Since that time women have fairly entered the field as students of medicine and as physicians, as editors and lecturers, engaged in schools of design, and in the taking of daguerres, as well as in some other works of art, and in holding Conventions in several of the States of our Union for the advocacy of our entire claims. A National Society has been formed; and the proceedings of these Conventions and Society meetings have been fairly reported, and have received favorable notices in many of the papers of this country, as well as in the Westminster Review in England.
Frances D. Gage said that allusion had been made in the address to the popular sentiment, that men are what their mothers made them. She repelled this sentiment as an indignity to her sex. What mother, she asked, ever taught her son to drink rum, gamble, swear, smoke, and chew tobacco? The truth was, that the boy was virtually taught to regard his mother as inferior, and that it was not manly to follow her instructions. When he left the hearth-stone he was beyond her reach. He found men, and those, too, in elevated stations, addicted to vulgar and vicious practices, and he was liable, in forgetfulness of all that his mother had taught him, to fall into such habits himself. Men allowed grog-shops to be set up on the street corners, and permitted gambling-houses to exist, to tempt the boy from the path of virtue; and when the mothers asked for the abatement of these evils, they were told to keep in their sphere. In the town where she resided (McConnellsville, Morgan Co., Ohio), the women sent a large petition to the court asking that grog-shops might not be licensed. The judge thereupon remarked that "woman's place was in the nursery and the parlor, and that when she interfered with public affairs, or set herself up as an instructor of the courts, she was out of her sphere." Thus men perpetuate institutions which undermine the influence of the mothers, and corrupt the morals of the sons. The boys were, therefore, in many cases, what men made them. True, there were some cases in which the mother, by superior power, shaped the destiny of her sons, in spite of adverse influences. Such cases were not the rule, but the exception. Mothers, generally, could not exert their full influence over their sons, unless they were permitted to stand by them as the equals of their fathers in all relations of life.
The following address, written by Ann Preston, and adopted as an exposition of the principles and purposes of the Convention, was impressively read by the author:
ANN PRESTON'S ADDRESS.
The question is repeatedly asked by those who have thought but little upon the subject of woman's position in society, "What does woman want more than she possesses already? Is she not beloved, honored, guarded, cherished? Wherein are her rights infringed, or her liberties curtailed?"
Glowing pictures have been drawn of the fitness of the present relations of society, and of the beauty of woman's dependence upon the protecting love of man, and frightful visions have been evoked of the confusion and perversion of nature which would occur if the doctrine of the equal rights of man and woman was once admitted.
The idea seems to prevail that movements for the elevation of woman arise, not from the legitimate wants of society, but from the vague restlessness of unquiet spirits; not from the serene dictates of wisdom, but from the headlong impulses of fanaticism.
We came not here to argue the question of the relative strength of intellect in man and woman; for the reform which we advocate depends not upon its settlement. We place not the interests of woman in antagonism to those of her brother, for
"The woman's cause is man's:
They rise or sink together,
Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free."
We maintain not that woman should lose any of that refinement and delicacy of spirit which, as a celestial halo, ever encircles the pure in heart. We contend not that she shall become noisy and dictatorial, and abjure the quiet graces of life. We claim not that she, any more than her brother, should engage in any vocation or appear in any situation to which her nature and abilities are not fitted. But we ask for her, as for man, equality before the law, and freedom to exercise all her powers and faculties under the direction of her own judgment and volition.
When a woman dies, leaving behind her a husband and children, no appraisers come into the desolated home to examine the effects; the father is the guardian of his offspring; the family relation is not invaded by law. But when a man dies the case is entirely different; in the hour of the widow's deep distress strangers come into the house to take an inventory of the effects, strangers are appointed to be the guardians of her children, and she, their natural care-taker, thenceforth has no legal direction of their interests; strangers decide upon the propriety of the sale of the property—earned, perhaps, by her own and her husband's mutual efforts—and her interest in the estate is coolly designated as the "widow's incumbrance!" In the extremity of her bereavement there is piled upon her, not only the dread of separation from her children, but that of being sent homeless from the spot where every object has been consecrated by her tenderest affections.
Nor is the practical working of this law better than its theory; all over the country there are widows who have been made doubly desolate by its provisions—widows separated from their children, who, if they had had the disposal of their own and their husbands' mutual property, might have retrieved their circumstances, and kept the household band together. We ask for such change in public sentiment as shall procure the repeal of this oppressive law.
We ask that woman shall have free access to vocations of profit and honor, the means of earning a livelihood and independence for herself! As a general rule, profitable employments are not considered open to woman, nor are her business capabilities encouraged and developed by systematic training. Gloomy must be the feelings of the father of a family of young daughters, when he is about to bid farewell to the world, if he is leaving them without the means of pecuniary support. Their brothers may go out into society and gain position and competency; but for them there is but little choice of employment, and, too often, they are left with repressed and crippled energies to pine and chafe under the bitter sense of poverty and dependence.
Their pursuits are to be determined, not by their inclination, judgment, and ability, as are those of man, but by the popular estimate of what is proper and becoming. In Turkey public delicacy is outraged if a woman appears unveiled beyond the walls of the harem; in America a sentiment no less arbitrary presumes to mark out for her the precise boundaries of womanly propriety; and she who ventures to step beyond them, must do it at the peril of encountering low sneers, coarse allusions, and the withering imputation of want of feminine delicacy.
Even for the same services woman generally receives less than man. The whole tendency of our customs, habits, and teaching, is to make her dependent—dependent in outward circumstances, dependent in spirit.
As a consequence of her fewer resources, marriage has been to her the great means of securing position in society. Thus it is that this relation—which should ever be a "holy sacrament," the unbiased and generous election of the free and self-sustained being—too often is degraded into a mean acceptance of a shelter from neglect and poverty! We ask that woman shall be trained to unfold her whole nature; to exercise all her powers and faculties.
It is said that the domestic circle is the peculiar province of woman; that "men are what mothers make them." But how can that woman who does not live for self-culture and self-development, who has herself no exalted objects in life, imbue her children with lofty aspirations, or train her sons to a free and glorious manhood? She best can fulfill the duties of wife and mother, who is fitted for other and varied usefulness.
The being who lives for one relation only can not possess the power and scope which are required for the highest excellence even in that one. If the whole body is left without exercise, one arm does not become strong; if the tree is stunted in its growth, one branch does not shoot into surpassing luxuriance.
That
