In the first place, it is paying no great compliment to man to suppose that God created an inferior to be his companion. But a man, "the creature of God's own image!" And was the material for God's image all worked up in creating Adam? And if so, whose images are the men of to-day, who can't possibly lay claim to more of the original stock than mother Eve, who set up existence with an entire rib! And what has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she was created afterward? If precedence in creation gave any advantage intellectually, the inferior animals may claim superiority of intellect over both man and woman. It would be quite as sound logic to maintain, as some do, that, as last in the series which commenced in nothing (?) and rose by gradations to image God, woman's superiority to all that preceded her in the creation, is probable.... Again, if women have less nerves and muscles, the ox and the ass have a great deal more—while God and angels and disembodied spirits have none at all; so that nerves and muscles are of no more significance in this question of the intellectual equality or inequality of the sexes, than is the beard that grows on a man's face and not on a woman's. And arguments drawn from such premises always remind us of the profound logic of a gentleman we once met in a stage coach, and who is now holding a high office under Government at Washington. He professed to set great store by whiskers and mustaches—he had none himself—and gave as a reason why the beard should be tenderly cherished, that "it was given to man as a badge of his superiority over woman." We were young and mischievous then, and so we told him, most complacently, that the ladies would readily concede the point, and give him the full benefit of his argument and of his beard, since men shared their "badge of superiority" with goats, monkeys, and many other inferior animals. Some fifteen years have passed, but we never think of the honorable gentleman or see his name attached to official reports, without a laugh.
Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into whatsoever she will—that "through him she can and will make the laws." And we only regret that she should speak so lightly of "depositing a little strip of paper in the ballot-box." To us it is a serious thing, that the depositing of that strip of paper gives and takes the rights, whose possession is the means of the highest intellectual and moral culture and enjoyment.—Windom County Democrat, Brattleboro, Vermont.
Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm.
A Mistake.—Dear Brother Wright:—In printing my former letter, there was a mistake made which I intended to let pass; but as some of your cotemporaries have taken an agony over the letter, it may be as well to set it right. The last sentence reads, "Now, I move Grace be let alone, and her moral power be no longer invoked by those who have set her and all the rest of her sex, down on a stool mid-way between free negroes and laborers." I wrote it "between free negroes and baboons," and meant just what I said. Man, in his code of laws, has assigned woman a place somewhere between the rational and irrational creation. Our Constitutions provide that all "free white male citizens" of a certain age shall have a right to vote. Here Indians, negroes, and women stand side by side. Our gallant legislators excluded the "inferior races" from the elective franchise because of their inferiority; and just threw their wives and mothers into the same heap, because of their great superiority! One was excluded because they hated them, the other because they loved them so very well. Yet one sentence covers both cases. Women and negroes stand side by side in this case, and also in that of exclusion from our colleges. A negro can not be admitted into one of our colleges or seminaries of the highest class. Neither can a woman. Witness the refusal of some half dozen of your medical colleges to admit Miss Blackwell.
But free negroes can acquire property, can sell it, keep it, give it away, or divide it. A baboon has no such rights; neither has a woman in her highest state of existence here. The right to acquire and hold property is a distinguishing trait between mankind and the brute creation. Woman is deprived of that distinction; for all that she has and all she can acquire, belongs to her master. Custom says she should be fed and clothed, dandled and fondled, her freaks borne with and her graces admired; it awards the same attentions, in a little different degree, to a pet monkey. So woman has been "set down mid-way between free negroes and baboons."
Jane G. Swisshelm.
Your good-tempered friend and sister,
Borders of Monkeydom, Sept. 28, 1848.
P. S.—There is a man who edits The Sunday Age of New York—H. P. Grattan—who appears to be in a peck of trouble about "Blue-Stocking Effusions" in general, and my letter to you in particular. He says, "We love woman. We bow down to them in adoration. But they have their proper place; but the moment they step from the pedestal upon which heaven stood them, they fail to elicit our admiration," etc. Then, to show what the pedestal is on which he adores them, he adds, "If they gave evidence of a knowledge of puddings and pies, how much happier they might be," in the sunlight of his admiration, of course. Well, freedom of conscience in this free land! The Faithful may bow to his prophet; the Persian adore his sun; the Egyptian may kneel to his crocodile; and why should not Mr. Grattan go into rhapsodies before his cook, as the dispenser of the good things of this life? The good book speaks of "natural brute beasts who make a god of their bellies," and it might be natural to transfer the homage to her who ministers to the stomach. I can see his chosen divinity now, mounted on her "pedestal," a kitchen stool, her implements before her, crowned with a pudding-pan, her sceptre a batter spoon, and Mr. Grattan down, in rapt adoration, with eyes upturned, and looks of piteous pleading! Poor fellow! Do give him his dinner! J. G. S.—Saturday Visitor, Pittsburg, Penn.
Here are some of the titles of editorials and communications in respectable papers all over the country: "Bolting among the Ladies," "Women Out of their Latitude," "Insurrection among the Women," "The Reign of Petticoats," "Office-Seeking Women," "Petticoats vs. Boots." The reader can judge, with such texts for inspiration, what the sermons must have been.