Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Speech: "Woman," c1856? [?] [1856?] Speech of the 1850 Ties Woman I came to many of you with a much unwelcome theme; At the bare mention of woman’s rights what frightful visions are at once called forth. How all the sweet proprieties, the graces, the elegancies, the poetry of life vanish before the utterance of these two small Saxon words,. As if by a magic wand, the regenerated daughters of Eve now stalk before you, with mighty strides. What hands & feet what bone & muscle & must a being like this a hard featured Amazon henceforth be the presiding genius of our feasts, our fashions & our fancies? Alas, there for all the charms of womanhood the crown of righteousness filled from her brow, the cloak of virtue is trampled in the dust, - instead of loving words of compassion & peace, from curst lips stern commands & harsh logic greet the ear! What now for chivalry & sentiment & plighted love & vows of obedience. Who [now] shall soften & purify the stern hard passions of man? Where [now] in his leisure hours shall he unbend & be at ease? It is with the most 2 fearful forbidding that most people [now] contemplate the claim now made by the advocates of woman's rights Men & brethren come let us reason together I bring you words of comfort & consolation. I propose to show you this evening wherein man would be the gainer by the reform we advocate. It is from no captious love of change or power no shortsighted, discontent of my lot in life, no personal hardships or sufferings that I demand for woman her right [of] to suffrage, her right to property, her right to the use & product of all her God given powers: but because I see that man never can become a God until his mother becomes a divinity. It has been my good fortune thus far in life to have been associated in all my intimate relations with high minded noble & generous men Therefore I come to you not soured or dissatisfied, but calmly & hopefully to plead for the good of the race. There is not I presume a thinking mind in this house, that does not often find itself philosophizing on the jargon discord & confusion in life 3 We can make accurate calculations on the sun, the moon, the seasons the tides, the day the night, as our crops, animals, vegetables, fruits & flowers, but when we come to our homes, our wives, our children, it is all chance, Struggle, disappointment & death. The Gardener makes neither the ground the roots the seeds the shovel or the hoe, yet he uses each according to the laws of science & the result is graceful trees, (having fruits) (rich vegetables) & beautiful flowers The laws of vegetable life are now so well understood that you seldom see a man who is not successful in raising just what he chooses. When one does not succeed he never thinks of sitting supinely down & anathematizing the whole vegetable [creation] kingdom, but he examines, thinks, & queries with his neighbour, until he finds out the cause of his failure. So too science has been applied to animal life, & we behold on all sides the greatest improvement in our fowls sheep pigs cows horses & dogs. A man now raises a cabbage 4 & a calf according to a fixed law, & he feels as he labours an assurance in the results & there is no guess work chance or speculation & he realizes just what he expected. How comes it then that in the improvement & cultivation of ourselves & children we all agree that thus far we have failed. Parents & teachers are alike mortified & disappointed at the result. The difficulty is we have never believed ourselves the creatures of law we have never reflected that the improvement of man himself is the ultimate object of all the revelations in art & science. Man has wandered so far from nature that he knows not what his true nature is He may with profit lay aside his boasted reason, & come & learn purity & wisdom from the institutes of the brute Creation If we would but reduce the science of human life to the same degree of exactness that we have already applied to the vegetable & animal creation we should in a few generations have an abundant harvest of giants & scholars. When science & philosophy, & common sense shall be brought to bear on all the reforms of the day, there will 5 be but one starting point for all --- the regeneration of woman?? But if science is to be applied to life woman must be taught to think to reason --- your mothers must be philosophers & scholars. If they were so when you first opened your eyes on this mundane sphere you would have been filled with joyful surprize -- you would have had a babyhood of rest & comfort & happiness Your wise mother would have taken care of you according to the laws of your being. She would have guarded your tender frame, your soft pliable bones from the slightest pressure. She would have fed you regularly once in two or three hours, & given you a constant supply of pure fresh air from Heaven to breathe She would not as now rack that little infant frame with pain, by tight bandages, foul air & constant feeding, & then befog its brain with [anthems?] to keep it still. You have all forgotten your infant sufferings but you bear the marks still both in body & soul. Do you think you could run the gauntlet, of sprue, jaundice, [rot] gum 6 mumps chicken pox whooping cough measles scarlet fever & fits & come out unscathed? All this you have suffered because your mothers were ignorant. Men think that all women have a kind of natural talent & skill for taking care of children & although about one fourth of all children born die in infancy & the remainder are sick the greater part of their lives, yet man's faith stands firm Now the fact is that but few women understand, the duties & responsibilities of a mother. I have seen a great many mothers & been in a great many nurseries & inquired into their habits & management & I can truly say that I have never seen one half dozen women who know how to take proper care of a child. I have seen many a child six & eight months old that had never tasted one drop of cold water. The mother who would have gone on the wings of the wind if possible, to have given poor [Dices?] a drink of cold water, but never thought of the moment one in her arms. I have seen a child sleep hours with its head all covered up with hardly room to breathe, I could not 7 see where the 10 cubic feet of air necessary to each [minute] was to [stent] in -- of course the child breathed the same air over a dozen times or more. An unnecessary peril of evening when we reflect that the air is between forty and fifty miles deep all round the globe. And to show how little women think or care on this subject, although we have many literary women writing in the sciences, the arts, government, education, morality & religion &c yet it has been left for a man, the distinguished George Combe of Scotland to write a work on Infancy How many mothers in this house have read that admirable work which should be a text book in every nursery. When you buy a choice plant, you are careful to inquire of the horticulturist of everything that is necessary to maintain its life, whether you shall place it in a wet (soil (or dry) whether you shall water it much or little, or place it in the sunshine or the shade, but you make no inquiries into the management of your child, but present it ever to the 8 tender mercies of some old nurse, who has neither reason nor common sense & she treats it according to the tradition of her ancestors Your child moans & cries night & day. You anxiously ask the cause & are told that all children do just so -- that is enough. The crying is very distressing, so the Father betakes him to a remote apartment, where he may sleep undisturbed, the mother gets sick & nervous & cries too. & so the nurse gives the child a spoonful of something & the farce ends for that night but to be repeated 365 nights in the year unless the child dies which is the best thing it could do, seeing that the sufferings of children have hitherto failed to arouse the least thought in their parents. I know parents how distressed & discouraged you feel when you have child after child, & when at the end of the days of fatigue you are disturbed all night by sick & restless children. But when your women are taught to reason & think, when they feel themselves responsible beings when they are philosophers & not fools then your families will have mothers indeed, then there'll be and end to much of the sickness & misery 9 we now endure --then we shall have lives of joy & comfort, & our last sleep will come upon us peacefully & as naturally as the old clock in the corner shall strike its last hour. But not only is woman ignorant of the care of children but she is ignorant too of the art of cooking & of the whole system of dietetics. When we come to learn how effectually a succession of bad dinners, breakfasts & teas can clip the wings of the orator & the poet, can dull the enthusiasm of the philanthropist & the preacher, & veil the sun the moon the stars & make all [other so] earth sickly to the mourning saint, we shall in some measure appreciate the responsibility laid on those who feed the human family How few mothers know what are the most healthful & nutritious articles of diet or how to adapt the different kinds of food to the various temperaments for which they provide. How seldom you find good bread or fine fruits which should be staple articles on every table. How can you expect your children to be kind & amiable at home, or ambitious & 10 successful scholars at school when their little stomachs are wrestling with a slice of fat fried pork & a hot biscuit? How can you expect your Husband to be the bland & easy gentleman in the parlour or the close & vigorous reasoner at the bar when you have plied him for years with salt mackerel, smoked beef melted butter & soda biscuit. Such domestic poisons have made his joints so stiff that he cannot bow or rise from his chair gracefully & his brain is already suffering a partial paralysis from the pounds of soda he has eaten in his biscuit. Think of losing a $50,000 law suit, for the want of something proper to eat in this world of abundance. Yes gentlemen your ignorant cooks are slowly but surely killing you all, but it is being so skillfully done, that no one will ever ask why you died, When men kill their wives it is put in the newspapers & blazoned from one end of the union to the other, but who will consider the causes of your death. What coroner will dare to give a verdict Richard Roe died from the ignorance & folly of his wife, having been fed ten years on 11 salt, smoke, creme tartar & soda & shut up in a close room during all his sleeping hours & compelled to breathe the same air over at least one dozen times every night of his life. Now we propose to introduce into your nurseries & kitchens a class of intelligent philosophers & chemists. Have you not had enough of crying babies sick wives, sedaratus & indigestion. And now for your parlour & table companions these too we propose a mighty change In the first place under the new dispensation the blinds will be thrown wide open to let in the light & the blessed sunshine. Your wives & daughters have sat like owls in the dark quite long enough. You have dwelt so much gentlemen on mere physical beauty, that most women thinking that there skin is the whole of them, will, if they chance to have a pimple on the nose the size of a pins head, retreat to some dark corner lest you should see it, & thereby run the risk of injuring the whole complexion, for women, like geraniums will turn yellow if they stay much in the shade. Ah! how few healthy happy, joyous noble commonsense wives 12 wives there are. They have moped over their worsted work & embroidery in hot dark rooms enveloped in silks & laces & perfumes until the nervous system is all unstrung. About the only virtue a pattern Husband can now exercise is pity. It is very hard to be compassionate twenty four hours in every day. No wonder that a man after sympathizing with back aches, toothaches & headaches & low spirits for sick people always take gloomy views of life, for days & months & years does at length grow indifferent & is set down as a cruel hard hearted monster. Ah! how many a man has been victimized by a consumptive beauty. You might better marry a very Caliban in deformity if properly of health intellect & goodness that a frail delicate woman. A man with a sick wife is always an object of pity -- Yes! just that kind of pity we feel for criminals in our state prison[s] for the Drunkard in the ditch, for the dyspeptic gluton, & the enervated tobacco chewer. We pity his guilt, his ignorance in thus violating the great immutable laws of infinite wisdom. If you Fathers will begin this way with your daughters there must be no more sick wives or mothers. If you will but aid us we will usher 13 in a new day for humanity. If you have a genius for command, forbid in your domain henceforth & forever all fancy work, crocheting, embroidery, scalloping & fine stitching. We have paid a bounty in sore eyes & crooked spines long enough. If you are an artist, a genius, then seize your brush & with oil paints or water colours give us a gleaming sunset, a landscape bathed in liquid light, a moonlight on the deep blue sea with a majestic ship that walks its waters like a thing of life, but pray do not stoop to a worsted diamond in the toe of a slipper, in a stiff lily in the corner of your apron, to scalloping your childs pantalets, or embroidering a lace cape in stitching your Husbands suits. For if he is an intelligent agreeable man & neither drinks brandy or chews tobacco, & always wears a clean shirt, sensible people would never miss the stitching. As for yourself fair one there is nothing you can put on that will make you look half so well as sound health. The flush of health oh! what flounces or ribbons or embroidery can equal it. Take all these precious hours you have passed in needle work & spend them in house work, gardening, riding on horseback or rambling in the woods. The needle is the deadliest weapon that has ever been forged & let loose upon humanity It kills its thousands, & tens of thousands every year. From the arrow down to the Minnie gun it stands unrivalled for its work of death & destruction. Yes gentlemen by the magic wand of common sense we would make your parlour & table companions healthy happy intelligent beings. Sickness & home would cease to be synonymous terms. The mistress of your table would be known by the leading part she would take in the conversation & not by her place merely presiding over a leg of mutton. She would be intelligent in all the questions of the day. She would know whether stocks were up or down Whether the Maine law would [become] remain the law of the state. Whether or no slavery was to reign & rule over the whole territory of Nebraska & Kansas. Whether Cuba & the Sandwich Islands would be good soil for republican institutions. Whether Lord Raglan would 15 give up Sevastopol, or the English would give up Lord Raglan, whether there could be a church without a Bishop, or whether the conception of the Holy Virgin was indeed immaculate. On all these subjects she could talk you pleasantly & intelligently, for we propose to have women read & think. She would not be driven as now for the sake of having something say, to an eulogy on Mrs Jones magnificent packet wkot, or new silver tea set, or on Mrs Smith's splendid moire antique silk dress, or the terrible discovery that Dr Todd actually kissed the pretty widows hand in the vestry room or any of the idle gossip of the town which is generally the sum & substance of all a woman has to say. Now if a man could find in his parlour as intelligent & agreeable a companion as he finds at his club, his club & his house would be the same place. No matter how handsome a woman is if she has no force or originality of character she cannot maintain any permanent influence over her Husband. Man has a theory that he likes a dependent obedient 16 wife, one that echoes all his own thoughts & sentiments, that thinks what he thinks & says what he says, - never moves or breathes or speaks without his permission, but he likes no such thing. We never can respect anybody that has no higher aim than to please us. There is no stimulus in the society of those minds that have no individuality of their own What mean all those magnificent club houses in New York city, they are so many acknowledgements of the vapid insipidity of home life -- of the downfall of the social power of woman. It was in the paling days of the Roman republic when simplicity & strength governed the nation that the her noble matrons were loved & honored by her proudest sons, but as they advanced in civilization, in the midst of ease luxury & refinement, national pride was swallowed up in personal aggrandizement, virtue bowed down to power & woman was transformed from a Goddess into a toy. It is only as the moral & intellectual natures hold the animal in abeyance that the association & communion of man & woman can be pure & refined that sex 17 can be forgotten. Look at the women who dwell in these magnificent palaces in our metropolis. (They are clothed in purple & fine linen & fare sumptuously every day. As days & months & years flit by with them think you their minds ever dwell on the rise & fall of the past nations of the earth, No they ever gather up the causes of their downfall & decay. Do they ever fully take in all the familiar blessing of a republican government, or ever recall the self denial & sufferings of those who through blood & death gave us this birthright of liberty? Think you in the midst of luxury & plenty of selfishness & pride, they are giving their sons, --the future defenders of our constitutional liberties, -- our Presidents & senators, wise lessons in self constraint virtue & love of country? --Ah! no their thoughts seldom rise as high as their own public demes, in raising themselves beyond the limits of the wile of fashion I need not tell you of the waste of life of strength of everything that is great & noble among the wives & daughters of our merchant princes, nor of the horrible catastrophies in life by which these undeveloped dependant beings so easily & hopelessly pass from 18 all this magnificence into the most obscene & disreputable laws in that vast metropolis. It is seldom that any woman passes all her life in the same condition, sooner or later each one must learn the hard but needful lesson of self dependence. Those of you who are not prepared to give in your adhesion to the doctrine of Woman's right to vote & legislate to be doctors of divinity law & physic will at least join heartily with us in every effort to develop in woman all her powers of body & soul. I have no doubt our men in moments of such thought often put the question to themselves, why this constant toil, this friction this competition. Our Lawyers in their dark offices continually exasperating the bickering of John Doe & Richard Roe. Our merchants are buried in their counting rooms until the multiplication table becomes their creed, their pater noster, & their decalogue. Many a generous man goes through life straining every nerve to supply the artificial wants of his family, from which none of them extract the least particle of real substantial happiness. 19 The servants in these fashionable families are the only ones benefited by the experiment They live free from care, get good wages, & take enough bodily exercise to keep them in good condition. But look at the Lord of all this spender With pale wizen face & sunken eyes slumping shoulders & untrusted chest he plods from day to day in the dark & narrow streets of business. What avails it that by a desperate effort he to day places his business on a firm foundation? As his wealth increases the artificial wants of his family keep pace & far too often outstrip his utmost endeavours. Ah! Many a sad and drooping heart is bound up in satin & Broadcloth It is not always with hope & joy the merchant prince can seek his home. He may find no cure in repose amid all those fountains & flowers, pictures & statuary. No arts of Italy or France can sooth his troubled soul, his richly spread table with its gorgeous china, silver plate, & dainty viands but mask his senseless palate, he is on the brink of ruin, & he dares not confess it. Oh! if in such an hour a whole woman noble & true, who had been 20 educated to business & labour, of strong nerve & simple taste, one who feared neither poverty or the world's cold frown could be the guardian angel of this anxious distracted man, what would losses by land or sea be to him, he would escape what a sensitive man most dreads the cruel stabs he gets at home. Never talk of the superior morality of woman so long as thousands lead lives of idleness & folly whilst their Husbands work like Galley slaves at home. It is enough to make the heart sick to look at the troops & troops of pale anxious men that hurry down Broadway every morning. The sidewalks & omnibusses are crowded. They work & try & toil & stimulate their exhausted minds & bodies with alcohol to work on, whilst their wives with hundreds of dollars on their back drive round in carriages to exchange cards with their acquaintances. The man is stimulated by the womans folly & ambition to live beyond his means all the time. Many a man to please & indulge the wife he loves is tempted little by little to lower his standard of right, when hard prospect is to be wondered at that if by a little quirk of the law he can 21 safely take $10,000 from his neighbours pocket that he does it -- Alas for a nation when its women love ease better than virtue. The extravagance of American women is a subject of remark wherever they go. -- I read a letter a few days since from a New York merchants wife who has been spending two years in Paris. Writing to a lady of wealth in New York she says, "The kind of lace cape you sent for I can get for $100. I should like to spend just $500 for you in laces in muslins. The American women here seem crazy on embroidery, they wear more than the French nobility. Any man is confounded when he first learns how much money can be swallowed up in his wife's dress. Every mind must have some object of interest something on which to expend its intensity & enthusiasm You gentlemen have done your best to concentrate the whole force & power of a woman's mind upon her person & its adornments & now you must pay the penalty. She would profane the sacredness of the marriage relation, & sacrifice any man in a twinkling for a purse, a splendid house & a wardrobe. -- 22 Now we propose that woman shall work as well as man. That every woman shall be educated to some profitable employment, that her organ of acquisitioness may be cultivated also. How can you expect woman to be careful in the use of anything of which she does not know the value. We propose for woman a rational religious existence --for the love of self we would substitute the love of country --for personal aggrandizement the elevation of the whole human family --- The present financial pressure which has shaken men who felt themselves strong -- forced so many to sacrifice their moral rectitude to escape the impending danger -- that has utterly beggared & openly disgraced thousands, & crushed honest industry everywhere, might all have been averted if the matrons of this republic had been wise far seeing women -- if they had had more to do with the serious business of life & less with its [funins] & its follies. In your blindness you may trust all 23 these financial resolutions to a false political economy You may bandy learned essays on [the] Tariff & Free Trade but so long as one half the people in this country neither care or know ought of either political or domestic economy, -- the gold that should pay for our bread will be shipped to France in exchange for, rouge hair dye [flounces] perfumes laces & silks, those necessary [compounds] of American wives & mothers in the 19th century. There is no such thing as a republican government when the people are wholly given over to luxury & excessive refinement, [*and this is the point at which we are aiming. I speak of high life because that is the goal of our ambition.*] What the women of a nation are that will the men be too. It is the wise mother that makes the wise son. Here is the law by which we hold you -- your [elevation] your salvation is bound up with us. Long before the child opens its eyes to the blessed sunlight the mother has sealed its destiny. If she be a cringing slave, a miserable dependent on the bounty of another, in discord with herself & all around her, no matter though the sire be a Webster in intellect the 24 son comes forth an unfortunate blunder. Of all the great meant of the past how few have left a son -- they had children but the maternal stamp was set in every brain & all went down to oblivion together. Old John Adams married wisely -- his wife was his equal partner his counsellor, his friend, & their som John Quincy Adams has for many [?] years stood before this nation a model man, gifted noble moral & industrious -- ever ready to defend the truth isolated & alone. In the midst of the most luxurious & dissipated [earles] of the old world, through all the excitements of political campaigns his purity, morality & probity were ever unsullied & unwavering. Women of America when you [behold] think [over] the long line of men that crowd our daily walks, --that fill our colleges our pulpits, our State & national [councils], when you behold them blundering in government, floundering in science -- listen to their dull & [prisy] sermons -- read their petty speeches on grave questions juris prudence of constitutional law & Human Rights -- when you see them assembled in our national Capital as grave & revered [seniors] -- those who have 25 in their keeping the interests of a nation & then behold their [???ly] murmurs their grossness & profanity, wholly given over to sensualism rum & tobacco have you much pride & complacency as you look about & say these are my jewels. When I read of the disgraceful [scenes] that pass beneath our sentinel flag where year after year the sons of the Pilgrims have played foot ball with the rights of humanity, in passing a fugitive slave law, in repealing a Missouri compromise & extending slavery over two vast territories of Freedom. I blush for the mothers of those who are actors in this disgraceful tragedy. Oh! where is the spirit of those who proudly walked the green soil of our [Forest] Land when the glorious declaration [are] "all men are created equal," first went booming from the mouth of [?], in every breeze from Maine to Louisiana. She looks in vain among the shrivelled forms & features of the masses for the Godlike man. There remains but here & there a stamp of the divine 26 And why is this so. Because we have never applied the laws of science to life. there are fixed immutable laws for the development of Poets, orators, statesmen Philanthropists -- for heroes artists saints & martyrs which if fully understood & observed must soon make the changes in the human family as striking as what we now observe in the lower animals. -- The Physical man as he should be bears no more resemblance to the man as he is than does the finest black horse in the country to the most bony ill shaped, half starved beast that drays a plough in the back woods of Essex, & the mental deficiencies are not less apparent. You mourn over your shrivelled forms & features your inability to think & utter great thoughts --- In vain you seize your pens & rub your hearts -- there's no response --- Your mothers lolled on velvet couches, [??uked] at the book of fashions, talked of laces & embroidery & how should you know ought of science or political economy. Ah! my brethren you little dream of all the ways that foolish women are sapping the foundations of all the strength & virtue 27 of this nation. Here is the reason that in times like theses so few true men stand forth to defend the right. I am proud that New York my native state can boast of some sons that have not feared to stand alone. The names of Gerrit Smith, William Seward & will not go down to posterity unloved & unremembered those men only make for themselves a lasting greatness who are ever true to the rights of man If you would help us to make woman what she should be you must educate puerity as you do yourselves She is now a bundle of contradictions because she is educated with one sole object in life namely marriage wisely considered when the time comes, but we would not have the time sought for, longed for, as if there were no other object in life. I would have every Father so educate his daughter that if thrown on her own resources she could support herself easily & respectably, but to accomplish this it must be her object in 28. starting. It is not human nature to work without a fixed clearly defined object. Every girl as well as boy should have an honest love of Independence instilled into her, that would impell her to choose to work with her own hands rather than lead a life of idleness, in dependance on the bounty of another. The question is how shall this be done Here perhaps we take issue. You say she may teach scoo or occupy a subordinate in a friends family. -- I say there are many other employments far more pleasant & profitable. We should avail ourselves of the wisdom & experience of man, & seek those places which he deems so desirable for himself. I must say I should rather be President of the United States on a salary of $25,000 a year than Teacher for a District school on $12 a month. -- I should rather be an extensive silk merchant buying up my thousands in New York city -- than a country milliner whiting bonnets with sulphur for two shillings a piece!! Are you surprized at my choice gentlemen? Yes: do you say? Then let me ask, would you prefer the milliner shop & District school for yourself? 29. Certainly not!! Then why should I?-- Custom is the only reason you can offer "Custom doth often reason overrule. And only serves for reason to a fool." X Surely woman may safely do whatever God has given her the power & talent to accomplish, & whatever she can well do, the fact that she does it is to me sufficient proof that she is not violating the will of God. I say let her occupy any post she has the capacity to fill The whole experiment turns on her ability & the will of God is proved by her success. This whole question is involved in inscrutible mystery by making man & woman two distinct & entirely different creations It seems to be the common opinion that men & women are essentially unlike. I believe I stand almost alone in maintaining the identity of the sexes. I fully agree with the Rev. Sidney Smith the distinguished English energist & Divine, that all the differences we now see in the sexes can be traced to their different educations. | But Doctors disagree To speak of a natural mental difference in the sexes was an absurdity to the Rev. Sidney Smith fifty years ago, to speak of their identity is an absurdity to the Rev Antoinette Brown in 1856 30 In her recent speech before the Albany Committee she said she would institute no comparison between men & women. "As well she said you may ask which is the [largest] a rail road or a steam boat" "Which is the longest a Boa Constrictor or a day in June" Now I beg leave to differ entirely with Antoinette Brown. I think boys & girls men & women can be compared! As moral & intellectual beings they are identical & the same. there is no end to speculations or theories on any subject -- & there is no way of combating them -- But if these things of which the evidence of our senses attest we may reason & judge. Well then to let pass that indescribable something in which it is said all men & women differ & to come down to what we see & hear & feel what have we Man eats & drinks & sleeps & so does woman He runs & walks laughs & cries, feels joy & sorrow pleasure & pain & so does woman.-- He loves hurts is angry & sorry impatient unreasonable [tyrinsecint] & so is woman -- He is religious penitent, prayerful, dependent, & so is woman. He is courageous bold self-reliant enduring & so is woman. He is ambitious loves glory fame power & so does woman. He loves to think, reason, write, speak, debate, declaim, & so does woman. In fact what has man ever done that woman has not | What does he like that she does not? Are not our hopes & fears for time & eternity the same --- 31 The physical differences in strength we see between some men & women produced by different employments may be seen also between man & man. Contrast the farmer with a man who has led a sedentary scholastic life Contrast those women who are developed by accident in labour with some of your puny metropolitans who have never seen the sun rise or set. Theory may say that if man & woman from the beginning were educated precisely alike man would still be the larger the stronger. We must see the experiment made before we can admit the assumption. The anatomical difference gives woman greater power of the lower limbs, & man the upper limbs. If trained the boy might throw a stone higher in the air but the girl would be much fleeter on foot. But it is impossible to judge what either sex will be who scientifically developed. But suppose we admit that man is physically larger than woman what do you gain by the admission Among men, the athletic, the muscular the brawny men are by no means the great men in the best sense of that word neither are they the strongest physically. (The sight of a small boy whipping a large one is not uncommon. 32 common. The force of will has much more to do with strength than the size of the frame the impelling organs of the brain than the size of the arm & the chest. By far the greater proportion of distinguished men of Generals, poets, orators, statesmen & philosophers, [poets & orators] have been small men of fine nervous organization & exquisite sensibilities. Look at Napoleon Lord Nelson Guizot Hamilton Burr Adams Channing Story Emerson & Seward So should we give man the superiority of the ox we should but prove him an inferior order of being. Much stress is laid on the Phrenological difference. All that Phrenology proves is that the organs that are the most exercised are the most developed. - If sex alone shapes the head then there can be no exception to the rule. But if you can produce a female head that a Phrenologist blinded cannot tell the sex then the rule falls through & you show that education & not sex made the difference. There is nothing more common than to hear a phrenologist say to a woman who has a large well developed brain you have a masculine [brain] head - or to a man, whose brain is small with large philoprogenitiveness & a perceptive intellect you have a woman's head [*Guizot Gezo*] 33 They are not so unlike in person cipy, but by skillful shaping the one sex may pass for the other. George Sand the assumed name of the distinguished Fre Madame - Dudevant has travelled in cog, in man's attire through many countries, & observed [life] [humanity] society in all its pluses, in Paris[ian life] there are numberless instances of men escaping from prisons in woman's attire undiscovered, - & of women disguised as soldiers fighting in the hottest of the battle side & side with those they loved In children's plays boys & girls are constantly seen wrestling running climbing, comparing their strength & swiftness. I never heard it hinted in the play ground or the school room that boys & girls were not legitimate subjects of comparison. * I have gone many a time snow ball in hand from the far Academy gate to the Bellfrey to punish a boy who had washed my face The girls in my native village not only tried strength with boys in the play ground, but we measured honors with them in the sciences languages & mathematics. In studing Algebra & Geometry, in reading Virgil or the Greek Testament I never found out the difference in the male & female mind. *After leaving school & meeting young men in society, I did 34 not feel invariably oppressed with my feminine inferiority in conversing with a graduate from Union College. -- But more than once I felt my superiority in the Physical sciences I remember a long ride on horseback I once took in company with a Phi Beta Kappa I had been well trained in that accomplishment accordingly I allowed my steed to cut all kind of pranks, leap ditches fences &c The Phi Beta Kappa steed would fain have done the same but his rider was terror stricken, & in agony implored me to help him manage his horse I hastened to my pale & trembling knight who besought me not to leave him, his steed was so fractious -- I had known the creature for years she was as gentle as a [swan] fawn. I laughed in my sleeve & the youth held on to the horn of my saddle the remainder of the way. -- I remember travelling with a very fair specimen of manhood in the old world & measuring strength with him in the Highlands of Scotland. Many a day we travelled on foot from morn till night. His aspirations to see the world from Cathedral domes & mountain tops were never checked by my weakness Where he went I went too -- & we both went wherever travellers had gone before us. True one day in climbing Ben Venne I availed myself of an [over??ival] grasp 35 at his coat tail but he had a cane as an offset. --(Excuse me for saying this much of myself, but in an age when [dehising] & [ineffricent] are considered the greatest of feminine virtues of course it can be from no vanity that a woman admits herself to be a model of health & strength.) In speaking of physical likeness I merely assert that God intended every creature on this [fr?stst??d] should have all the power & strength necessary for self support & defence. It would have been an act of unpardonable injustice to have made one half the race to depend upon the other & then left that weaker half so often as we now find them depending wholly on themselves. It is said as proof of the superiority of man that there have been no Miltons Shakespeares Molieres [Chaucers] Michael Angelo Raphaels & Beethoven's or Mozarts among women. Well there have been none among American men does that prove you inferior to the English French Germans or Italians. woman has never stood on the vantage ground It seems to me we have abundantly proved our equality by being what we are in view of all the adverse winds against which we have struggled from the beginning 36 Men are no more courageous than women in attempting what they do not understand If there is any difference I have never yet seen it or felt, neither have I ever heard those who claim it make out even a possible case. I have uniformly observed that in all those things where boys & girls had been trained alike their powers were equal & the same All this mysterious talk about the nice shades of difference in the sexes is the much twaddle. It is too a fatal admission for any of our ad[????]ntes to make. That has been the trouble all along in appealing to man for an acknowledgement of our rights. Could he have believed that we felt the injustice & oppression of our position as he would feel it. he would have nullified many of his laws long ago. But believing that our natures were essentially different from his own, he had no data to go upon in judging of our wants & necessities A woman always has been & always will be a mystery to a man until he consents to believe that she is a being of like nature with himself. The [beautiful canary] bird in his golden cage is not more warped & crippled in his nature, -- than are our most fortunate women, those who are loved & caressed splendidly housed & attired with every want & taste supplied 37 [be but one starting point for all, * -- --the regeneration of women!!] What can a woman want more that enough to eat, to drink, to wear, her green house library pictures statuary, carriage horses that she may drive & ride at pleasure, walk, visit, read, think, write, dance, sing, play. Here is her house to keep in order, her grounds to decorate, her children to direct & [cullmode] educate, parties balls operas for the winter season Niagara Newport & [Nu???d] & Saratoga for the summer. What more does a woman want Ask the merchant who has retired from business in his hundred thousands, & is now building a life of [chysont] leisure. his wife duties & pleasures are now open to him Why is he restless & unhappy. Because there is no stimulating object in his life. To concentrate our thoughts on him but calls out our selfishness, to give them all to pleasure but calls out our love of [approbation]. when we make pleasure the object of life it will [immutably] elude our grasp 38 "Pleasure never comes sincere to man But comes lent by Heaven on hard usury." we all know our fashionable women are not happy. Oh! many a broken heart there is amid all the [pomp] & glitter of life. -- The bright Canary sings gaily as he skips from perch to perch. But when he sings his thoughts are far beyond that gilded cage. he is in fancy basking in the liquid sunshine of his own native isles, -- & so will woman when she sings it is of love, friendship, of noble deeds of daring & generosity -- of the humble art of simple & religious life She must go our of her every day artificial existence before she can turn her soul to music. Pleasure in its best its truest sense is an harmonious development of all our faculties. Those situations in life are most desirable where most of our faculties are called into daily exercise There is a science in pleasure as well as profit. 39 And here is the reason we demand for woman a larger sphere of action All women are not satisfied with the present round of duties & responsibilities Dependence is always galling to the subtlest & [proudest] natures & a dependent woman must ever be until she holds a purse of her own A right over my subsistence [must ever be] is s power over all my thoughts & actions. I would therefore have every girl begin this day some profitable business for herself. Whoever by word or deed that helps to change public sentiment on this point does a great work for the future. It is not enough Fathers that you provide for your daughters comfortable homes too day. the question is if you should die suddenly is your wealth sufficient to support them in the ease & luxury they now enjoy. I would have every expensive family think of that terrible tragedy in Cambridge college a few years ago Remember it was the want of a few hundreds merely that impelled Webster to that act of darkness & death. His daughters properly educated might as teachers in the college 40 have easily supported themselves under the care of their Father, or elsewhere in many other respectable & profitable employments. True by such a step they might have outraged the public sentiment of their class -- but by relieving their Father from all pecuniary embarrassments they might have saved themselves from that indelible blot on their family name. Who would not rather meet the sneer of a circle of fashionable fools that to be even a remote cause to such a deed of Infamy. -- Woman will never know the value of money until she makes it -- or suffers for the want of it. It is startling to think what crimes the heads of families have been driven to by pecuniary embarrassments --- Every Father has it in his power to educate his daughters easily & pleasantly in his own beliefs or profession & it is his solemn duty to do it --- the study of divinity is peculiarly adapted to woman -- That Profession does not lead one much into the publicity & disagreeables of life. It is a life of thought & sympathy -- After 41 going through a theological seminary & sending a few years under the care of a judicious Father, a naturally eloquent & religious minded woman might stand unrivalled as a preacher of excellence & power. Do you say that woman cannot preach the glad tidings of the gospel of Christ. Ask the prisoner of Newgate who listened to the eloquence of Elizabeth Fry. Ask the keepers who witnessed the effects of her ministrations. --Look at the labours from your own Miss Dix; she has brought hope & peace to the prisoners heart in many a solitary cell. -- Ask those who have listened to fervour of our own Antoinette Brown _____ Many of our merchants have daughters who are actually suffering for something to do, something that will instruct the mind as well as occupy the hands & yet these Fathers hire clerks to do the very work for which their daughters by a little effort could be easily prepared What girl of eighteen properly trained for that post could not keep [her Fathers] 42 the books in any mercantile establishment or go with her Fathers to buy goods & thus learn [their] the prices & all the laws & skill of barter, & then become interested in the business & in time be able to carry it on & alone in case the Father should die. If you leave your child a good business or profession it is far better than to leave her an unhappy dependent, or to leave her a fortune without the knowledge to take care of it -- There is no relation more beautiful than that of Father & daughter if properly understood. There is the profession of law too --- What possible objection is there in educating your daughters for that profession. If they have the gift of eloquence. [who] could man plead as well as they all the cases when woman interests & disappointments are involved? how can man weigh all the nice causes by which she is outraged & undone. Your daughters could attend to all your office & financial business & feel a far deeper interest in all your affairs than any mere stranger possibly could. Would it not be a better discipline for them too then the ordinary lives most girls lead. Would not 43 the reading of Blackstone & Kents commentaries enlarge their minds quite as much as embroidery & the yellow covered literature of the day? Would not daily talks with sensible men, with bankers, merchants & Farmers on statute law, land tittles, bonds & mortgages & usury, for which they might receive a fee of $5 or $10 be quite as rational as three hours [about] with a dandy on high life, fashions & follies. Do you complain of the publicity of these positions, Is a Lawyers office, with a dozen clients, all sober men engaged in the provitient business of life where your daughter may sit plainly & completely [dressed] pen or book in hand as public as a ball room where assembled hundreds may look at her as she moves about half- dressed now in the [h??zy] dance taking any body by the hand & now whirling in the giddy waltz in the arms of some licentious debauchee, Your daughter could attend to all a lawyers business without taking the hand or inhaling the breath of a client, but that is 44 no place where she is subject to more intimate approaches than in fashionable life, & no place where one meets a lower type of manhood. It is the custom at most of our balls & parties to have a little sanctum sanctorum where ever & anon the gentlemen retreat to seek fresh inspiration & enthusiasm for the [??cation], after repeated visits to that fount of joy, those lusties who have with me witnessed the effect can best testify how easily & readily, the man made in the image of God can be transformed into a disgusting fool an idiot & a beast. You women who with bare arms & necks join in [the] midnight revels with men whose tongues & brains are thick with wine & excess, talk not of the want of decency in those who assemble in woman's conventions to talk with sober men on great questions of Human Rights. -- It does not take as long to get ready for a convention as it does for a ball. & our work for the day is done at the usual hour when sensible people go to rest. Any wise far seeing mind must appreciate how entirely a woman's virtue in all situations in life is involved in her pecuniary independence Encourage woman to enter into all honest & profitable employments & you will have struck a blow at [hi?nh??ness] & excess That shall long be seen & felt 45 I would have our girls begin this day to establish a new code of etiquette. They accept altogether too many favours from young men, who often go far beyond their means to do what is expected. Young ladies will go into eating saloons, & there refresh themselves with oysters in cream &c at the expense of any youth they may chance to meet on the walk. A young friend of mine in Boston told me he was once compelled to pay out the last cent he had in his pocket, the very money he had saved to pay his washer woman to entertain some young ladies [?] ice cream and strawberries. It is no evidence of nobility or generosity to do such a thing. but it shows a great want of moral courage. not to say [f???kly] young ladies. I should be happy to take the hint & invite you to take some refreshments, but the truth is I cannot afford to foot the bill. One young man that would let another buy his cigars year out & year in would be set down as a mean fellow & young lady that seeks & accepts many such favours is utterly wanting in a proper noble pride. this custom deprives our daughters in many cases of the company of our most moral & intelligent 46 men, then who are determined to make themselves a position in society humbly & honestly, by self denial & forethought. They have neither the tine or the money for rides, balls, walks & entertainments, hence they are no favourites with the ladies for although they might make the best of Husbands they cannot be made accountable each passing hour I have often blushed for my sex as I have witnessed the maneuvers of girls to draw some youth into a ride, a ball, or some expensive amusement. Now if all these girls had [some] practical business in life they would not have so many days & years hanging heavy on their hands. If they had purses of their own they would pay for their own ice cream & oysters or go without them. If a young lady only had the proper pride to pay for herself, she would always be escorted by a better class of men. Many of our best gentlemen who would prefer to go with ladies to lectures, concerts, the opera &c now go alone because they cannot afford to pay for two. Woman's pecuniary dependence is the reason 47 of the continually increasing numbers of old maids & bachelors. Just look at the condition of society in New York Every boarding house is crowded with crochety old maids & bachelors. The men dare not marry! So expensive are the artificial wants of our present mode of life that it is a great thing for a man in the metropolis to take care of himself without a wife & children The women dare not labour in the most profitable employments less they lose caste. Now if public sentiment were right in this point marriage would be a more equal partnership, each would put in some capital & business talent.--- The maternity question is the only one that seems to conflict with our proposed arrangement. How say you can a woman who has a house & children carry on business? When a woman is left a poor widow, with a large family she is compelled at once to seek out some business beside, housekeeping, nursing & cooking, she must now support her family. --- hundreds are doing it all around us.--- now what a 48 woman can do without a Husband she can certainly do with one, capable of aiding advising & working himself also. -- if the death of a Father was a signal for the mother & children all to drop into their grave there might be some force in the question, but so long as women from the beginning when thrown on their own resources, have proved themselves [equal] to an emergency, all that remains is to decide the best way of meeting it when it comes. --- The maternity question cannot of course apply to that large class of women who never have any children When [all] woman [are] is developed as [they] she should be, when she shall rightfully (fill? & enter) all spheres we shall not have so large a class leading lives of celibacy. It is not good for man to be alone. What was true in Paradise is true in all life business The sexes are now entirely isolated A woman seldom sees her Husband in all his waking hours but at meals & how precious little Fathers see or care about their children. All our social 49 interests & pleasures are entirely sacrificed to wealth & position Our strongest deepest purest pleasures are found in love & friendship, ---in the home, the family, that great conservator or virtue & strength, yet how seldom you see a family sacrificing worldly advantages to the sacred ties of love & home. Our youth cut loose from parental care & watchfulness altogether too soon. The fortune is made but the character is wrecked Never is the love & counsel of the wise mother more needed than in the midst of pecuniary temptations & entrapments. But we can never remedy the ills of civilization until we return to a more simple life, until bring the animal with all its greedy demands for the senses into subjection to our higher natures. Then it will not be of so much importance that a man has the means of gratifying every imaginable want, as that he & his family shall so govern & control themselves that their wants shall be simple & few. What blindness in us thus to cheat ourselves out of all these pleasures that flow from the cultivation of our immortal minds & [?] out a weary existence in constant ministering to our unnatural perverted passions; appetites which with each new gratification but make stronger demands. Where shall a man find so insatiable, so unrelenting a foe as the pampered animal he worships in himself. Resolved. That it is a sin against God [& the race] for any woman to consent to be the wife of an habitual drunkard. It is degrading to womanhood & most fatal in its results on the race. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.