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Female Suffrage: a Letter to the Christian Women of America By: Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894) |
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by Susan Fenimore Cooper A LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF AMERICA. Part I.
{Publisher's Note} [NOTE. We have printed this Letter, which will be
continued in our next Number, not as an expression of our own views,
but simply as the plea of an earnest and thoughtful Christian woman
addressed to her fellow countrywomen. EDITOR OF HARPER.] The natural position of woman is clearly, to a limited degree, a
subordinate one. Such it has always been throughout the world, in all
ages, and in many widely different conditions of society. There are
three conclusive reasons why we should expect it to continue so for the
future. FIRST. Woman in natural physical strength is so greatly inferior to man
that she is entirely in his power, quite incapable of self defense,
trusting to his generosity for protection. In savage life this great
superiority of physical strength makes man the absolute master, woman
the abject slave. And, although every successive step in civilisation
lessens the distance between the sexes, and renders the situation of
woman safer and easier, still, in no state of society, however highly
cultivated, has perfect equality yet existed. This difference in
physical strength must, in itself, always prevent such perfect
equality, since woman is compelled every day of her life to appeal to
man for protection, and for support. SECONDLY. Woman is also, though in a very much less degree, inferior to
man in intellect. The difference in this particular may very probably
be only a consequence of greater physical strength, giving greater
power of endurance and increase of force to the intellectual faculty
connected with it. In many cases, as between the best individual minds
of both sexes, the difference is no doubt very slight. There have been
women of a very high order of genius; there have been very many women
of great talent; and, as regards what is commonly called cleverness, a
general quickness and clearness of mind within limited bounds, the
number of clever women may possibly have been even larger than that of
clever men. But, taking the one infallible rule for our guide, judging
of the tree by its fruits, we are met by the fact that the greatest
achievements of the race in every field of intellectual culture have
been the work of man. It is true that the advantages of intellectual
education have been, until recently, very generally on the side of man;
had those advantages been always equal, women would no doubt have had
much more of success to record. But this same fact of inferiority of
education becomes in itself one proof of the existence of a certain
degree of mental inequality. What has been the cause of this
inferiority of education? Why has not woman educated herself in past
ages, as man has done? Is it the opposition of man, and the power which
physical strength gives him, which have been the impediments? Had these
been the only obstacles, and had that general and entire equality of
intellect existed between the sexes, which we find proclaimed to day by
some writers, and by many talkers, the genius of women would have
opened a road through these and all other difficulties much more
frequently than it has yet done. At this very hour, instead of
defending the intellect of women, just half our writing and talking
would be required to defend the intellect of men. But, so long as
woman, as a sex, has not provided for herself the same advanced
intellectual education to the same extent as men, and so long as
inferiority of intellect in man has never yet in thousands of years
been gravely discussed, while the inferiority of intellect in woman has
been during the same period generally admitted, we are compelled to
believe there is some foundation for this last opinion. The extent of
this difference, the interval that exists between the sexes, the
precise degree of inferiority on the part of women, will probably never
be satisfactorily proved. Believing then in the greater physical powers of man, and in his
superiority, to a limited extent, in intellect also, as two sufficient
reasons for the natural subordination of woman as a sex, we have yet a
third reason for this subordination... Continue reading book >>
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