Josiah Allen on the Woman Question

by Marietta Holley

Sez I, "It hain't enough for her to spend money like water on her bridge parties, and maskerades, and theatre and tango parties, but she has to rack what little brain she's got, tryin' to git up new follies that other wimmen hain't thought on; she has to have her dog parties, and monkey parties, when them animals come dressed like human bein's with human folks to wait on 'em. Thank Heaven! you can't say but what male men would look down with abhorrence on such fool doin's."

But Samantha sez, "Id'no, take a stag party sometimes—mebby in the beginin' them stags might be able to look down on the monkeys, but after high-balls and cock-tails and gallons of shampain has been consumed, Id'no whether them stags could look down on sober temperate monkeys, or the monkeys look down on them, though no doubt some of the stags behave and can see straight."

I scorned to notice this slur onto my sect, brung up I knowed to make me swurve from my subject, but it didn't make me swurve a inch. I went right on and brung up wimmen's extravagance in their houses.

Sez I, "Look at her gorgeous Brussels carpets, her draperies hangin' from elegant brass poles, her superb black walnut furniture, her glossy black hair-cloth sofias and easy chairs, a perfect riot of extravagance, Samantha. Who can blame a man from kickin' agin it, kickin'," sez I, "with the hull strength of a outraged nater and a number nine shue."

"No doubt," sez Samantha, "wimmen are sometimes extravagant in makin' their homes beautiful, but their families and admirin' friends benefit by it. And how duz her velvet carpets and Persian rugs, her rose-wood furniture, statuary, and costly pictures and silken draperies compare with men's outlay and extravagance in Public Buildings; for instance, the Capitol at Albany; wimmen have had nothing to do with that, and I guess her most extravagant doin's in her house will compare favorably with the millions men have spent in that house for years, and no sign of there ever bein' an end to it."

I knowed by the look on her linement that she meant to intimidate that there had been shiftlessnes and stealin' goin' on in that direction, and in other public works through the country, but I refused to notice the slur on my sect. That slur that females love to sling at us and which we'd better treat with silent contemp, jest as I did now, for no knowin' if we'd stoop to argy with 'em about it, what figgers and statistics they may bring up, to prove their slurs, so as I say I passed it over with silent disdain, but I sez in a safe general way, fur removed from probable figgers she would be apt to throw at me to prove her reckless insertions, I sez, puttin' a sad look onto my linement:

"Wimmen's extravagance makes the heart of man to ache and often drives him to a ontimely tomb, strivin' for fashionable display, strivin' for rights she don't need." And bein' anxious to change the subject at that juncter (I always think it is best to change the flow of my thought occasionally) I put on a sort of a solemn, fraid look on my linement, "Such talk as you wimmen talk is revolutionary, Samantha, and is liable to lead to war."

And then, if you'll believe it, so contrary and hard to conquer is females, she took advantage of that speech of mine to invay on the expenditure of war. She asked me then and there how many billions wuz spent every year by male men on the extravagance of man-made war, its preperation and consequences.

I told her coldly and with a irony as iron as our old cook stove, that as much as she expected of me, she couldn't expect me to figger up to a cent what war had cost the nation. Sez I, "With the barn chores on my hands, and my great work of destroyin' Woman's Suffrage do you expect me to keep track of every cent the nation has spent on war?"