The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 45, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 9, 1893 Page: 1 of 16
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I
"Organime, Educate, Co-Operate.**
Official Journal of the Farmers State Alliance of Texas.
"Liberty, Justice, Equality.'
Vol. XH, No. 45.
DALLAS, TEXAS NOVEMBER 9, 1893,
Whole No. 61<>
tr
)
THE COMINO WOMAN.
GRACE DANFORTH.
The womanhood of the past is
the product of man's tenure of
power. The civilization of the past
is the out come of conditions wboee
highest tiibunal was force. Muscle
held undisputed sway till gun-
powder in a measure compen
sated for physical inquality
and constituted mankind po-
litical equals. During this reign
of force, non-combatants—women
and slaves—were held at tñe
mercy of the fighting eliment.
Chattle slavery was the first to
yield to the growing sense of jus-
tice, because its violation oí hu
man rights cou'd be most easily
demonstrated. Society was ac-
customed to the disabilities sur-
rounding woman, and she herself
had been schooled to accept an
inferior position. During a reign
of force she can hardly occupy any
other. But, what gunpowder did
for man in the political arena, ma-
chinery is accomplishing for
woman in the industrial field. The
reign of force, left woman econom-
ically dependent upon man. It
left him in possession of every
avenue of remunerated labor. In
these enforced relations a most
dangerous possibility developed
into a degrading fact. Woman be-
come subservient through selfish
interests and man become master-
ful through the money power
While the man pockets the family
income, the woman is allowed her
board and clothes at the descretion
of the man. Man has taught
woman that she has been set aside
by nature for his especial gratifi-
cation, amusement and pleasure,
and he holds her to this destiny
by economic dependence.
But the greatest injury be-
queathed by the past, is a false
idea of womanhood, the outcome
of the unequal relation of the sexes.
The ideal woman of the past, is a
masculine creation and she always
comes forth in the form of a
virgin. The virgin figure has
been made the ideal form of wo-
man, and she has tortured her
anatomy to meet its rfquirements.
In China, men require a small
foot, in America a small waist, and
in both countries woman's health
pays the penalty of the effort to
meet the demand. Men deplore
the present condition of things,
especially when they find their
homes turned into private hospit-
als and themselves peoned to the
medical fraternity. They do not
realize it is their narrow policy to
a load to be carried, instead of
being man'p helpmeet as God in-
tended her to be.
With the b*st intentions, man
has unconciously followed his sel
fish iostincts in dealing with wo-
man. Instead of leaving her free
to develop according to nature,
he has undertaken the task him
self and made a failure of it. Such
traits as he found conducive to his
comfort and convenience, he cul-
tivated in her education. Flattery
was found more efficious than
force to attain his his ends. Call-
ing her "angel" and "godess," he
maid her his cheerful unpaid hand-
maiden and kitchen skullion. Save
as a law-maker, man is not born to
any cast in life, but every woman
comes into the world a possible
cook, and an unpaid one in ad
dition.
But the march of time was edu-
cating man, and he realized a mo-
nopoly of education was not con-
ducive to the advancement of the
race. He tired of the simpering
thing that performed his houe
work, and ran up bills at the
millinery and dry goods establish-
ments. Against inherited preju-
dice he sent h^to school, and there
the the mischief commenced, for
she commenced to think for herself.
Then'thejindustrial world opened a
crack in its door to receive her.
Not on the broad principle that
every laborer who contributes to
the wealth of the world is worthy
his hire, but in the beaten paths
of remunerated work, she was to
compete with man. Capital found
it paid to employ women and
children at half price, and the
country was flooded with tramps.
Necessity aroused, conceived the
justice of ''equal work for equal
pay" and the sex line gave place
to justice in the realm of economies.
Here woman has held her place
creditably, though often compelled
to do the house-work, she is con-
sidered born to do, in addition to
a man's work in the shop, with the
disadvantage of a costume that vio-
lates every law of health, and is
fit only for the parlor. Even
with the partial advantages se-
cured, the womanhood of the future
is developing upon lines diverg-
ing widely from those of the past.
The woman who holds a forty
dollar job is hesitating before sur
rendering it to become the unpaid
servant of a ten dollar man. Tne
woman of the past looked to man
merely, while woman of the future,
from the vantage ground of eco-
nomic independence will demand
¡manhood. Men generally realize
wards woman that is rendering her this, and unconciously they divide
themselves into three classes:
First, those opposed to woman's
advancement from education in
old ideas, and who have not inves-
tigated the subject. Second, those
who are conscious that if woman is
emancipated from legal disabilities
she will be weighed in the bal-
ances and found wanting. Third,
those who are so conscious of innate
manhood they do not fear getting
left in an even race with woman-
hood The economic arrangements
of the past enabled man to make
demands of woman. She had to
come to his standard. Economic
independence for woman will en-
able her to make demands of man,
and pursue her development in
her own way. The man of the
past demanded that woman be
virtuous. The woman of the fu-
ture, will require of man that he
be sober, or he will be weighed in
the balances of economic inde-
pendence and found wanting.
The spirit of chivalry knelt at
the shrine of woman, pleading for
the longed for ''yes," while its
economic system left her no choice
in the matter, and man, with his
logical brain could not see what
burlesque in the name of justice he
had created. Its outcome agreed
perfectly with the theory that
woman was created for man, and
he could not realize until, too late,
that the system had given him an
unwilling slave, instead of a glad
wife.
The greatest injury the past
dealt woman, was to exhalt vir-
ginity above maternity. The ideal
woman of the past, comes always
in the proportions of maidenhood.
The virginity of the mother of
Christ always ranks above her
maternity. She is not known as
the "mother," but as the "virgin."
To the man, the maiden is an ob-
ject of pursuit, while a wife has
tbree-fourths of lur attractions ex-
tinguished by possession and fa-
miliarity. So permeated is so-
ciety with the superior attractions
of maidenhood, every woman must
appear in the proportions of youth
as nearly as sbe can confine her
self to its outlines. Man has taught
this lesson so thoroughly to woman
she does not hesitate to immolate
health, and even the little life en-
trusted to her keeping, on the
sbrine of maidenly proportions.
The sum and substance of the les-
son of the the past to woman has
been, that she must look inviting to
man, and all too well has she
learned the lesson.
The emancipated woman of the
future will develop on lines which
nature, and not man,has prescribed
for her, and the coming woman will
be a mother and not a maiden.
Man feared nature had done her
work so poorly that, freed from the
heavy hand of the law to hold her
to it, woman would desert the
cradle. Marriage is arranged so as
to suit man's taste. He cannot see
it is not motherhood, but the man-
made laws surrounding her, that
makes woman accept as a cross
that which ought to be a crown.
Woman herself, does not realize
that it is not motherhood, but the
the inequality of the marriage re-
lation that repulses her.
The woman of the future, with
mother-love, freo to assert itself,
who is mistress of herself, and not
the legal slave of some man, will
protect the rights of childhood as
the past has never done. 8hb will
see that every child that has ex-
istence thrust upon it, has a father
as well as a mother. She will
realize that this little one she is to
crotvn with life, has the inalien-
able right to be well-born, and she
will not barter away its birthright
for that social requirement—a
maiden's form. She will recon-
struct her wardrobe on lines of
utility, feeling confident she has
the same right to consult her anat-
omy and make herself comfortable
that man has. Not for man's
pleasure and attraction, but for her
own convenience, and the sacred
rights of unborn generations, will
she clothe herself.
Economic independence will
place her above the necessity of
contracting marriage "for revenue
only." The ambition of the woman
of the future will aim higher than
merely being supported by a man,
called a husband. Neither will
the press of the future consider it
an absolute necessity, in every
personal item, to refer to her as
"beautiful and accomplished." It
will be recognized, that she has a
grander destiny than mere perso-
nal beauty, and that so-called ac-
compliphments are but the gilding
chains that enslave. The social-
ism of the future will settle the
servant girl problem by reorganiz-
ing the house-work on co-operative
principles. Motherhood will not
be so burdened with the cares of
house-keeping; childhood will not
present the awful death rate of
fifty per cent before the age of five.
Machinery will free woman, to
where she can rear her own baby,
and not delegate the task to Mel-
in's food and the doctor. She will
learn to look forward, not to mar-
riage, but to the coming of that
baby as the crowning glory of her
womanhood. Her education will
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 45, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 9, 1893, newspaper, November 9, 1893; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185538/m1/1/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .