The barbaric
arrangement that a woman should be a man's drudge and chattel is
quite satisfactory, I think, to the majority of our sex. It is
certainly an odd condition of things that the mothers of men should
suffer most from man's cruelty. But it is the work of an all-wise
Providence, no doubt; and you, Mr. Leigh, will swear that it is all
right!"
"It is all right," said Leigh quietly, "or rather I should say, it
WILL be all right,--and it would have been all right long ago, if we
had, as Emerson puts it, 'accepted the hint of each new experience.'
But that is precisely what we will not do. Woman is the true
helpmate of man, and takes a natural joy in being so whenever we
will allow it,--whenever we will give her scope for her actions,
freedom for her intelligence, and trust for her instincts. But for
the present many of us still prefer to play savage,--the complete
savage in low life,--the civilized savage in high. The complete
savage is found in the dockyard labourer, who makes a woman bear his
children and then kicks her to death,--the savage in high life is
the man who equally kills the mother of his children, but in another
way, namely, by neglect and infidelity, while he treats his numerous
mistresses just as the Turk treats the creatures of his harem--
merely as so many pretty soft animals, requiring to be fed with
sweets and ornamented with jewels, and then to be cast aside when
done with.
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