The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, MAY 8, 1882. FEMALE FRANCHISE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1068, 8 May 1882, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, MAY 8, 1882. FEMALE FRANCHISE.

Last week our local Debating Society gave an affirmative vote in favor of the extension of pljo franchise to females, "Were this concession granted the result would probably have but little immediate, direct influence on the Government and legislature of the colony, but it might be attended with a direct influence on the sex itself. If, in a mixed public school, containing, say, a hundred boys and a similar number of girls, the sum of the attainments—the aggregate. of the mental powers of either group—were guaged, it would, we think, bo found that there was but a very slight difference between the male and female capacities, If, however, the mental capacity of the same children could be assessed, twenty years hence it would, we believe, be found that there would be a very considerable divergence—that in the interval the male pupils would have developed much more rapidly than the female. The broad distinction which exists between the mental powers of an average man and an average woman is, we think, due to the fact that when children leave school they receive a very different training. A boy is taught to be self dependent; he is thrown into contact with the world, and his faculties are sharpened by the responsibilities which devolve daily and hourly upon him, A girl, on the other hand, is brought up to depend on others, and her natural capacity does not undergo that full, free development which falls to the Jot pf the boy, Human laws and social customs alike unite in making the boy a freeman and % girl ut slave, We fail to see that najtura'} lof s, are in harmony with human and social fav/s in dwarfing ,one sex and exalting the other, We believe that the work of; tjje world would be better done and the happiness of jts denizens would be more assured if yopn were emancipated from the fetters with whj.ch for countless generations they have been ■ loaded. It is not equitable that man all the world over should determine the conditions under which the opposite sex shall exist, and that outside the domain of dress and cookery women should have no voice in deter, mining the conditions under which either men or women should live. If a measure to extend the franchise to females were ever brought forward in New Zealand we should support it on these broad grounds. We should not expect from its operation any immemediate result of importance, because the desire and capacity to exercise a new privilege would be developed slowly, but we should in time look forward to it gradually raising what has been termed the weaker sex to take that position in the world which nature has fitted it for but for which it has been unfitted by human laws and social customs,