WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
It has been my aim, in this short history of the growth of women's rights, to depict for the most part the strictly legal aspect of the matter; but from time to time I have interposed some typical illustration of public opinion, in order to bring into greater prominence the ferment that was going on or the misery which existed behind the scenes. A history of legal processes might otherwise, from the coldness of the laws, give few hints of the conflicts of human passion which combined to set those processes in motion. Before I present the history of the progress of women's rights in the United States, I shall place before the reader some extracts which are typical and truly representative of the opposition which from the beginning of the agitation to the present day has voiced itself in all ranks of life. Let the reader bear carefully in mind that from 1837 to the beginning of the twentieth century such abuse as that which I shall quote as typical was hurled from ten thousand throats of men and women unceasingly; that Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Gage were hissed, insulted, and offered physical violence by mobs in New York[[410]] and Boston to an extent inconceivable in this age; and that the marvellously unselfish labour of such women as these whom I have mentioned and of men like Wendell Phillips is alone responsible for the improvement in the legal status of women, which I propose to trace in detail. Some expressions of the popular attitude follow:
Examples of opposition to women's rights.
From a speech of the Rev. Knox-Little at the Church of St. Clements in Philadelphia in 1880: "God made himself to be born of a woman to sanctify the virtue of endurance; loving submission is an attribute of a woman; men are logical, but women, lacking this quality, have an intricacy of thought. There are those who think women can be taught logic; this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by men, but they have a quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping at conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have distinctive traits of a woman, namely, endurance, loving submission, and quickness of apprehension. Wifehood is the crowning glory of a woman. In it she is bound for all time. To her husband she owes the duty of unqualified obedience. There is no crime which a man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or wicked man, she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him never. Let divorce be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it, curse it! Think of the blessedness of having children. I am the father of many children and there have been those who have ventured to pity me. 'Keep your pity for yourself,' I have replied, 'they never cost me a single pang.' In this matter let woman exercise that endurance and loving submission which, with intricacy of thought, are their only characteristics."
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger and Daily Transcript, July 20, 1848: "Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as wit, vivacity, and good nature. Who ever heard of a Philadelphia lady setting up for a reformer or standing out for woman's rights, or assisting to man the election grounds [sic], raise a regiment, command a legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher ambition. They soar to rule the hearts of their worshippers, and secure obedience by the sceptre of affection.... But all women are not as reasonable as ours of Philadelphia. The Boston ladies contend for the rights of women. The New York girls aspire to mount the rostrum, to do all the voting, and, we suppose, all the fighting, too.... Our Philadelphia girls object to fighting and holding office. They prefer the baby-jumper to the study of Coke and Lyttleton, and the ball-room to the Palo Alto battle. They object to having a George Sand for President of the United States; a Corinna for Governor; a Fanny Wright for Mayor; or a Mrs. Partington for Postmaster.... Women have enough influence over human affairs without being politicians.... A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, all powerful.... The ladies of Philadelphia, therefore, under the influence of the most 'sober second thoughts' are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as Women."
From the "Editor's Table" of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November, 1853: "Woman's Rights, or the movement that goes under that name, may seem to some too trifling in itself and too much connected with ludicrous associations to be made the subject of serious arguments. If nothing else, however, should give it consequence, it would demand our earnest attention from its intimate connection with all the radical and infidel movements of the day. A strange affinity seems to bind them all together.... But not to dwell on this remarkable connection—the claim of 'woman's rights' presents not only the common radical notion which underlies the whole class, but also a peculiar enormity of its own; in some respects more boldly infidel, or defiant both of nature and revelation, than that which characterises any kindred measure. It is avowedly opposed to the most time-honoured proprieties of social life; it is opposed to nature; it is opposed to revelation.... This unblushing female Socialism defies alike apostles and prophets. In this respect no kindred movement is so decidedly infidel, so rancorously and avowedly anti-biblical.
"It is equally opposed to nature and the established order of society founded upon it. We do not intend to go into any physiological argument. There is one broad striking fact in the constitution of the human species which ought to set the question at rest for ever. This is the fact of maternity.... From this there arise, in the first place, physical impediments which, during the best part of the female life, are absolutely insurmountable, except at a sacrifice of almost everything that distinguishes the civilized human from the animal, or beastly, and savage state. As a secondary, yet inevitably resulting consequence, there come domestic and social hindrances which still more completely draw the line between the male and female duties.... Every attempt to break through them, therefore, must be pronounced as unnatural as it is irreligious and profane.... The most serious importance of this modern 'woman's rights' doctrine is derived from its direct bearing upon the marriage institution. The blindest must see that such a change as is proposed in the relations and life of the sexes cannot leave either marriage or the family in their present state. It must vitally affect, and in time wholly sever, that oneness which has ever been at the foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive declaration in Genesis to the latest decision of the common law. This idea gone—and it is totally at war with the modern theory of 'woman's rights'—marriage is reduced to the nature of a contract simply.... That which has no higher sanction than the will of the contracting parties, must, of course, be at any time revocable by the same authority that first created it. That which makes no change in the personal relations, the personal rights, the personal duties, is not the holy marriage union, but the unholy alliance of concubinage."
In a speech of Senator George G. Vest, of Missouri, in the United States Senate, January 25, 1887, these: "I now propose to read from a pamphlet sent to me by a lady.... She says to her own sex: 'After all, men work for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange without us.'
"Oh, how true that is, how true!"
In 1890 a bill was introduced in the New York Senate to lower the "age of consent"—the age at which a girl may legally consent to sexual intercourse—from 16 to 14. It failed. In 1892 the brothel keepers tried again in the Assembly. The bill was about to be carried by universal consent when the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, feeling the importance of the measure, called for the individual yeas and nays, in order that the constituents of the representatives might know how their legislators voted. The bill thereupon collapsed. In 1889 a motion was made in the Kansas Senate to lower the age of consent from 18 to 12. But the public heard of it; protests flowed in; and under the pressure of these the law was allowed to remain as it was.