Women in Finance—See [Business, Religion in].
Women in Persia—See [Persia, Moslem Situation in].
WOMEN, INJUSTICE TO
She was a woman, worn and thin, whom the world condemned for a single sin; they cast her out of the king’s highway and passed her by as they went to pray. He was a man, and more to blame, but the world spared him a breath of shame; beneath his feet he saw her lie, but he raised his head and passed her by. They were the people who went to pray at the temple of God on the holy day. They scorned the woman, forgave the man. It was ever thus since the world began. Time passed on, and the woman died, on the cross of shame was crucified; but the world was stern and would not yield, and they buried her in the potter’s field. The man died, too; and they buried him in a casket of cloth with a silver rim, and said, as they turned from his grave away: “We’ve buried an honest man to-day.” Two mortals knocked at heaven’s gate and stood face to face to inquire their fate. He carried a passport with earthly sign, and she a pardon from Love divine. O, we who judge ’twixt virtue and vice, which think ye entered paradise? Not he whom the world had said would win, for the woman alone was ushered in.
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WOMEN JUDGING WOMEN
At a large dinner party in Washington, a lady sitting next to William M. Evarts, then Secretary of State, said to him: “Mr. Evarts, don’t you think that a woman is the best judge of other women?” “Ah, madam,” said Mr. Evarts, “she is not only the best judge, but the best executioner.”
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WOMEN, WARLIKE
In warlike times, when battle was the business of life and victory over a foe the highest honor that could be had, when home in the true sense there was none, and when castles were less houses for pleasant living than strongholds to shelter raiders and resist assault, women were as heroic as their age. If they were not so accurate in their aim as the archers, of whom it was said every English bowman “bore under his girdle twenty-four Scots,” they knew how to man the ramparts and defend the bridges as well as their lords themselves. Womanliness in the bower, dignity in the hall, courage in the castle—that was the whole duty of these noble women of a rude but manly age, and to their example, their influence and their shaping power as mothers England owes much of her greatness and half of her strength. Letting Boadicea pass as an example of the feminine fighting blood, we find in Dame Nicola de Camville an early specimen of the warlike political woman. She took the royal side in the famous war with the barons, and held Lincoln Castle against Gilbert de Gaunt, first for King John and afterward for Henry III, till the battle called Lincoln Fair broke her power. The beautiful Countess of Salisbury, she who was so ardently beloved by the third Edward, was another instance of feminine daring, in her case coupled with the loveliest and most graceful sweetness. Black Agnes was again a heroine of the virago type, and Queen Philippa, Queen Margaret, and others of the same kind honored their adopted nationality by their courage and devotion. Meaner women were as brave. In a skirmish at Naworth (1570) Leonard Dacres had in his army “many desperate women, who there gave the adventure of their lives and fought right stoutly.”—The Fortnightly Review.