On Men and Womne.

Manawatu Herald, 24 April 1894, Page 3

On Men and Womne.

L ..*- , . — , — ♦ | i We are in receipt of a very able | j article by that advocate of women's ' ! rights, ;Lady Cook; me Tennessee C. j ; Clafiin, which affords food for much thought. The lady touches upon i an awkward question in a very ; . capable manner and will gain the i : vtiidicb with our readers. She j writes : — j With the world generally, the assumption is that women and women only are liable to seduction, \ and that men are entirely free from j any such weakness. Now, what is the implication in all this ? Why. '. simply ll^at women arc weaklings \ and ninnies, and that they have no opinion, no character, no power of self defence, no anything, but simply the liability to be influenced to their ruin by men. And women consent to and strengthen this implication by conceding the truth of this false notion, by joining in the clamour about seduction, precisely as they concur in the false and insulting discrimination between the virtue of man and the virtue of woman. Now, the fact is that seduction is and ought to be mutual. No love is without seduction in the highest sense. But love is not the only attribute of either man or woman. There should also be wisdom, character,, purpose, and power of selfregulation and defence on the part of each. If there is any difference, woman is, of the two, the grand seductive force, whether the seduction be legitimate oharm or counterpart. It is considered a reproach for a woman not to get married. She must, therefore, by all possible means lure some man into marriage ; and, not succeeding in that directly, she is tempted to beguile him into some act which will compromise him and compel marrige subsequently. She has the strongest possible motive, therefore, from this point of view, to be herself the tempter ; and if the roofs were lifted off the tops of thejhouses, if the facts were simply known of what is every day occurring, I believe it would be tound that a majority of women exert an undue influence over men. But it is not merely that the female sex. is preeminently interested in the whole matter of love, and is, by nature and organisation, repreeentative of that half of human oonoevns, nor the fact, which I have alluded to, that she is humiliated and despised by society if she fails to secure a husband ; there are still stronger impulses and motives and necessities operating on her. As things are in the world at present, women have not eqnal chances with men of earning and winning anything ; men hold the purse, and women are dependents and candidates for election to place. They must entice and seduce and entrap men, either in the legitimate or in the illegitimate way, ia ordtr to

secure their portion of the spoil. It , is no fault of theirs if they have to do this. Society condemns them to a condition in which they have no other resource. I am not arguing the rectitude or otherwise of that point now. lam merely adverting to the fact as a reason why many women make a business— the great pursuit, in fact, of their lives—of the seduction of men ; while with men the betrayal of women is an incident, mostly a sudden tempta tion perhaps thrown in their way, without suspicion on their part, by the very women who then raise a hubbub of excitement about having been ruined. When people had slaves, they expected that their pigs, chickens, corn, and everything lying loose about the plantation would be stolen. But the planters began by stealing the liberty of their slaves, by stealing their labour, by stealing in fact, all they had ; and the natural result was that the slaves stole back all they could. So in the case of women. Reduced to the condition of dependency, and with no other avenue for acquirement or .success than the one which lies through their mastery or influence over the opposite sex, their natural powers to charm and seduce are, of course, reinforced by astuteness and trickery, and they not only have the cunniug to beguile the men, in the majority of cases, but the astutenesß also to throw blame on the men for betraying them. This is sharp practice ; but they are taught in a school of sharp practice which the men have instituted for them ; and the result is a natural and necessary one from the present organisation of society. The very foundation of our existing social order is mutual deception and all-prevalent hypocrisy ; and this will always be the case until we have freedom ; until we recognise the rights of nature, until we provide in a normal and proper way for every passion of the human soul. There are two policies, or theories, of action in the world. One h the policy of " repression ;" the other is the policy of " enfranchisement," or enlargement. The policy of repression has its whole legion of legitimate consequences, which are in the main what we know as the vices of society. The slave was taught to be tricky, and wily, and wise after his method, to circumvent the wrong which was inflicted on him. The depressed and oppressed woman is made to be hypocritical and frivolous, and in every way false to the higher nature of womanhood, false to her duties in life, and false to the true relations which she i Bhould hold to men. By enslaving j her the male sex is doing the greatest I possible injustice to itself. It is j only by enfranchising her, by helping ! her by every 4 possible method to : security of condition, to the oppor- • tunity for developemcnfc, to the means of being true and noble, that man will have in the world a being whom he can truly love and whom he will be proud in all ways to aid and protect. The policy of repression is therefore suicidal or self defeating ; and as the world grows wiser it will be, iu all the spheres of life, replaced by the nobler, more natural, and beneficent policy of freedom, with order of a higher and better kind, which will spontaneously follow. (Concluded in our next.)