Josiah Allen on the Woman QuestionHolley, Marietta
General
Josiah Allen on the Woman Question
Holley, Marietta
Feminism -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Sex role -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
But Uncle Sime went on, "Jest think, Josiah, of wimmen's wild and
turbulent doin's and the commotions and troubles and sufferin's wimmen
has caused males, and then think how quiet and peaceable that rib wuz
before it had been meddled with, and brought into the woman question.
A layin' there in Adam's side onquestionin' and cam. Never startin'
up and argyin' with the liver or diafram, never sassin' the spinal
collar, or disputin' the knee jints, that one small bone risin' up, and
demandin' the rights that justly belong to the hull carcass. Oh, what
lessons to female suffragists can be drawed from that scientific fact,
and how fur they can be drawed."
As long as I'd knowed Uncle Sime I never had realized before he wuz
such a deep thinker, and had such a fund of scientific knowledge to
back up his arguments. Of course I had 'em too, all on 'em, layin'
dormer inside on me.
* * * * *
Of course it made a tremendous stir in Jonesville when the startlin'
news got out that I wuz writin' a book agin female suffrage with the
settled intention and firm determination of puttin' an end to it
forever. It lifted me up to such a tottlin' hite in the estimation of
the male Jonesvillians that it would have gin a weaker man the Big
Head and made 'em liable to fall off. But such is my strength of mind
that I kep' cool on the outside, talked in a friendly and patronizin'
way to Samantha and the neighborin' wimmen, associated with the folks
that had the honor to live round me, and wore the same hat. The
Creation Searchin' Society of Jonesville called a special meetin' to
congratulate me and themselves on havin' their views on the inferiority
of wimmen disseminated in my book through the entire habitable globe. I
knowed my beliefs regardin' wimmen wuz the same as theirn, for we had
often laid them views out side by side and compared 'em together. And
Uncle Sime Bentley when I first told him on't shed tears of joy and sez
he:
"At _last_, at _last_ the men of Jonesville, the male men, are goin'
to be hearn from, and did justice to." And he grip holt of my hand in
one of hisen, and with the other he wep' onto his bandanna handkerchief
tears of pure joy and thankfulness.
Deacon Henzy, Solomon Sypher, Deacon Bobbett and a lot of other
bretheren in the meetin' house, talked to me about the forthcomin' book
with a solemn joy and triump in their linements and told me to consider
and weigh well every word I writ, up to the very ounce, "For," sez
they, "the broad onwinkin' eye of the World is on you and in that eye
we male Jonesvillians have been demeaned and lowered and looked down
on by the abominable things that wuz writ by----"
But I riz up my right hand and arm in a noble jester of warn, and sez
I, "Not one word agin Samantha, bretheren, not a word!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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