“You would hire one, would you? a woman don’t lose her dignity and modesty a racin’ round tryin’ to get married, does she? Oh no,” says I, as sarcastic as sarcastic could be, and then I added sternly, “If it ever does come in fashion to hire husbands by the year, I know of one that could be rented cheap, if his wife had the proceeds and avails in a pecuniary sense.”
He looked almost mortified, but still he murmur’d as if mechanically. “It is wimmen’s place to marry and not to vote.”
“Josiah Allen,” says I, “Anybody would think to hear you talk that a woman couldn’t do but just one of the two things any way—marry or vote, and had got to take her choice of the two at the pint of the bayonet. And anybody would think to hear you go on, that if a women could live in any other way, she wouldn’t be married, and you couldn’t get her to.” Says I, looking at him shrewdly, “if marryin’ is such a dreadful nice thing for wimmen I don’t see what you are afraid of. You men act kinder guilty about it, and I don’t wonder at it, for take a bad husband, and thier haint no kind of slavery to be compared to wife slavery. It is jest as natural for a mean, cowardly man to want to abuse and tyranize over them that they can, them that are dependent on ’em, as for a noble and generous man to want to protect them that are weak and in their power. Figurin’ accordin’ to the closest rule of arithmetic, there are at least one-third mean, dissopated, drunken men in the world, and they most all have wives, and let them tread on these wives ever so hard, if they only tread accordin’ to law, she can’t escape. And suppose she tries to escape, blood-hounds haint half so bitter as public opinion on a women that parts with her husband, chains and handcuffs haint to be compared to her pride, and her love for her children, and so she keeps still, and suffers agony enough to make four first class martyrs. Field slaves have a few hours for rest at night, and a hope, to kinder boy them up, of gettin’ a better master. But the wife slave has no hope of a change of masters, and let him be ever so degraded and brutal is at his mercy day and night. Men seem to be awful afraid that wimmen won’t be so fierce for marryin’ anybody, for a home and a support, if they can support themselves independent, and be jest as respectable in the eyes of the world. But,” says I,
“In them days when men and wimmen are both independent—free and equal, they will marry in the only true way—from love and not from necessity. They will marry because God will join their two hearts and hands so you can’t get ’em apart no how. But to hear you talk Josiah Allen, anybody would think that there wouldn’t another woman marry on earth, if they could get rid of it, and support themselves without it.” And then I added, fixin’ my keen grey eyes upon his’en. “You act guilty about it Josiah Allen. But,” says I, “just so long as the sun shines down upon the earth and the earth answers back to it, blowin’ all out full of beauty—Jest so long as the moon looks down lovin’ly upon old ocien makin’ her heart beat the faster, jest so long will the hearts and souls God made for each other, answer to each other’s call. God’s laws can’t be repealed, Josiah Allen, they wasn’t made in Washington, D. C.”
I hardly ever see a man quail more than he did, and to tell the truth, I guess I never had been quite so eloquent in all the 14 years we had lived together—I felt so eloquent that I couldn’t stop myself and I went on.
“When did you ever see a couple that hated each other, or didn’t care for each other, but what their children, was either jest as mean as pusley—or else wilted and unhappy lookin’ like a potato sprout in a dark suller? What that potato sprout wants is sunshine, Josiah Allen. What them children wants is love. The fact is love is what makes a home—I don’t care whether its walls are white, stone, marble or bass wood. If there haint a face to the winder a waitin’ for you, when you have been off to the store, what good does all your things do you, though you have traded off ten pounds of butter? A lot of folks may get together in a big splendid house, and be called by the same name, and eat and sleep under the same roof till they die, and call it home, but if love don’t board with ’em, give me an umbrella and a stump. But the children of these marriages that I speak of, when they see such perfect harmony of mind and heart in their father and mother, when they have been brought up in such a warm, bright, happy home—they can’t no more help growin’ up sweet, and noble, and happy, than your wheat can help growin’ up straight and green when the warm rain and the sunshine falls on it. These children, Josiah Allen, are the future men and wimmens who are goin’ to put their shoulder blades to the wheel and roll this world straight into millenium.” Says Josiah,
“Wimmen are too good to vote with us men, wimmen haint much more nor less than angels any way.”
When you have been soarin’ in eloquence, it is always hard to be brought down sudden—it hurts you to light—and this speech sickened me, and says I, in a tone so cold that he shivered imperceptibly.
“Josiah Allen, there is one angel that would be glad to have a little wood got for her to get dinner with, there is one angel that cut every stick of wood she burnt yesterday, that same angel doin’ a big washin’ at the same time,” and says I, repeatin’ the words, as I glanced at the beef over the cold and chilly stove, “I should like a handful of wood Josiah Allen.”