CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL ENFRANCHISEMENT AND NATIONAL POLITICS
‘Well done, New Zealand! I expect I shall live to have a vote.’—E. M. I., 1891.
‘I envy not in any mood
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods.’
‘So the vote has come! and for our work. Fancy its having taken the war to show them how ready we were to work! Or even to show that that work was necessary. Where do they think the world would have been without women’s work all these ages?’—E. M. I., Reni, Russia, June 1917.
Mr. David Inglis, writing to his son on his marriage in 1845, says:—
‘I cannot express the deep interest, or the ardent hopes with which my bosom is filled on the occasion, or the earnest though humble prayer to the Giver of all good which it has uttered that He may shed abundantly upon you both the rich mercies of His grace: with those feelings I take each of you to my heart, and give you my parental love and blessing. You have told me enough of the object of your fond choice to make her henceforth dear to me, to all of us, on her own account, as well as yours.
‘And here, my beloved David, I would turn for a moment more immediately to yourself, as being now in a situation very different from that in which you have hitherto been placed. As a husband, then, it will now behove you to remember that you are not your own exclusive property—that for a single moment you must never forget; the tender love and affectionate respect and consideration which are due from you to the amiable individual who has bestowed on you her hand and heart, it will, I assure myself, be your pleasing duty to prove, by unceasing attention to, and solicitude for, her every wish how dearly you appreciate her worth, as well as gift; and that her future comfort and happiness will invariably possess an estimation in your view paramount to every feeling that can more immediately or personally affect yourself. Let such be manifest in your every act, as connected with every object in which she is concerned. Her love and affection for you will then be reciprocal and pure and lasting, and thus will you become to each other what, under God’s blessing, you are meant to be—a mutual comfort and an abiding stay. Make her the confidential friend of your bosom, to whom its every thought must unreservedly be imparted—the soother of all its cares, its anxieties, and disappointments, when they chance to arise; the fond participator in all your happiness and joys, from whatever source they may spring—you will thus be discharging a duty which your sacred obligations at the altar have entailed upon you.’
This letter has been quoted with its phrasing of seventy years ago, because it shows an advanced outlook on the position of husband and wife, and the setting forth of their equality and the respect paid to their several positions. It may have influenced Mr. Inglis’ views, both in his perfect relations with his wife and the sympathetic liberty of thought and action which he encouraged in his own family.