Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Josephine K. Henry, Frances E. Willard, Eva A.
Ingersoll, Mary A. Livermore, Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Mrs. Jacob
Bright, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Anonymous, Rev. Phebe A.
Hanaford, Ednah D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,
Alice Stone Blackwell, Ursula N. Gestefeld, E. M., Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Sarah M. Perkins, and Catharine F. Stebbins.
Resolution
Of
National-American Woman Suffrage Association repudiating "The Woman's
Bible," and Speech of Susan B. Anthony.
Dedicated To The Memory Of
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
In Whose Death We Lost The Ablest Member Of Our Revising Committee.
PREFACE TO PART II.
The criticisms on "The Woman's Bible" are as varied as they are unreasonable. Both friend and foe object to the title. When John Stuart Mill wrote his "Subjection of Woman" there was a great outcry against that title. He said that proved it to be a good one. The critics said: "It will suggest to women that they are in subjection and make them rebellious." "That," said he, "is just the effect I wish to produce." Rider Haggard's "She" was denounced so universally that every one read it to see who "She" was. Thus the title in both cases called attention to the book.
The critics say that our title should have been "Commentaries on the Bible." That would have been misleading, as the book simply contains short comments on the passages referring to woman. Some say that it should have been "The Women of the Bible;" but several books with that title have already been published. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage says: "You might as well have a 'Shoemakers' Bible'; the Scriptures apply to women as we'll as to men." As the Bible treats women as of a different class, inferior to man or in subjection to him, which is not the case with shoemakers, Mr. Talmage's criticism has no significance.