Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York —— is always throwing a blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel shirts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is not coarse for you to scramble at a matinee for seats, and elbow and jostle, and push men's hats awry—oh, no! that's legitimate—but to subject yourself to this kind of thing at the ballot-box, would be to forfeit man's love, and soil both your skirts and reputation.
[WOMAN'S MILLENNIUM.]
HURRAH for Massachusetts! Read this:
"Chief Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, made short work with a divorce case which came before him at Springfield a day or two ago. It was an application of a wife for a divorce from her husband, on the ground of extreme cruelty. It coming up in testimony that the woman had been beaten and otherwise ill-used by her husband, the Judge at once decided the case in her favor, taking occasion to remark that in case of any violence by a husband to the wife, he should not hear all the points before deciding in favor of the latter. The woman might forgive cruelty toward herself, but the court would not."
Now that's what I call a righteous decision. Let all the wives with bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised hearts are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened State. Here's a man who is just to a woman. Think of the rarity of the thing! Compliments, and flattery, and gifts we can all have, till we get to be old women, and some of us afterwards; but justice, Messieurs! ah! that's quite another thing. Female eyes have grown dim looking for that, all through the ages. Men start up from their tobacco-torpor nowadays and ask, angrily, what means this present restlessness of American women? This wide and deep-spread discontent, which heaves to and fro, developing itself in a thousand different forms? My grandmother was contented enough. My aunt never looked beyond her own family. Are you quite sure of the first, and does the latter deserve praise or blame for the pin-measure view of the world to which she, the God-appointed instructor and guide of future men and women, chooses to limit herself? Has she a right to launch them on the turbulent ocean of life, with only one poor miserable broken oar to paddle their way? Such women are not praiseworthy; no more than they who, busying themselves in public affairs, leave their children to "come up" as chance or accident dictates. Are you quite sure, too, that because only lately this "wail of discontent" has reached your ear, that it has not been stifled under thousands of tombstones? Ah, well I remember when too young to know what life meant for a woman, hearing one who I have since learned had suffered and forgiven much, murmur to herself as she wearily laid her head upon her pillow, "God be thanked for sleep and forgetfulness!" and yet not one who saw her smiling face, or heard her cheerful voice, or was charmed with her intelligent conversation, ever dreamed that she was not "a contented wife," as the phrase runs.
And just in this connection I would quote a remark which, for its truth, should be inscribed on the pipe (for there he would oftenest meet it) of every man in the land.
"Only so far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life, and family life in general. Unless he has 'cleared himself up,' as the Germans say, he can at best but enter into ambiguous relations to another. When a man is discordant in himself, he makes all that he comes in contact with discordant."
Now, candidly I ask you, oughtn't that remark to be in the Holy Scriptures? Perhaps you ask if the same is not true of women? I am not such an idiot as to deny that, either; but what I marvel at is this—that it should be such a perfectly natural and eminently righteous thing for a man to halloo to high heaven that his mate is not to his mind, after he has compassed heaven and earth to get her, and such a crime for a woman to be "discontented and restless under similar circumstances".