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Constitutional Equality a Right of Woman; Or, a Consideration of the Various Relations Which She Sustains as a Necessary Part of the Body of Society ... of the Constitution of the United States,
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172 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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August 5, 2024
New drinking game: Take a shot every time the author of this book uses the word “pharisaical”.
PRO Quotations:
“Nothing can be more fallacious and unfortunate than the proposition that man is entitled to special immunities in transgressing the laws of purity, honor and virtue. Man and woman alike should be amenable to the same judgment of society and law. Man should be held to the same moral law that is now imposed on woman, and the latter should enjoy the same choice of action and occupation that is now accorded to the former. The claim for equality does not imply that she shall wildly and recklessly rush from her present paths into the ways of dissipation and vice which man frequents. It is not an equality of degradation and disgrace that is sought, but one of the noblest developments of her powers and faculties.” (5)
“It cannot be denied that both sexes are born equal, possessed of the same essential germinal qualities of character, conscience and intellect, and entitled to the same blessing of growth and development, the reception of which would conduce to their continual equality. The point of divergence between the sexes, then, commences just were [sic] similarity of education leaves off, where self-reliance is taught the male, and future dependence the female.The legitimate consequence of this teaching is “servitude.” Woman must be grown and educated with the idea of equality always before her, and not the fact that, at some future time, she is to surrender herself into the keeping of a husband, upon whom forever after she is to be dependent.” (6)
“Marriage does not interfere with the general duties of man. He is not educated with the idea before him, that he is preparing to be the husband; from childhood the thought of independence is the main one; he strives to become fitted for some special sphere of action to which his inclinations tend. Let woman pursue the same course; let her learn to be independent; self reliant; self supporting; then she will never be thrown upon the mercy of the world nor driven to conditions against which her soul revolts.” (9)
“This has been: it remains to be determined what shall be, though what is, is ominous of it. Revolutions based upon principles of right never go backward. If they be resisted by conservative indifference or pharisaical godliness, the spirit which compels them will the more certainly destroy the obstacles and their raisers. The demand has been made by woman for equality, in the matter, duties and privileges of life. It will never be recalled until they are fully accorded. The more and longer those who have them at theri command say “No!” the severer will be their reckoning. Gentleman, yield gracefully while you may. If delayed until you must, ti will not be graciously received.” (10-11)
Prophetic…The militant suffragists were soon to come.
“It would be an instructive lesson were all the great attainments made by woman analyzed, to find which were made by her as the woman, and which by her as the wife. It has been the free women who have been great, or those who, by nature, could not be subjugated, even by the marriage contract. It is proverbial that husbands do not wish their wives to become conspicuous, even by great actions. They wish to ever remain the “I am.” Greatness brings honor and homage, which men cannot endure to see paid by others to their wives. In this practice they deny that they have confidence in their wives. When wives are brought into active contact with the world, it has been, and still is, to a great extent, the rule to consider her as “abandoned.” In fact, men make it their special duty to attempt to stigmatize all women who move outside of the specific circle of the wife as “common women.” If they were to be judged by the same rule, it is much to be feared they would generally be found just what they endeavor to make it seem that women are.” (79)
“There seems to be a peculiar sensitiveness on the part of a large majority of men regarding this matter of suffrage for women. They exhibit the same spirit that the slaveholders of the South used to exhibit when the right of slavery was questioned. Let the question be broached, and straightaway they fire up, and show evident symptoms of a design to demolish somebody. The question touches them in a very tender place, and they wince whenever they are touched. Will you explain, gentlemen, why it is that you exhibit so much uneasiness about this matter? The slaveholder had something that emancipation was to take from him. What is it that you have that emancipation of women is going to take from you? Think of it as you may; try to evade it if you can; attempt to ignore it if you will, men do regard women as their subjects, not to say their slaves, and, therefore, when we talk of freedom it touches a power they have exercised over us, which is one they will no sooner give up than the South would give up their negroes. The questions are parallel.” (103) (From an excerpt by Victoria Woodhull within the book, not Tennie Cook.)
“The advocates of equal suffrage advocate it upon the general principles of equality, and affirm that women being equal to men in all general privileges, that it is their right to exercise the right of suffrage which belongs to every American citizen of legal age who has not forfeited it by crime. Whether every woman one-half, one-tenth, or one-hundredth part of women, avail themselves of the right or not is perfectly immaterial. The right exists, and it is theirs to choose whether they shall use it or not; which position is somewhat different, we take it, from that which denies the exercise of an existing right. One is freedom; the other is tyranny. And that is just the difference. With you who retort upon us with this question, we propose you take this consideration home, and when you speak against extending suffrage to women, do not forget that your opponents deal with principles of freedom while you deal with the assumptions of tyranny.” (121)
***
CON Quotations:
“If we do not widely err in tracing effects back to their cause, the chief thing that has caused and is causing domestic infelicity has never yet been touched—has been shut out from sight and consideration. It is the growing aversion on the part of women to bearing children. The means they resort to for their prevention is sufficient to disgust every natural man, and to cause him to seek the companionship of those who have no fear in this regard. [But prostitutes are the last women who would allow themselves to get pregnant.] Every wife should be wise enough to know what the result of this course must be. She should remember it is not in harmony with the general processes of nature, and that it must induce conditions unfavorable to her continuance as the sufficient attraction for the man who has chosen her from among the whole. The trite saying that “there are two sides to all questions” is very applicable to the inharmonious domestic relations of the sexes. Man does not wander from home, wife, and perhaps children, for no cause. There is a beginning to everything short of absolute existence. The basis of the relations of the sexes is in the fact that they are male and female, the union between whom is requisite for the purposes of reproduction. For this end they are male and female, and for this are they brought into the relationship in which so much unhappiness now exists. Here is the primal attraction, and here must we look for the primal causes of separation. With the profound regard for the gravity and delicacy of the question, we ask wives to examine themselves, to see whether the first cause of discontent on the part of husbands, which inclines them to seek other female society, is not their unnatural conduct regarding their special maternal functions?” (28)
“The hue and cry of negro equality, made by those who knew its shallowness, to influence the thoughtless, is now found to have been a myth. They would have persuaded us that, if slavery was abolished, every white daughter would be compelled to mate with an negro, and that every son would incline to color. Slavery is dead, and the negro remains to all purposes the same as he was, except that he is free. He has the rights of a citizen; but the privileges of society he must obtain as others obtain them—by capacity, adaptability and attractability. If your sons and daughters incline to color, it is not because black has been raised to the dignity of white, but because white has descended to the level of black, and for this, if blame is to attach, it should belong to those who had their youth in charge.” [Italics mine.] (35)
“But if we add a modifying clause and say, that she is the greatest woman who bears the largest number of the most perfect children, we should come much nearer expressing the true greatness of woman, in this special sense, than Napoleon did.” (47)
“What we do deprecate, and what we proclaim against, is the false pretence, the appearing to possess it when it is painfully lacking. [Talking about padded hips, makeup, stuffed corsets, etc.] It is this deception so widely practiced that contributes one-half to the unhappiness of married life. It has become so general that men are beginning to fear women when regarding the marriage state. When they marry, they do not know whether they are marrying natural development or that which is basely artificial and deceptive, and they too often awake to find the latter to be the truth.” (56)
“We have no doubt that the noble dames of society, the mincing, supercilious, affected graduations of those hot-houses of female depravity–boarding-schools—with all the ignorant and bigoted, will hold up their hands in holy horror to think that women should so degrade themselves as to attempt to discuss these subjects.” (129)
“Material evolution has ultimated in the production of the human form, and it is made male and female, not by mere chance, but that further, greater and nobler ends may be gained. These ends are arrived at through the union of the sexes and by their reproducing their kind. The grandest purpose of human life, then, must be the reproduction of the most perfect specimens of its kind, and this is the logical deduction to which all sensible, reasoning persons must arrive. If this be so, then nothing should be held so important as a perfect understanding of the laws which control all things which are involved in the processes of nature relating to reproduction.” (134)
“How utterly worthless are the lives of so many mothers, and how devoid of purpose. Just so are their children. In the insane desire for dress and display, which characterizes so many women, lies the bane of life for their children. The cold heartlessness of the woman of fashion contains the germ of destruction for her daughter and the seeds of vice for her son. No warm-hearted, generous-souled children can spring from such soil. It can alone sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind.” (144)
PRO Quotations:
“Nothing can be more fallacious and unfortunate than the proposition that man is entitled to special immunities in transgressing the laws of purity, honor and virtue. Man and woman alike should be amenable to the same judgment of society and law. Man should be held to the same moral law that is now imposed on woman, and the latter should enjoy the same choice of action and occupation that is now accorded to the former. The claim for equality does not imply that she shall wildly and recklessly rush from her present paths into the ways of dissipation and vice which man frequents. It is not an equality of degradation and disgrace that is sought, but one of the noblest developments of her powers and faculties.” (5)
“It cannot be denied that both sexes are born equal, possessed of the same essential germinal qualities of character, conscience and intellect, and entitled to the same blessing of growth and development, the reception of which would conduce to their continual equality. The point of divergence between the sexes, then, commences just were [sic] similarity of education leaves off, where self-reliance is taught the male, and future dependence the female.The legitimate consequence of this teaching is “servitude.” Woman must be grown and educated with the idea of equality always before her, and not the fact that, at some future time, she is to surrender herself into the keeping of a husband, upon whom forever after she is to be dependent.” (6)
“Marriage does not interfere with the general duties of man. He is not educated with the idea before him, that he is preparing to be the husband; from childhood the thought of independence is the main one; he strives to become fitted for some special sphere of action to which his inclinations tend. Let woman pursue the same course; let her learn to be independent; self reliant; self supporting; then she will never be thrown upon the mercy of the world nor driven to conditions against which her soul revolts.” (9)
“This has been: it remains to be determined what shall be, though what is, is ominous of it. Revolutions based upon principles of right never go backward. If they be resisted by conservative indifference or pharisaical godliness, the spirit which compels them will the more certainly destroy the obstacles and their raisers. The demand has been made by woman for equality, in the matter, duties and privileges of life. It will never be recalled until they are fully accorded. The more and longer those who have them at theri command say “No!” the severer will be their reckoning. Gentleman, yield gracefully while you may. If delayed until you must, ti will not be graciously received.” (10-11)
Prophetic…The militant suffragists were soon to come.
“It would be an instructive lesson were all the great attainments made by woman analyzed, to find which were made by her as the woman, and which by her as the wife. It has been the free women who have been great, or those who, by nature, could not be subjugated, even by the marriage contract. It is proverbial that husbands do not wish their wives to become conspicuous, even by great actions. They wish to ever remain the “I am.” Greatness brings honor and homage, which men cannot endure to see paid by others to their wives. In this practice they deny that they have confidence in their wives. When wives are brought into active contact with the world, it has been, and still is, to a great extent, the rule to consider her as “abandoned.” In fact, men make it their special duty to attempt to stigmatize all women who move outside of the specific circle of the wife as “common women.” If they were to be judged by the same rule, it is much to be feared they would generally be found just what they endeavor to make it seem that women are.” (79)
“There seems to be a peculiar sensitiveness on the part of a large majority of men regarding this matter of suffrage for women. They exhibit the same spirit that the slaveholders of the South used to exhibit when the right of slavery was questioned. Let the question be broached, and straightaway they fire up, and show evident symptoms of a design to demolish somebody. The question touches them in a very tender place, and they wince whenever they are touched. Will you explain, gentlemen, why it is that you exhibit so much uneasiness about this matter? The slaveholder had something that emancipation was to take from him. What is it that you have that emancipation of women is going to take from you? Think of it as you may; try to evade it if you can; attempt to ignore it if you will, men do regard women as their subjects, not to say their slaves, and, therefore, when we talk of freedom it touches a power they have exercised over us, which is one they will no sooner give up than the South would give up their negroes. The questions are parallel.” (103) (From an excerpt by Victoria Woodhull within the book, not Tennie Cook.)
“The advocates of equal suffrage advocate it upon the general principles of equality, and affirm that women being equal to men in all general privileges, that it is their right to exercise the right of suffrage which belongs to every American citizen of legal age who has not forfeited it by crime. Whether every woman one-half, one-tenth, or one-hundredth part of women, avail themselves of the right or not is perfectly immaterial. The right exists, and it is theirs to choose whether they shall use it or not; which position is somewhat different, we take it, from that which denies the exercise of an existing right. One is freedom; the other is tyranny. And that is just the difference. With you who retort upon us with this question, we propose you take this consideration home, and when you speak against extending suffrage to women, do not forget that your opponents deal with principles of freedom while you deal with the assumptions of tyranny.” (121)
***
CON Quotations:
“If we do not widely err in tracing effects back to their cause, the chief thing that has caused and is causing domestic infelicity has never yet been touched—has been shut out from sight and consideration. It is the growing aversion on the part of women to bearing children. The means they resort to for their prevention is sufficient to disgust every natural man, and to cause him to seek the companionship of those who have no fear in this regard. [But prostitutes are the last women who would allow themselves to get pregnant.] Every wife should be wise enough to know what the result of this course must be. She should remember it is not in harmony with the general processes of nature, and that it must induce conditions unfavorable to her continuance as the sufficient attraction for the man who has chosen her from among the whole. The trite saying that “there are two sides to all questions” is very applicable to the inharmonious domestic relations of the sexes. Man does not wander from home, wife, and perhaps children, for no cause. There is a beginning to everything short of absolute existence. The basis of the relations of the sexes is in the fact that they are male and female, the union between whom is requisite for the purposes of reproduction. For this end they are male and female, and for this are they brought into the relationship in which so much unhappiness now exists. Here is the primal attraction, and here must we look for the primal causes of separation. With the profound regard for the gravity and delicacy of the question, we ask wives to examine themselves, to see whether the first cause of discontent on the part of husbands, which inclines them to seek other female society, is not their unnatural conduct regarding their special maternal functions?” (28)
“The hue and cry of negro equality, made by those who knew its shallowness, to influence the thoughtless, is now found to have been a myth. They would have persuaded us that, if slavery was abolished, every white daughter would be compelled to mate with an negro, and that every son would incline to color. Slavery is dead, and the negro remains to all purposes the same as he was, except that he is free. He has the rights of a citizen; but the privileges of society he must obtain as others obtain them—by capacity, adaptability and attractability. If your sons and daughters incline to color, it is not because black has been raised to the dignity of white, but because white has descended to the level of black, and for this, if blame is to attach, it should belong to those who had their youth in charge.” [Italics mine.] (35)
“But if we add a modifying clause and say, that she is the greatest woman who bears the largest number of the most perfect children, we should come much nearer expressing the true greatness of woman, in this special sense, than Napoleon did.” (47)
“What we do deprecate, and what we proclaim against, is the false pretence, the appearing to possess it when it is painfully lacking. [Talking about padded hips, makeup, stuffed corsets, etc.] It is this deception so widely practiced that contributes one-half to the unhappiness of married life. It has become so general that men are beginning to fear women when regarding the marriage state. When they marry, they do not know whether they are marrying natural development or that which is basely artificial and deceptive, and they too often awake to find the latter to be the truth.” (56)
“We have no doubt that the noble dames of society, the mincing, supercilious, affected graduations of those hot-houses of female depravity–boarding-schools—with all the ignorant and bigoted, will hold up their hands in holy horror to think that women should so degrade themselves as to attempt to discuss these subjects.” (129)
“Material evolution has ultimated in the production of the human form, and it is made male and female, not by mere chance, but that further, greater and nobler ends may be gained. These ends are arrived at through the union of the sexes and by their reproducing their kind. The grandest purpose of human life, then, must be the reproduction of the most perfect specimens of its kind, and this is the logical deduction to which all sensible, reasoning persons must arrive. If this be so, then nothing should be held so important as a perfect understanding of the laws which control all things which are involved in the processes of nature relating to reproduction.” (134)
“How utterly worthless are the lives of so many mothers, and how devoid of purpose. Just so are their children. In the insane desire for dress and display, which characterizes so many women, lies the bane of life for their children. The cold heartlessness of the woman of fashion contains the germ of destruction for her daughter and the seeds of vice for her son. No warm-hearted, generous-souled children can spring from such soil. It can alone sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind.” (144)
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