Elizabeth Cady Stanton Speeches and Writings File Speech to National American Woman Suffrage Assoc. Convention, Dec 4, 1890 (1) Basingstoke Hants England December 4th, (1890) Dear Friends in convention assembled, I have never been more impressed with the immense importance of raising the status of womanhood, than by the comments of the press during the present upheaval in social & political life on the O'Shea divorce case involving the integrity of Charles Stewart Parnell M. P. Ever & anon these social earthquakes [*114*] convulse 2 society to the very centre, but no one seems to draw the fitting lessons for women. nor to touch the underlying causes of our corrupt social system. The public expend all their forces in hounding the individual victims, without the slightest reference to the phylosophy that calls them into existence. To purify society just two things are necessary. 1st Teach woman self-respect [*115*] 3 & self reliance, & educate her for for pecuniary independence. 2nd Train our sons to respect & honor all womankind, to treat every young girl they meet precisely as they desire all men to treat their mothers & sisters. To this end there must be one code of morals for men & women, expurgated editions of all our laws civil & canon, & of our literature sacred & profane. For so long as the laws, the religion 4 & the customs of a country are day by day giving lessons of disrespect & contempt for women how can we expect men trained under such institutions to be honorable in their dealings with women. When Mr Woodhall M.P. at the opening of the present Parliament presented a bill for woman suffrage, it was received with derisive laughter. Had the right 5. been asked for a body of apes the proposition could not have been received with greater scorn. [You demand of American women to be received as [equals] Lay Delegates in the general Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church has been treated with equal merriment & scorn [by a majority]]. What possible inference then can the young men of the present generation draw from such treatment of their mothers, but their [*118*] 6 inferiority, their degradation their unfitness for equal positions in the state, the church, & the home. In vain we exalt the virtue of chastity so long as the chief factor in social life is declared to be in subjection to man by divine ordination. Men to day emulate each other in the exercise of all those virtues to which they are trained. They are public spirited charitable, honorable [*119*] 7 in their business relations as statesmen & soldiers devoted to their country. They all believe in the virtue of Patriotism, & are ready to live or die for their native land. They are educated to this end, public sentiment, law, religion, the code of honor all combine to make men patriots. But the helpless dependent position of woman, the contempt with which she is treated in the halls of legislation [& in] and in [*120*] 8 the assemblies of the church, all combine to lower the virtue of chastity in the social code of honor. If we have arrived at that point in civilization that we demand chastity as a necessary virtue for men in public office, we should commence their education at once in that direction, by elevating the status of woman Men may sentamentalize on the glory of womanhood the sacredness of our domestic [*121*] [*114*] [*Eliz. Cady Stanton, president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, to the Convention.*] 9 [the] altar, the cradle & the old arm chair. They may sing the Magnificat in their cathedrals every Sunday round the globe; but so long as the real woman in every day life, must battle for every step of progress she achieves, mid ridicule & persecution it is vain to look for any improvement in the morals of our social life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton [*122*] Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.