History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I

by Unknown

I am amazed that, the intelligent women engaged in the "Woman's Rights Movement," see not the relation between their dress and the oppressive evils which they are striving to throw off. I am amazed that they do not see that their dress is indispensable to keep in countenance the policy and purposes out of which those evils grow. I hazard nothing in saying, that the relation between the dress and degradation of an American woman, is as vital as between the cramped foot and degradation of a Chinese woman; as vital as between the uses of the inmate of the harem and the apparel and training provided for her. Moreover, I hazard nothing in saying, that an American woman will never have made her most effectual, nor, indeed, any serviceable protest against the treatment of her sex in China, or by the lords of the harem, so long as she consents to have her own person clothed in ways so repugnant to reason and religion, and grateful only to a vitiated taste, be it in her own or in the other sex.

Women are holding their meetings; and with great ability do they urge their claim to the rights of property and suffrage. But, as in the case of the colored man, the great needed change is in himself, so, also, in the case of woman, the great needed change is in herself. Of what comparative avail would be her exercise of the right of suffrage, if she is still to remain the victim of her present false notions of herself and of her relations to the other sex?—false notions so emphatically represented and perpetuated by her dress? Moreover, to concede to her the rights of property would be to benefit her comparatively little, unless she shall resolve to break out from her clothes-prison, and to undertake right earnestly, as right earnestly as a man, to get property. Solomon says: "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." The adage that knowledge is power, is often repeated; and there are, indeed, many instances to verify it. Nevertheless, as a general proposition, it is a thousandfold more emphatically true that property is power. Knowledge helps to get property, but property is the power. That the slaves are a helpless prey, is chiefly because they are so poor and their masters so rich. The masses almost everywhere are well-nigh powerless, because almost everywhere they are poor. How long will they consent to be poor? Just so long as they shall consent to be robbed of their God-given right to the soil. That women are helpless is no wonder, so long as women are paupers.

As long as woman shall be silly enough to learn her lessons in the schools of gallantry and chivalry, so long will it be the height of her ambition to be a graceful and amiable burden upon the other sex. But as soon as she shall consent to place herself under the instructions of reason and common sense, and to discard, as wholly imaginary, those differences between the nature of man and the nature of woman, out of which have grown innumerable nonsensical doctrines and notions, and all sorts of namby pamby sentiments, so soon will she find that, to no greater extent than men are dependent on each other, are women to foster the idea of their dependence on men. Then, and not till then, will women learn that, to be useful and happy, and to accomplish the high purposes of their being, they must, no less emphatically than men, stand upon their own feet, and work with own hands, and bear the burdens of life with their own strength, and brave its storms with their own resoluteness.

The next "Woman's Rights Convention" will, I take it for granted, differ but little from its predecessors. It will abound in righteous demands and noble sentiments, but not in the evidence that they who enunciate these demands and sentiments are prepared to put themselves in harmony with what they conceive and demand. In a word, for the lack of such preparation and of the deep earnestness, which alone can prompt to such preparation, it will be, as has been every other Woman's Rights Convention, a failure. Could I see it made up of women whose dress would indicate their translation from cowardice to courage; from slavery to freedom; from the kingdom of fancy and fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the common dress, it nevertheless affords not half that freedom of the person which woman is entitled and bound to enjoy. I add, on this point, that however much the dresses of the sexes should resemble each other, decency and virtue and other considerations require that they should be obviously distinguishable from each other.

I am not unaware that such views as I have expressed in this letter will be regarded as serving to break down the characteristic delicacy of woman. I frankly admit that I would have it broken down; and that I would have the artificial and conventional, the nonsensical and pernicious thing give place to the natural delicacy which would be common to both sexes. As the delicacy, which is made peculiar to one of the sexes, is unnatural, and, therefore, false, this, which would be common to both, would be natural, and, therefore, true. I would have no characteristic delicacy of woman, and no characteristic coarseness of man. On the contrary, believing man and woman to have the same nature, and to be therefore under obligation to have the same character, I would subject them to a common standard of morals and manners. The delicacy of man should be no less shrinking than that of woman, and the bravery of woman should be one with the bravery of man. Then would there be a public sentiment very unlike that which now requires the sexes to differ in character, and which, therefore, holds them amenable to different codes—codes that, in their partiality to man, allow him to commit high crimes, and that, in their cruelty to woman, make the bare suspicion of such crimes on her part the justification of her hopeless degradation and ruin.

They who advocate that radical change in her dress which common sense calls for, are infidels in the eyes of such as subscribe to this interpretation of the Bible. For if the Bible teaches that the Heaven-ordained condition of woman is so subordinate and her Heaven-ordained character so mean, then they are infidels who would have her cast aside a dress so becoming that character and condition, and have her put on a dress so entirely at war with her humble nature, as to indicate her conscious equality with man, and her purpose to assert, achieve, and maintain her independence. Alas, how misapprehended are the true objects and true uses of the Bible! That blessed book is given to us, not so much that we may be taught by it what to do, as that we may be urged by its solemn and fearful commands and won by its melting entreaties, to do what we already know we should do. Such, indeed, is the greatest value of its recorded fact that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins. We already know that we should repent of our sins and put them away; and it is this fact which furnishes our strongest possible motive for doing so. But men run to the Bible professedly to be taught their duty in matters where their very instincts—where the laws, written in large, unmistakable, ineffaceable letters upon the very foundations of their being—teach them their duty. I say professedly, for generally it is only so. They run to the Bible, not to learn the truth, but to make the Bible the minister to folly and sin. They run from themselves to the Bible, because they can more easily succeed in twisting its records into the service of their guilty passions and guilty purposes than they can their inflexible convictions. They run to the Bible for a paramount authority that shall override and supplant these uncomfortable convictions. They run from the teachings of their nature and the remonstrances of their consciences to find something more palatable. Hence, we find the rum-drinker, and slaveholder, and polygamist, and other criminals going to the Bible. They go to it for the very purpose of justifying their known sins. But not only may we not go to the Bible to justify what we ourselves have already condemned, but we must not take to the judicature of that book, as an open question, any of the wrongs against which nature and common sense cry out—any of the wrongs which nature and common sense call on us to condemn.

So fraught with evil, and ruinous evil, is this practice, on the part of the Church as well as the world, of inquiring the judgment of the Bible in regard to sins, which the natural and universal conscience condemns, but which the inquirer means to persist in, if only he can get the Bible to testify against his conscience and in favor of his sins; so baleful, I say, is this practice, as to drive me to the conclusion that the Bible can not continue to be a blessing to mankind in spite of it. The practice, in its present wide and well-nigh universal extent, turns the heavenly volume into a curse. Owing to this practice, the Bible is, this day, a hindrance rather than a help to civilization.

But if woman is of the same nature and same dignity with man, and if as much and as varied labor is needed to supply her wants as to supply the wants of man, and if for her to be, as she so emphatically is, poor and destitute and dependent, is as fatal to her happiness and usefulness and to the fulfillment of the high purposes of her existence, as the like circumstances would be to the honor and welfare of man, why then put her in a dress which compels her to be a pauper—a pauper, whether in ribbons or rags? Why, I ask, put her in a dress suited only to those occasional and brief moods, in which man regards her as his darling, his idol, and his angel; or to that general state of his mind in which he looks upon her as his servant, and with feelings certainly much nearer contempt than adoration. Strive as you will to elevate woman, nevertheless the disabilities and degradation of this dress, together with that large group of false views of the uses of her being and of her relations to man, symbolized and perpetuated, as I have already said, by this dress, will make your striving vain.

Woman must first fight against herself—against personal and mental habits so deep-rooted and controlling, and so seemingly inseparable from herself, as to be mistaken for her very nature. And when she has succeeded there, an easy victory will follow. But where shall be the battle-ground for this indispensable self-conquest? She will laugh at my answer when I tell her, that her dress, aye, her dress, must be that battle-ground. What! no wider, no sublimer field than this to reap her glories in! My further answer is, that if she shall reap them anywhere, she must first reap them there. I add, that her triumph there will be her triumph everywhere; and that her failure there will be her failure everywhere.

Gerrit Smith.