Samantha on the Woman Question, Marietta Holley [epub ebook reader .txt] 📗

“Edgar Allan Poe’s genius wuz worthy a place among the Immortals, no doubt; his poems and stories excite wonder and admiration. But do they move the soul like Mrs. Stowe’s immortal story that thrilled the world and helped free a race?—yes, two races—for the curse of slavery held the white race in bondage, too. Yet she and her three or four woman companions face the stormy winds in an out-of-the-way corner, while Poe occupies his honorable sightly place among his fifty or more male companions.

“Wimmen have always been admonished to not strive for right and justice but to lean on men’s generosity and chivalry. Here wuz a place where that chivalry would have shone, but it didn’t seem to materialize, and if wimmen had leaned on it, it would have proved a weak staff, indeed.

“Such things as this are constantly occurring and show plain that wimmen needs the ballot to protect her from all sorts of wrongs and indignities. Men take wimmen’s money, as they did here, and use it to uplift themselves, and lower her, like taxin’ her heavily and often unjustly and usin’ this money to help forward unjust laws which she abominates. And so it goes on, and will, until women are men’s equals legally and politically.”

“Ahem—you present things in a new light. I never looked at this matter with your eyes.”

“No, you looked at ’em through a man’s eyes; such things are so customary that men do ’em without thinkin’, from habit and custom, like hushin’ up children’s talk, when they interrupt grown-ups.”

Agin he sot demute for a short space, and then said, “I feel that natural human instinct is aginst the change. In savage races that knew nothin’ of civilization, male force and strength always ruled.”

“Why,” sez I, “history tells us of savage races where wimmen always rule, though I don’t think they ort to—ability and goodness ort to rule.”

“Nature is aginst it,” sez he.

But I sez firmly, “Bees and lots of other insects and animals always have a female for queen and ruler. They rule blindly and entirely, right on through the centuries, but we are enlightened and should not encourage it. In my opinion the male bee has just as good a right to be monarch as his female pardner has, if he is as good and knows as much. I never believed in the female workin’ ones killin’ off the male drones to save winterin’ ’em; they might give ’em some light chores to do round the hive to pay for their board. I love justice and that would be my way.”

Agin he sithed. “Modern history don’t seem to favor the scheme—” But his axent wuz as weak as a cat and his boughten smile seemed crackin’ and wearin’ out; he knowed better.

Sez I, “We won’t argy long on that p’int, for I might overwhelm you if I approved of overwhelmin’, but, will merely ask you to cast one eye on England. Was the rain of Victoria the Good less peaceful and prosperous than that of the male rulers who preceded her? And you can then throw your other eye over to Holland: is their sweet queen less worthy and beloved to-day than other European monarchs? And is her throne more shaky and tottlin’ than theirn?”

He didn’t try to dispute me and bowed his head on his breast in a almost meachin’ way. He knowed he wuz beat on every side, and almost to the end of his chain of rusty, broken old arguments. But anon he brightened up agin and sez, ketchin’ holt of the last shackly link of his argument:

“You seem to place a great deal of dependence on the Bible. The Bible is aginst the idee. The Bible teaches man’s supremacy, man’s absolute power and might and authority.”

“Why, how you talk,” sez I. “In the very first chapter the Bible tells how man wuz turned right round by a woman, tells how she not only turned man round to do as she wanted him to, but turned the hull world over.

“That hain’t nothin’ I approve of; I don’t speak of it because I like the idee. That wuzn’t done in a open honorable manner as things should be done. No, Eve ruled by indirect influence, the gently influencing men way, that politicians are so fond of. And she brought ruin and destruction onto the hull world by it.

“A few years later when men and wimmen grew wiser, when we hear of wimmen rulin’ Israel openly and honestly, like Miriam, Deborah and other likely old four mothers, things went on better. They didn’t act meachin’ and tempt, and act indirect.”

He sithed powerful and sot round oneasy in his chair. And sez he, “I thought wimmen wuz taught by the Bible to serve and love their homes.”

“So they be. And every true woman loves to serve. Home is my supreme happiness and delight, and my best happiness is found in servin’ them I love. But I must tell the truth, in the house or outdoors.”

Sez he faintly, “The Old Testament may teach that women have some strength and power. But in the New Testament in every great undertaken’ and plan men have been chosen by God to carry them through.”

“Why-ee!” sez I, “how you talk! Have you ever read the Bible?”

He said evasively, his grandmother owned one, and he had seen it in early youth. And then he went on in a sort of apologizin’ way. He had always meant to read it, but he had entered political life at an early age where the Bible wuzn’t popular, and he believed that he had never read further than the Epistles of Gulliver to the Liliputians.

Sez I, “That hain’t Bible, there hain’t no Gulliver in it, and you mean Galatians.”

Well, he said, that might be it, it wuz some man he knew, and he had always heard and believed that man wuz the only worker that God had chosen.

“Why,” sez I, “the one great theme of the New Testament—the salvation of the world through the birth of Christ—no man had anything to do with. Our divine Lord wuz born of God and Woman. Heavenly plan of redemption for fallen humanity. God Himself called woman into that work, the divine work of saving a world, and why shouldn’t she continue in it? God called her. Mary had no dream of publicity, no desire of a world’s work of suffering and renunciation. The soft air of Galilee wropped her about in its sweet content, as she dreamed her quiet dreams in maiden peace—dreamed, perhaps, of domestic love and happiness.

“From that sweetest silence, the restful peace of happy innocent girlhood, God called her to her divine work of helpin’ redeem a world from sin. And did not this woman’s love and willin’ obedience, and sufferin’ set her apart, baptize her for this work of liftin’ up the fallen, helpin’ the weak?

“He’d entered political life where the Bible wuzn’t popular; he’d never read further than Gulliver’s Epistle to the Liliputians.”

“Is it not a part of woman’s life that she gave at the birth and crucifixion? Her faith, her hope, her sufferin’, her glow of divine pity and joyful martyrdom. These, mingled with the divine, the pure heavenly, have they not for nineteen hundred years been blessin’ the world? The God in Christ would awe us too much; we would shield our eyes from the too blindin’ glory of the pure God-like. But the tender Christ who wept over a sinful city, and the grave of His friend, who stopped dyin’ on the cross to comfort His mother’s heart, provide for her future—it is this womanly element in our Lord’s nature that makes us dare to approach Him, dare to kneel at His feet?

“And since woman wuz so blessed as to be counted worthy to be co-worker with God in the beginnin’ of the world’s redemption; since He called her from the quiet obscurity of womanly rest and peace into the blessed martyrdom of renunciation and toil and sufferin’, all to help a world that cared nothin’ for her, that cried out shame upon her.

“He will help her carry on the work of helpin’ a sinful world. He will protect her in it, she cannot be harmed or hindered, for the cause she loves of helpin’ men and wimmen, is God’s cause too, and God will take care of His own. Herods full of greed and frightened selfishness may try to break her heart by efforts to kill the child she loves, but she will hold it so clost to her bosom he can’t destroy it; and the light of the Divine will go before her, showin’ the way through the desert and wilderness mebby, but she shall bear it into safety.”

“You spoke of Herod,” sez he dreamily, “the name sounds familiar to me. Was not Mr. Herod once in the United States Senate?”

“Not that one,” sez I. “He died some time ago, but I guess he has relatives there now, judgin’ from laws made there. You ask who Herod wuz, and as it all seems a new story to you, I will tell you. When the Saviour of the world wuz born in Bethlehem, and a woman wuz tryin’ to save His life, a man by the name of Herod wuz tryin’ his best out of selfishness and greed to murder Him.”

“Ah! that was not right in Herod.”

“No, it hain’t been called so. And what wuzn’t right in him hain’t right in his relations who are tryin’ to do the same thing to-day. Sellin’ for money the right to destroy the child the mother carries on her heart. Surroundin’ him with temptations so murderous, yet so enticin’ to youthful spirits, that the mother feels that as the laws are now, the grave is the only place of safety that God Himself can find for her boy. But because Herod wuz so mean it hain’t no sign that all men are mean. Joseph wuz as likely as he could be.”

“Joseph?” sez he pensively. “Do you allude to our venerable speaker, Joe Cannon?”

“No,” sez I. “I’m talkin’ Bible—I’m talkin’ about Joseph; jest plain Joseph.”

“Ah! I see. I am not fully familiar with that work. Being so engrossed in politics, and political literature, I don’t git any time to devote to less important publications.”

Sez I candidly, “I knew you hadn’t read it the minute you mentioned the book of Liliputians. But as I wuz sayin’, Joseph wuz a likely man. He had the strength to lead the way, overcome obstacles, keep dangers from Mary, protect her tenderer form with the mantilly of his generous devotion.

“But she carried the Child on her bosom; ponderin’ high things in her heart that Joseph never dreamed of. That is what is wanted now, and in the future. The man and the woman walkin’ side by side. He a little ahead, mebby, to keep off dangers by his greater strength and courage. She a-carryin’ the infant Christ of Love, bearin’ the baby Peace in her bosom, carryin’ it into safety from them that seek to destroy it.

“And as I said before, if God called woman into this work, He will enable her to carry it through. He will protect her from her own weaknesses, and the misapprehensions and hard judgments and injustices of a gain-sayin’ world.

“Yes, the star of hope is risin’ in the sky brighter and brighter, and wise men are even now comin’ to the mother of the new Redeemer, led by the star.”

He sot demute. Silence rained for some time; and finally I spoke out solemnly through the rain:

“Will you do Serepta’s errents? Will you give her her rights? And will you break the Whiskey Ring?”

He said he would love to do the errents, I had convinced him that it would be just and right to do ’em, but the Constitution of the United States stood up firm aginst ’em. As the laws of the United States wuz, he could not make any move toward doin’ either of the errents.

Sez I, “Can’t the laws be changed?”

“Be changed? Change the laws of the United States? Tamper with the glorious Constitution that our fore-fathers left us—an immortal sacred legacy.”

He jumped up on his feet and his second-hand smile fell off. He kinder shook as if he wuz skairt most to death and tremblin’ with horrow. He did it to skair me, I knew, but I knowed I meant well towards the Constitution and our old forefathers; and my principles stiddied me and held me firm and serene. And when he asked me agin in tones full of awe and horrow:

“Can it be that I heard my ear aright? Or did you speak of changin’ the unalterable laws of the United States—tampering with the Constitution?”

“Yes, that is what I said. Hain’t they never