“It may make this of some women, just as of some men,” said I. “But all men do not take any great interest in politics; it is very difficult to get some of the best of them to do their duty in voting, and the same will be found true among women.”
“But, after all,” said Bob, “what do you gain? What will a woman’s vote be but a duplicate of that of her husband or father, or whatever man happens to be her adviser?”
“That may be true on a variety of questions; but there are subjects on which the vote of women would, I think, be essentially different from that of men. On the subjects of temperance, public morals, and education, I have no doubt that the introduction of the female vote into legislation, in States, counties, and cities, would produce results very different from that of men alone. There are thousands of women who would close grog-shops, and stop the traffic in spirits, if they had the legislative power; and it would be well for society if they had. In fact, I think that a State can no more afford to dispense with the vote of women in its affairs than a family. Imagine a family where the female has no voice in the housekeeping! A State is but a larger family, and there are many of its concerns which, equally with those of a private household, would be bettered by female supervision.”
“But fancy women going to those horrible voting-places! It is more than I can do myself,” said Bob.
“But you forget,” said I, “that they are horrible and disgusting principally because women never go to them. All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order. When a man can walk up to the ballot-box with his wife or his sister on his arm, voting-places will be far more agreeable 253 than now, and the polls will not be such bear-gardens that refined men will be constantly tempted to omit their political duties there.
“If for nothing else, I would have women vote, that the business of voting may not be so disagreeable and intolerable to men of refinement as it now is; and I sincerely believe that the cause of good morals, good order, cleanliness, and public health would be a gainer not merely by the added feminine vote, but by the added vote of a great many excellent but too fastidious men, who are now kept from the polls by the disagreeables they meet there.
“Do you suppose that, if women had equal representation with men in the municipal laws of New York, its reputation for filth during the last year would have gone so far beyond that of Cologne, or any other city renowned for bad smells? I trow not. I believe a lady mayoress would have brought in a dispensation of brooms and whitewash, and made a terrible searching into dark holes and vile corners, before now. Female New York, I have faith to believe, has yet left in her enough of the primary instincts of womanhood to give us a clean, healthy city, if female votes had any power to do it.”
“But,” said Bob, “you forget that voting would bring together all the women of the lower classes.”
“Yes; but, thanks to the instincts of their sex, they would come in their Sunday clothes; for where is the woman that hasn’t her finery, and will not embrace every chance to show it? Biddy’s parasol, and hat with pink ribbons, would necessitate a clean shirt in Pat as much as on Sunday. Voting would become a fête, and we should have a population at the polls as well-dressed as at church. Such is my belief.”
“I do not see,” said Bob, “but you go to the full extent with our modern female reformers.”