Woman
Dublin Core
Title
Woman
Subject
Philosophy
Creator
[Unknown]
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
May, 1883
Contributor
Maegan Stebbins, Dan Whitley
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
Essay
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.2, no.5 (May 1883), p.4
Coverage
none
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
WOMAN.
In the remote ages of antiquity, woman knew not the protection of civil laws and it was only by special favor, that she was allowed to enter the temples of the Olymphian deities. But during the Middle Ages, that fruiting season of modern progress, there arose a monk in holy orders, distinguished for learning and piety, who though threatened with all the horrors of excomunication [sic] cast aside the superstition of the Papal Hierarchy, and turned the Calcium light of his revelation upon astonished Europe. This reformer among other innovations, entered into the married state, thereby giving to reformed christianity [sic] the guardianship over woman, and from that time woman has been ascending, ‘til to-day she stands upon an eminence never before attained.-- Yet it was accomplished only by embroiling nations in long and dreadful
conflict. It would indeed be well if social changes could be consummated with the same autumnal stillness and silence in which nature works her transformations. And long ago had this reform been accomplished, had “statesmen been prescient[sic] and nations just." An enchanting story is the legend of home life. Woman's gentle influence is the only charm which binds the magic spell, and if this influence be lost the spell is forever broken. The estimate set upon woman is a fair type of a nations[sic] worth. The mussul-man [sic] guards his Circassian beauty with an ever watchful eye, veiled closely in the luxurious bondage of seragalio and baren. The German complacently orders his faithful frau, as though she were his servant. The Frenchmen leers at his dark eyed Grisette in the Latin Quarter, and compliments her to her own destinction; with Rosseaus[sic] phrases, he plays masterly upon the strings of woman's high toned sensibilities, as upon a harp, and wakes a chord responsive to the syren tenor of his venturious love. Compared with any one of these, the American is infinitely superior. He has a chivalric and christian [sic] regard for woman, for she is to him
"As a thing ensked and sainted,
By her renouncement, an immortal spirit,
And to he talked with in sincerity,
As with a saint."
It has been decreed by the divine law, “that by the sweat of his brow man shall earn his bread." And while the nobler and major part of men are laboring under this command, is it not fit that the nobler portlon [sic] of woman kind should endeavor to smoothe the care-wrinkled brow, and revive the very spirit, not with the cloudy indifference of a vain aspiration, but with the sunshine of an ardent love? The honey-bee when sunshine falls mellow on the fields humming harmoniously it rolls in and out of the beds of blooms ever storing its little bag with juicy sweetness, and when replete with the nectar poured by an omnipotent hand into the flower cups, it wings its flight straight back perfumed to some lonely hollow in a distant tree, or to a hive fashioned for her by, man, the divinely appointed laborer.
Like the honey-bee is woman,
Like the toiling ant is man,
Like the ant engineering his mine, man, ever exposed to night and cold pilots the ship of State. Like the bee bearing its sweetness into the gum tree or into man's square-fashioned hive woman must carry her honied sweetness into the cabin of that ship, there to enliven and cheer, whether in calm or, tempest, during the voyage of life.
Woman in her true sphere, striving to attain "one feast, one home, one mutual happiness," is indeed to be admired and loved, but woman pondering on the wild chimeras of "Free Love" and "Woman Suffrage," breaks the “silve[sic] cord" and makes her a subject of reproach.
In reviewing the history of empires, which were great in their time, but now burned in oblivion we cannot fail to see that though the type of government contained a monarchy or despotism, the sensual vices sapping at its foundations it was not till a Cleopatra, a Poppea, a Mary, Queen of Scots, or a Madame de Pompadour, succeeded to the throne or held the reins of government, that proud empires fell and kingdoms tumbled headlong into destruction.
The Ptolemic dynasty ceased to reign and Egypt became forever enslaved. Rome, through the laxity of her divorce laws, the Floralia and the Gladatorial [sic] sports, soon lost her proud preeminence. Scotland lost her unity and dwindled down into an insignificant portion of the British Empire, while the lillies of France became as scarlet and the Tricolor of the republic floated over the ancient capital of the Bourbons.— Looking at the highest type of government, the republic, we fail to see when woman has risen to political ascendency. She sat not in the venerable council of the Amphiktions, when Grecian valor, art, and virtue were at their zenith; for[sic] has she ascended the rostrum begirt by myriad clients, nor clad in purple toga passed sentence upon the acts of haughty but rapacious Procounsals. Nor in our day, is the woman of the American Republic expected to ascend the marble step of the nation's capitol, and swear in justice's frowning presence, to guard a people’s trust inviolate.
No Republics, the divinest type of government, have another and a brither sphere of woman.
Republics honor and exalt her;
Kingdoms leer and degrade her.
When "the blind bard of Scio's rocks isle," sang by the Ægean wave the tale of Troy divine, poetic mythology claimed for its deites [sic] no spirituality that rose above the limits of Olympus.
So, as we said in the beginning, woman’s true sphere is home, and she should not let vain hallucinations carry her too far beyond its boundaries; but like Cornelia let all he[sic] political greatness be reflected in her sons, the galaxy of patriotic statesmen, who'll shine resplendant in the political firmament.— Emulate the "mother of the Gracchi;” train up sons to become the champions of Agrarian laws, tribunes to the people, ready if necessary to sacrifice their lives for the principles of justice and liberty.
In the remote ages of antiquity, woman knew not the protection of civil laws and it was only by special favor, that she was allowed to enter the temples of the Olymphian deities. But during the Middle Ages, that fruiting season of modern progress, there arose a monk in holy orders, distinguished for learning and piety, who though threatened with all the horrors of excomunication [sic] cast aside the superstition of the Papal Hierarchy, and turned the Calcium light of his revelation upon astonished Europe. This reformer among other innovations, entered into the married state, thereby giving to reformed christianity [sic] the guardianship over woman, and from that time woman has been ascending, ‘til to-day she stands upon an eminence never before attained.-- Yet it was accomplished only by embroiling nations in long and dreadful
conflict. It would indeed be well if social changes could be consummated with the same autumnal stillness and silence in which nature works her transformations. And long ago had this reform been accomplished, had “statesmen been prescient[sic] and nations just." An enchanting story is the legend of home life. Woman's gentle influence is the only charm which binds the magic spell, and if this influence be lost the spell is forever broken. The estimate set upon woman is a fair type of a nations[sic] worth. The mussul-man [sic] guards his Circassian beauty with an ever watchful eye, veiled closely in the luxurious bondage of seragalio and baren. The German complacently orders his faithful frau, as though she were his servant. The Frenchmen leers at his dark eyed Grisette in the Latin Quarter, and compliments her to her own destinction; with Rosseaus[sic] phrases, he plays masterly upon the strings of woman's high toned sensibilities, as upon a harp, and wakes a chord responsive to the syren tenor of his venturious love. Compared with any one of these, the American is infinitely superior. He has a chivalric and christian [sic] regard for woman, for she is to him
"As a thing ensked and sainted,
By her renouncement, an immortal spirit,
And to he talked with in sincerity,
As with a saint."
It has been decreed by the divine law, “that by the sweat of his brow man shall earn his bread." And while the nobler and major part of men are laboring under this command, is it not fit that the nobler portlon [sic] of woman kind should endeavor to smoothe the care-wrinkled brow, and revive the very spirit, not with the cloudy indifference of a vain aspiration, but with the sunshine of an ardent love? The honey-bee when sunshine falls mellow on the fields humming harmoniously it rolls in and out of the beds of blooms ever storing its little bag with juicy sweetness, and when replete with the nectar poured by an omnipotent hand into the flower cups, it wings its flight straight back perfumed to some lonely hollow in a distant tree, or to a hive fashioned for her by, man, the divinely appointed laborer.
Like the honey-bee is woman,
Like the toiling ant is man,
Like the ant engineering his mine, man, ever exposed to night and cold pilots the ship of State. Like the bee bearing its sweetness into the gum tree or into man's square-fashioned hive woman must carry her honied sweetness into the cabin of that ship, there to enliven and cheer, whether in calm or, tempest, during the voyage of life.
Woman in her true sphere, striving to attain "one feast, one home, one mutual happiness," is indeed to be admired and loved, but woman pondering on the wild chimeras of "Free Love" and "Woman Suffrage," breaks the “silve[sic] cord" and makes her a subject of reproach.
In reviewing the history of empires, which were great in their time, but now burned in oblivion we cannot fail to see that though the type of government contained a monarchy or despotism, the sensual vices sapping at its foundations it was not till a Cleopatra, a Poppea, a Mary, Queen of Scots, or a Madame de Pompadour, succeeded to the throne or held the reins of government, that proud empires fell and kingdoms tumbled headlong into destruction.
The Ptolemic dynasty ceased to reign and Egypt became forever enslaved. Rome, through the laxity of her divorce laws, the Floralia and the Gladatorial [sic] sports, soon lost her proud preeminence. Scotland lost her unity and dwindled down into an insignificant portion of the British Empire, while the lillies of France became as scarlet and the Tricolor of the republic floated over the ancient capital of the Bourbons.— Looking at the highest type of government, the republic, we fail to see when woman has risen to political ascendency. She sat not in the venerable council of the Amphiktions, when Grecian valor, art, and virtue were at their zenith; for[sic] has she ascended the rostrum begirt by myriad clients, nor clad in purple toga passed sentence upon the acts of haughty but rapacious Procounsals. Nor in our day, is the woman of the American Republic expected to ascend the marble step of the nation's capitol, and swear in justice's frowning presence, to guard a people’s trust inviolate.
No Republics, the divinest type of government, have another and a brither sphere of woman.
Republics honor and exalt her;
Kingdoms leer and degrade her.
When "the blind bard of Scio's rocks isle," sang by the Ægean wave the tale of Troy divine, poetic mythology claimed for its deites [sic] no spirituality that rose above the limits of Olympus.
So, as we said in the beginning, woman’s true sphere is home, and she should not let vain hallucinations carry her too far beyond its boundaries; but like Cornelia let all he[sic] political greatness be reflected in her sons, the galaxy of patriotic statesmen, who'll shine resplendant in the political firmament.— Emulate the "mother of the Gracchi;” train up sons to become the champions of Agrarian laws, tribunes to the people, ready if necessary to sacrifice their lives for the principles of justice and liberty.
