THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN. (New York Herald)

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 409, 29 December 1874, Page 2

THE INFLUE NCE OF WOMEN. (New York Herald)

B'vryvrfG with tlin fall of A'lam, and ending with tho lat?Ht event Jn hitftpry> th" 1 influence of women Qvr>r the ncti<vfiTbf men is Ronr^hing in irve'lous — almost beyond b^ief. The Eastern Prince who, whenever lie ,hea»*d of any new offouco, w»8 accxstomet to aski * What's 1 her name f was led to tfie inqiunrl>7 the name experiences whioh have made "a woman in tho case "a recognised phrase in nwfam speech. History \a full of the struggles whtoh wom^n Inrnrwed upon nations ami on men. ■ P> ehHles-«ind Agamemnon quarrelled over the possession of Briseis. oven while seeking to punish the abdnoKon of H°len. H«rodotis, the father of h:storf, hofrinff the world's annals with, the two versions of the carrying off of To. Coming nearer to the verities of history, we find the impassioned story of PiricVs and Aspasia, and later still the wonderful jfocrifle* of T) i raosthen rt n for Lais, tile nrvW/ 1 Even 'Julius Cam in, "forgot everything, inc'iHing ambition, in his dalliance with Oleopitra ; and Mire Autonv, wit.h Cssir's example to warn him, is chiefly remembered for' his infatuation for the sinn worn in. From the reign of Francis I, to t.h° clos° of tho career of the Grand Monarch Louis XrV., French history i the history of noble ladies ■rhose actions wer 1 ? ignoble". Luther brought about the Reformation because he wished to marry ; and Henry VTIT,, who ostentatiously claim-*! to be the English reformer, was the husband of six wives during his lifetime. Nipoleon's downfall dates from the time he divorced his wife of his youth for the Austrian princes who brought him a son but not a successor. History is a succession of episodes in which the influence of women m irks the destinifts of great men and powerful States. Poetry is but the repetition in a thousand disguises of the pission of Heloise and Ahelard. Fiction has no other purpose than to illmtnte the relations of nvsn an! wimw, and the modern stage must content itself with giving life and form and colour to the passions with which the novelist or dramatist his imSued his creations. And in practical, every-d-iv life, we occasionally meet the counterparts of the miscille I henna and heroines of history or the imagination. We have witnessed the remarkable sp^ctucle of a wife and mother claiming C itherine G uint as her ideal. Even Hawthorne's 'Scirl-t Letter' seetmd about to bo reproduced sc^n^ bv scitie anl sorrw for smtow. "Whit is so common to history, to literature, and to art must huie a d-;ep s'<gnifioince, and be in leei the groundwork of al social existeiwe. We have not cited these examples for an idle purpose, but as illustrating the gn-at lesson of all human experience. In the earlier ages of Greek civilisation men captured the wives and daughters ot their enemies, and States warred with each other in consequ n nce. Later still Cleopatra lost a throne anl, it raiy b° siid, coiqu'snl a worll by her fascin itions. From that hour up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, emperors and kings, despite the influ *nee of o'iristian religion were little butter than this heathen queen and these heathen soldiers. Ev^n G^irg^ I. cirri'? l tho " Maypole" and the " Elephant " into Rngland, and was not ashamel to be as vicious in his dull Germ in way \as the vivaciou ■ Charles If. The example of Louis XII. corrupted eveiy r-ourt in Europe, and society was as corrupt as the courts which set the fashion. B >valtv has grown hotter sinoe the last century, and society hs a matter of course, has improved with ro 'alty, while, strange to say, men of letters' th« leaders of thought, the brightest examples of high dramatic anl artistic oulturo, have been the heroes of the scandals of the ag^. That romance which savors of vice, and in which kings were I once the princinil figures, is now sought in the doI mestic infelicities of genius. Byr >n hns the repuj tation of Ivung the mist or>fli.jite mil of his age. ; Sott wis inhapw in his doimstic life. Lvtton j impr'noued his wif • on a charge of lunacy — his enemien siv to be rid of h o r. Dickens turned aw*y from his home the mother of his children because she c^u 1 1 not ao-mchta hi^ g^nijs and minister lo his vanity. These things were due, however, to oxcopMonal causes, «nd soci^-tv in the later ag«a of the world had so purifiel itself tha the latest great sc indal se nnn almost imp >siible ; so nearly impossible, to svy th« least of it, as to require the strongest and m ><t unei'iivocil proof before it can be accepted. If there is alwivs a woman in the enss now as her slofore, tho Aspisiai anl Claopitris, tbe false counters an 1 fie ign >ble la lies, and the whole army of wotnn w'v><<4 'ives hive be^n a wrong to wominhood, are fewer than ever before, while those whose work is high and pure and great and good — with whom charity is the highest duty, and a bright examp'e the noblest ambition— have wonderfully increts-ttl in numbers and influence. But for f ilse reform this would be almost a millennial epoch. It is those who are professing to seek new spheres for women who are the worst foe» of womanhood. It is a noble characteristic in mad to ta e upon himself the severe toil for th* raee — the I B'irest sign of the real influence of women — the brightest thing in our modern civilization. If this natural division of labour is to be disregirded : if wonvm are to stan I side by sid3 with men in all vocitions of life ; if the high estimation in which women are held is to be rudely net aside for some f.tneiful advantage, all the gains of socifty will he destroye 1. Free love is scarcely more pernicious , than the oth^r questions which a few women are I agitating an 1 w lic'i ar» akin to- it. Tie in'lueice iof women, so long f -It for evil in the world, is at 1 last felt mostly for goo I ; but it is as easy to go backward as forward, and we certainly do not wait to crown the A-jpasLu and 0 eopatras over again.