The Prayer of the Modern Woman

By Josephine Conger

(Published in various Suffrage Journals.)

Unbind our hands. We do not ask for favor in this fight

Of human souls for human needs. We ask for naught but right,

That we may throw the burden from our backs, and from our brains

The thrall of servitude. We are so weary of the pains

That crush our hearts and cramp our wills, reducing all desires

To childish whims, while great hopes lie like smould’ring fires

Within our brains, or burst distorted from some weak, unguarded point,

Leaving ruin and anguish in their track. With woman bound, the whole world’s out of joint,

For women are the mothers of the race. We cannot boast

Of natural rights, of liberty, while mothers of the host

Must know they’re classed in common law with idiots and slaves,

Must stand aside with criminals, with imbeciles and knaves.

The sturdy sons nursed at their breast cannot be wholly free,

For what the mother is, the child will in a measure be.

You are not granting Favor when you give us equal power;

The shame is, you’ve withheld from us so long our dower

Of earth’s inheritance. We do not beg for alms, for charity.

We do not want our rights doled out; we want full liberty

To grow, to be, to do our part, as Nature meant we should.

We want a perfect sister-, as well as brother-hood.