Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost AdvocatesJohnson, Helen Kendrick
History
Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Johnson, Helen Kendrick
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
These doctrines--from those of Frances Wright to those of Mrs. Stanton and
Miss Anthony--were put forth in the name of social purity and true
marriage. A great body of Suffragists never have accepted them. They were
repugnant, in this form, to a majority who were demanding "equal rights."
In January, 1871, Mr. Hooker (husband of Isabella Beecher Hooker), said in
the New York Evening Post: "The persons who advocate easy divorce would
advocate it just as strongly if there was no Suffrage movement. The two
have no necessary connection. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments in
favor of Woman Suffrage is, that the marriage relation will be safer with
women to vote and legislate upon it than where the voting and legislation
are left wholly to men. Women will always be wives and mothers, above all
things else. This law of nature cannot be changed, and I know of nobody
who desires to change it." As he had just been referring to "persons who
advocated easy divorce," and who originated the Suffrage movement, his
statement that he knew of nobody who desired to change marriage seems
funny.
It was one of the matters remarked upon with satisfaction by Suffrage
leaders during our Constitutional Convention Suffrage campaign, that such
a large number of speakers advocated Suffrage because of its advantage to
the home. Mrs. Cora Seabury said: "Where woman is, homes naturally exist,
and not without her. The 'divine veracity in nature,' which in her case
has survived the chaos of ages and the varying civilization of six
thousand years, is not now to be disproved by an incident comparatively so
trivial as that of taking the ballot." Dr. Jacobi puts the idea in this
way: "Mr. Goldwin Smith declares that woman suffrage aims at such a
'sexual revolution' as must cause the 'dissolution of the family.' The
Suffrage claim does not aim at this; it seeks only to formulate,
recognize, and define the revolution already effected, yet which leaves
the family intact. The _Patria Potestas_ is gone. A man has lost, first,
the right to kill his own son, then the right to order the marriage of his
daughter, then the right to absorb the property of his wife. Nevertheless,
he survives, and the family, shorn of its portentous rights, bids fair in
America to remain the happiest of all conceivable natural institutions;
more profound than society, so immeasurably deeper than politics that the
fortunate wife, daughter, or sister is puzzled when the two are mentioned
in the same breath."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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