t is an idea not peculiar
to enlightened people. The savages believe it, and many of them believe
that she is only a pretty beast without a soul that is given to man to
bear his burdens. Among savage, barbarous, and half-civilized people,
woman's inferiority is never questioned. The idea is entertained in its
bald usurpation and black injustice without a questioning thought. Among
us it is covered over a little with cotton beauty and rolled up in
sugar-plum sweetness so the woman will bear it a little better. Our
women are tickled with the idea that they are the _beauty_. Our public
speakers, lecturers, papers, speak of the audiences of _intelligence_
and _beauty_, meaning by _intelligence_ the men and by _beauty_ the
women; a deep insult to the woman-mind.

I freely admit that the mass of men in our country do possess more
intelligence than the women; but the reason is not because of woman's
inferiority, but because of her oppression and want of opportunity. She
has not had half a chance. She has been shut out from almost every field
of intellectual labor, barred from every position of trust and profit,
laughed at by baby men and silly women if she attempted to devote her
life to intellectual pursuits, opposed with the most barbarous legal
disabilities and the still more barbarous incubus of public opinion. Yet
notwithstanding all this oppression and want of opportunity, she has
shown a quickness of perception, an intuitive acumen, a sharpness of
forecast and solidity of judgment that among nearly all married men has
made her opinion a matter of great importance. Few are the married men
that are willing to risk a disrespect of their wives' judgment in any
important matter. An eminent lawyer of Virginia once told me that but
twice in his married life had he acted counter to his wife's advice, and
in both instances his judgment failed and hers was right. Many men have
found their wives' intuitive judgment so correct that they dare not
resist it, as though it were the utterings of an oracle. It is well
known that such men as Bonaparte and Jackson have relied with great
confidence upon their wives' opinions. So universal is this opinion
among men, that all our best moralists and most sage philosophers advise
all married men to consult their wives on all important matters, and to
be very cautious about resisting the settled convictions of woman, not
as a matter of courtesy or policy, but because of the accurate
perceptions