Josiah Allen on the Woman Question

by Marietta Holley

I said the words and paused for a reply. The kitchen wuz clean and cozy, the cheerful fire blazed; Samantha sot with smooth hair and serene face in a new gingham dress and white apron, choppin' some cabbage and celery for a salad; all wuz peace and happiness.

As I spoke the fateful words it seemed as if old Nater herself wuz listenin' and peakin' in through the kitchen door to see what would happen. What would be the effect on Samantha? I dreaded, yet waited for the result. Would she overwhelm me with reproaches and entreaties to stop and not ruin her sect? Would she be overcome and swoon away? And the appaulin' thought come to me onbid, if she did who would finish up the dinner? As I asked the question she paused with the choppin' knife in her hand and sez:

"When I wuz a girl we had a Debatin' School, and there wuz one feller that we always tried to git on the side opposite to us, his talk and arguments wuz such a help to us. I hain't no objections to your writin' the book, Josiah." And then she resoomed her work with her linement cam as ever. I felt relieved, but couldn't see what sot her off to tellin' that old story at this juncter, and can't to this day, but set it down to female's inability to grasp holt of important questions, and answer 'em in a straightforward way as males do.

I knowed when I begun my great work of stompin' out Woman's Suffrage that I must proceed careful; wimmen had clogged up the road to Truth and Reason so with their fool arguments, lectures, parades, etc., I must plough through 'em and make my way clear every step I took so no clackin' arguin' female could rise up and dispute 'em.

I laid out to chase females back to the very beginin', and there in the dim light of the dawnin' day of Time to grasp holt of the unanswerable argument that proves to every reasonable mind wimmen's inferiority and man's greatness. And then chase 'em back agin through the centuries up to the present time, and there corner 'em and break down their flimsy arguments of equality, and crush 'em forever. And make an end to this male disturbin', world opsettin' bizness of Wimmen's Rights. And in divin' back into history as fur as I've doven I want to give suitable credit to my chumb, Uncle Simon Bentley. Bein' a bacheldor without no hamperin' female ties drawin' on him and holdin' him back, he's had more time than I have to devote to arjous study and research on the subject, and has been a help to me. Not but what I could have equalled him or gone ahead on him if I'd been foot-loose. But Samantha and the barn stock wuz on my back, and fambly cares kep' me down. But after he mentioned to me certain things he had studied out, I told him I had thought of them very things more than one hundred times, but hadn't had time to write 'em down.

Why, in the very first beginin' of time, we find the great fact that smashes female equality down into the dirt where it belongs. We find that wimmen wuz made and manufactured jest because men wuz kinder lonesome. As Uncle Sime well sez, "It wuz jest a happen that wimmen wuz made at all. Adam happened to feel kinder lonesome alone on that big farm, and probable needed wimmen's help. And he happened to have a extra rib he could spare as well as not, and so wimmen wuz made out of that spare rib. But," sez Uncle Sime, "Adam would have been as well agin off if Eve hadn't been made, and I should have told him so if I had been there." Sez he bitterly, "Men hain't been lonesome since wimmen wuz made. Oh, no! she has kep' her clack goin', and kep' men's noses down on the grindstun ever sence."

"Well," sez I, "Simon, it wuz noble in Adam to be willin' to lose one of his ribs to make her, for who knows to what hites men might have riz up if he hadn't parted with it. If us men have riz up to such a hite with one rib lackin' who knows how fur we should have gone up with the hull on 'em."

"That hain't the pint," sez Uncle Sime. "The pint is, how dast wimmen feel so big and claim to be equal to us men, when they think how, and why, and what out of they wuz created. Wimmen ort to feel thankful and grateful to men that she wuz made at all. How would she felt if she hadn't been made? I guess she would feel pretty cheap and not put on so many airs, and be hikein' round preachin' to her superiors."

In his excitement Uncle Sime had enunciated that crushin' argument in a ruther loud tone. We wuz settin' on the back stoop and Samantha comin' out to shake the table-cloth must have hearn it. But instead of actin' humiliated and crushed by that masterly argument she looked at us kinder queer over her specs, folded her table-cloth camly and said nothin'.