THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH'S WISDOM.
And Ihc Comments of " W. 8." (hereon :
"It »s my opinion, the necessity to adjust herself to man. to be judged by his individual standard, and to conform her whole personality to his way of thinking, that has robbed woman of the power, strength, and influence, she could have exerted as a united and independent majority." As. for instance: to wield pirk and shovel, axe. pitsaw.artd smiths striker, and humping wharf labourers wheat sacks!
"Why should women have a standard of right and wrong adjustable to the moral sense of men to whom they belong by purchase, as in the earlier days and by marriage as by modern.'* (Because of the very palpable Tact that she is in that position. Why. if she has such a powerful personality, and is physically and mentally capable, by an intuitive strength, to elevate herself out of it. has she not done so during the long ages she has been of her sex. and been content to bear children, with the undetachablc adjuncts thereto; together with the mending, preparing man's meals, and the care of the home he is labouring to provide for with a jowcr. strength and influence, she has no capacity to accomplish, that he may rest, and recuperate, for a continuance of such labours). "How can any logical sequence in mind or action be expected of woman under such prevailing conditions?" (Because these are not "expected" of her. By a law of Nature, all things, "minds," and "actions," shape their forms according to the uses they are to exert, and if these are not so excrted.she eliminates them from her lists). "If Man is taught to regard woman only as conducive to his comfort and pleasure, how. 1 ask, can she rise to his higher flights?"
(Because she is not required for"highcr flights": but as Nature has refused her the appliances for exalted aviation, she resorts to the mean expedient of aflixing birds' wings to her hat. Her function is to be a medium for perpetuating the race. If she will indulge in "higher flights," she must neglect the especial function Nature has fashioned and suited her for. If she will be navvy, smith, carpenter, drayman, doctor, lawyer, cleric, sculptor, engineer, she must cease to be mother, cook, housekeeper, nurse, Man's cheerer and comforter when times are hard, occupation unplentiful, or things do not prosper as one could wish, with the inevitable extinction of race).
"But the industrial value of woman in the upper and mdidlc classes, has so greatly decreased, that it is to be feared that more than one wife will hardly meet with favour in the eyes of man who has to dress, feed, and amuse them."
(Just so; and because she is so utterly incapable of elevating herself, by herself, to his standard, and exchanging places with him in the labour domain, Nature has decreed that she shall be subordinate to him. And if be, for some creed craze, makes monogamy a law of ethics, and woman supports this law by enthusiastically abhorring second or third co-wives, she must not whine when Nature says: "If you refuse to share one man with others of your sex, why, then, bend your neck to the yoke"). Further and finally: have we not sufficiently alarming evidence, in the artificially preventive methods now commonly adopted to avoid tbo bearing of large families, to assure us that these are symptoms of that "higher flight"; and that the keener she avoids the highest functions for which Nature has so lavishly appointed her, and the I "higher" she tries"flights"therefrom, the greater will be her fall, and that of the species it should be her first call, glory, and pride to perpetuate. And that her claim to vote on matters of public policy, outside her proper sphere, ought in no wise to be recognised, fhor exalted to that eminence the ignorant, but would be, philanthropist would falsely place her; an eminence, and voting power, the wisest and noblest of her sex, repugnantly repudiate, and sensibly decline to exercise.
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King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 167, 24 June 1909, Page 5
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678THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH'S WISDOM. King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 167, 24 June 1909, Page 5
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