FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1110   1111   1112   1113   1114   1115   1116   1117   1118   1119   1120   1121   1122   1123   1124   1125   1126   1127   1128   1129   1130   1131   1132   1133   1134  
1135   1136   1137   1138   1139   1140   1141   1142   1143   1144   1145   1146   1147   1148   1149   1150   1151   1152   1153   1154   1155   1156   1157   1158   1159   >>   >|  
social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission. Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the charge of having made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual careers may open before them, nor how accessible the tempting prizes of human ambition may become. Well, the day came,--the _dies irae_ for one side or the other, and it proved to be for the "one." The measure was defeated. Ten thousand votes were for it, twenty thousand against it. Women remained at the polls all day, distributing ballots, and answering objections. They had flowers on all the little tables where the tickets were heaped, on which were printed the three words, "Woman Suffrage Approved," words for
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1110   1111   1112   1113   1114   1115   1116   1117   1118   1119   1120   1121   1122   1123   1124   1125   1126   1127   1128   1129   1130   1131   1132   1133   1134  
1135   1136   1137   1138   1139   1140   1141   1142   1143   1144   1145   1146   1147   1148   1149   1150   1151   1152   1153   1154   1155   1156   1157   1158   1159   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

matter

 

society

 

thousand

 

response

 
natural
 
running
 

parallel

 

vocation

 

instinct

 

literature


irresistible
 

yearning

 
Motherhood
 
unconscious
 

mighty

 
matrimony
 

floating

 

writers

 
ballots
 
distributing

answering

 

objections

 
remained
 

twenty

 
flowers
 
Suffrage
 

Approved

 
printed
 
heaped
 

tables


tickets
 
defeated
 

accessible

 

tempting

 

careers

 

political

 

freedom

 

alluringly

 

individual

 

prizes


proved
 

measure

 

reasoning

 
ambition
 
compassionated
 

minister

 

shunned

 

regarded

 

anxieties

 
inevitably