Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage

by Catharine Esther Beecher

It is this comprehensive view of the family state

as organized to train immortal minds for the eternal world that indicates the reason for the stringency of the teachings of our Lord as to the indissoluble union of man and wife in marriage.

"And he said unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away doth commit adultery."

"Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder."

This then is "the higher law" which abrogates all contrary human statutes and forbids to marry more than once, except when death or adultery breaks the bond. This statute brings all the advocates of free divorce in direct antagonism with the teachings of Jesus Christ. And it is a striking fact that the great body of those who advocate free divorce and free love, deny the authority of Jesus Christ as the authorized teacher of faith and morals.

In the discussions as to woman's rights and wrongs, it is assumed on one side that she is not to take a subordinate position either in the family or the State. And the apparent plausibility of the claim is owing to a want of logical clearness in the use of words. When it is said that "all men are created free and equal and equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that women as much as men are included, it is true in one use of terms and false in another. It is true in this sense, that woman's happiness and usefulness are equal in value to man's, and ought to be so treated. But it is not true that women are and should be treated as the equals of men in every respect. They certainly are not his equals in physical power, which is the final resort in government of both the family and the State. And it is owing to this fact that she is placed as a subordinate both in the family and the State. At the same time it is required of man who is holding "the higher powers" so to administer that woman shall have equal advantages with man for usefulness and happiness.

Hitherto the laws relating to women in the civil

state have been formed on the assumption that society is a combination of families, in each of which the husband and father is the representative head, and the one who, it is supposed, will secure all that is just and proper for the protection and well being of wife and daughters. And if the teachings of Christianity were dominant, and every man loved his wife as himself, and was ready to sacrifice himself and suffer for her elevation and improvement, even as Christ suffered to redeem and purify the Church, there would be no trouble.

But both men and women have been selfish and sinful, neither party having attained the high ideal of Christianity, and very many have not even understood it so as to aim at it. But it is woman's mission as the educator of the race to remedy the evil, not by giving up the ideal but by striving more and more to conform herself and all under her care to its blessed outlines. And in past times those families have been the most peaceful and prosperous where the wife and mother has most faithfully aimed to obey the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, in this as in every other direction.