, as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their Woman's Rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men, are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind, and Christian(?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, C. C. Burleigh, and S. S.

Foster. These men are all Woman's Righters, and preachers of such d.a.m.nable doctrines and accursed heresies, as would make demons of the pit shudder to hear.

We have selected a few appropriate pa.s.sages from G.o.d's Bible for the consideration of the infuriated gang (Bloomers and all) at the Convention: Gen. iii. 16; t.i.t. ii. 4, 5; Prov. ix. 13, xxi. 9,19; 1 Cor. xi. 8, 9; 1 Tim. ii. 8-14; 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35; Eph. v. 23-24.

_Daily Star, Sept. 11th._