The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. BallotFulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Religion
The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot
Fulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Husband and wife; Women -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Women -- Suffrage
Look at the facts. Who demand the ballot for woman? They are not the
lovers of God, nor are they the believers in Christ, as a class. There
may be exceptions, but the majority prefer an infidel's cheer to the
favor of God and the love of the Christian community. It is because of
this tendency that the majority of those who contend for the ballot
for woman cut loose from the legislation of Heaven, from the
enjoyments of home, and drift to infidelity and ruin.
Our wives and mothers do not ask the ballot. Our young ladies do not
care even to hear the question discussed. They believe that whatever
hinders woman from being the helpmeet of man does her injury. It is
claimed that woman needs the ballot to secure equal laws. This claim
is urged, because, it is said, women are required to obey laws which
they had no share in making. It is a mistaken notion. Woman has had
a share in the legislation of the country. Her influence pervades
society. Let her be true to temperance, and intemperance is
restrained. Let her be true to freedom, and the pulsations of her
heart find their way through the entire framework of society. Let her
be true to her own glorious nature, and this attempt to unsex and
discrown her will meet with the swift and terrible condemnation it
deserves.
Another has said, "The Amazons have often been met with the statement,
that a large majority of the women do not wish to vote, and would
not if they could. The truth of this statement is not denied. The
advocates of the ballot confess that many noble women affect a womanly
horror of being thought strong-minded," and to offset this tendency
they declare it to be the "imperative duty of women to claim the
suffrage." "Does this mean that women are to be coerced in this
matter? that our mothers, wives, and sisters are to be punished for
staying away from the polls? We have never supposed it the imperative
duty of every man to vote. And we know that many of the most
intelligent and upright do not vote. Such is the inexpressible
nastiness of our elections, especially in the larger cities, that men
of the cleanest morals think it right to keep away from them. The
foulest portions of the men go first, stay longest, and stand thickest
at the places of voting. How then will it be when the foulest portion
of the women get packed into the same crowd, and drive modesty away by
the foulness of their speech and presence? When the aggregate filth of
both sexes shall have met together at the polling stations, as it will
be sure to do, we hardly think any chaste or modest home-loving woman
will go near this stench unless compelled to do so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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