In Times Like These Part 7

Children do not need their mother's care always, and the mother who has given up every hope and ambition in the care of her children will find herself left all alone, when her children no longer need her--a woman without a job. But, dear me, how the church has exalted the self-sacrificing mother, who never had a thought apart from her children, and who became a willing slave to her family. Never a word about the injury she is doing to her family in letting them be a slave-owner, never a word of the injury she is doing to herself, never a whisper of the time when the children may be ashamed of their worked-out mother who did not keep up with the times.

The preaching of the church, having been done by men, has given us the strictly masculine viewpoint. The tragedy of the "willing slave, the living sacrifice," naturally does not strike a man as it does a woman.

A man loves to come home and find his wife or his mother darning his socks. He likes to believe that she does it joyously. It is traditionally correct, and home would not be home without it. No man wants to stay at home too long, but he likes to find his women folks sitting around when he comes home. The stationary female and the wide-ranging male is the world's accepted arrangement, but the belief that a woman must cherish no hope or ambition of her own is both cruel and unjust.

Men have had the control of affairs for a long time, long enough perhaps to test their ability as the arbiters of human destiny. The world, as made by man, is cruelly unjust to women, and cruelly beset with dangers for the innocent young girl. Praying and weeping have been the only weapons that the church has sanctioned for women. The weeping, of course, must be done quietly and in becoming manner. Loud weeping becomes hysteria, and decidedly bad form. Women have prayed and wept for a long time, and yet the liquor traffic and the white slave traffic continue to make their inroads on the human family. The liquor traffic and the white slave traffic are kept up by men for man--women pay the price--the long price in suffering and shame. The pleasure and profit--if there be any--belong to men. Women are the sufferers--and yet the law decrees that women shall not have any voice in regulating these matters.

In California, where women have had the vote for three years, there has been recently enacted a bill dealing with white slavery. It is called the Quick Abatement Act, and provides for an immediate trial to be given, when it is believed that prost.i.tution is being carried on in any house. Our system, under which the trial is set for a date several weeks ahead, furnishes a splendid chance for the witnesses to disappear, and the evidence quite often falls through. This bill also provides a suitable punishment which falls not on the occupants of the house but on the owner of the property, thereby striking at the profit.

If prost.i.tution is proven against a house, that house is closed for one year, the owner losing the rent for that time. This puts the responsibility on property owners, and makes people careful as to their tenants. Every owner forthwith becomes a morality officer. This is the greatest and most effective blow ever struck at white slavery, for it strikes directly at the money side of it. It is a fact worth recalling that just before women were permitted to vote in California, this bill was defeated overwhelmingly, but the first time it was submitted after women were enfranchised it pa.s.sed easily, although there was not one woman in the house of representatives; the men members had a different att.i.tude toward moral matters when they remembered that they had women const.i.tuents as well as men.

When Christian women ask to vote, it is in the hope that they may be able with their ballots to protect the weak and innocent, and make the world a safer place for the young feet. As it is now, weakness and innocence are punished more than wickedness.

One of our social workers, going on her rounds, one day met a young Scotch girl, aged nineteen, who belonged to that cla.s.s of people whom we in our superior way call "fallen women." She was a beautiful girl, with curling auburn hair and deep violet eyes. The visitor asked her about herself, but the girl was not disposed to talk. Finally the visitor asked her if she might pray with her. The girl politely refused.

"Lady," she said wearily, "what is the use of praying--there is no G.o.d.

I know that you think there is a G.o.d, Lady," she went on, with a voice of settled sadness. "I did, too--once--but I know now that there is no G.o.d anywhere."

Then she told her story. When her mother died in Scotland, she came out to Canada to live with her brother who had a position in a bank.

She traveled in the care of a Scotch family to her destination. At the station, an elderly gentlemen in a clerical coat met her and told her that her brother was ill, but had sent him to meet her. She went with him unsuspectingly. That was six years ago. She was then thirteen years old.

"So you see, Lady," she said, "I know there is no G.o.d, or He would never have let them do to me what they did. Every night I had prayed to G.o.d, and if there were a G.o.d anywhere, He would surely have heard my mother's prayer--when she was dying--she asked G.o.d to protect her poor little motherless girl. It is a sad world, Lady." The girl's eyes were dry and her voice unbroken. There is a limit even to tears and her eyes were cried dry.

According to the laws of the Dominion of Canada, the man who stole this sweet child from the railway station, would be liable to five years'

imprisonment, if the case could be proven against him, which is doubtful, for he could surely get someone to prove that she was over fourteen years of age, or not of previously chaste character, or that he was somewhere else at the time, or that the girl's evidence was contradictory; but if he had stolen any article from any building belonging to or adjacent to a railway station, or any article belonging to a railway company, he would have been liable to a term of fourteen years. This is the law, and the church folds its plump hands over its broadcloth waistcoat and makes no protest! The church has not yet even touched the outer fringe of the white slave evil and yet those high in authority dare to say that women must not be given the right to protect themselves. The demand for votes is a spiritual movement and the bitter cry of that little Scotch girl and of the many like her who have no reason to believe in G.o.d, sounds a challenge to every woman who ever names the name of G.o.d in prayer. We know there is a G.o.d of love and justice, who hears the cry of the smallest child in agony, and will in His own good time bind up every broken heart, and wipe away every tear.

But how can we demonstrate G.o.d to the world!

Inasmuch as we have sat in our comfortable respectable pews enjoying our own little narrow-gauge religion, unmoved by the call of the larger citizens.h.i.+p, and making no effort to reach out and save those who are in temptation, and making no effort to better the conditions under which other women must live--inasmuch as we have left undone the things we might have done--in G.o.d's sight--we are fallen women! And to the church officials, ministers and laymen who have dared to deny to women the means whereby they might have done better for the women of the world, I would like to say that I wonder what they will say to that Scotch mother, who lay down happily on her death-bed believing that G.o.d would care for her motherless child left to battle with the world. I wonder how they will explain it to her when they meet her up there! I wonder will they be able to get away with that old fable about their being afraid of women "losing their femininity." I wonder!

There is a story recorded in that book, whose popularity never wanes, about a certain poor man who took his journey down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and who fell among thieves who robbed him and left him for dead. A priest and a Levite came along and were full of sympathy, and said: "Dear me! I wonder what this road is coming to!" But they had meetings to attend and they pa.s.sed on. A good Samaritan came along, and he was a real good Samaritan, and when he saw the man lying by the road he jumped down from his horse, and picking him up, took him to the inn, and gave directions for his care and comfort, even paid out money for the poor battered stranger. The next day, the Samaritan again pa.s.sed down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and about the same place found another man, beaten and robbed, undoubtedly the work of the same thieves. Again he played the part of the kind friend, but it set him thinking, and when the next day he found two men robbed and beaten, the good Samaritan was properly aroused. He took them to the inn, and again he paid out his money, but that night he called a meeting of all the other good Samaritans "out his way" and they hunted up their old muskets and set out to clean up the road.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is here, and now. Women have played the good Samaritan for a long time, and they have found many a one beaten and robbed on the road of life. They are still doing it, but the conviction is growing on them that it would be much better to go out and clean up the road!

In a certain asylum, the management have a unique test for sanity.

When any of the inmates exhibit evidence of returning reason, they submit them to the following tests. Out in the courtyard there are a number of water taps for filling troughs, and to each of the candidates for liberty a small pail is given, and they are told to drain out the troughs, the taps running full force. Some of the poor fellows bail away and bail away, but of course the trough remains full in spite of them. The wise ones turn off the taps.

The women of the churches and many other organizations for many long weary years have been bailing out the troughs of human misery with their little pails; their children's shelters, day nurseries, homes for friendless girls, relief boards, and innumerable public and private charities; but the big taps of intemperance and ignorance and greed are running night and day. It is weary, discouraging, heart-breaking work.

Let us have a chance at the taps!

CHAPTER IX

THE SORE THOUGHT

The toad beneath the harrow knows Everywhere the tooth mark goes; The b.u.t.terfly upon the road Preaches contentment to the toad.

Women have had to do a lot of waiting--long, weary waiting. The well-brought-up young lady diligently prepares for marriage; makes doilies, and hemst.i.tches linen; gets her blue trunk ready and--waits.

She must not appear anxious or concerned--not at all; she must just--wait. When a young man comes along and shows her any attention, she may accept it, but if after two or three years of it he suddenly leaves her, and devotes himself to some other girl, she must not feel hurt or grieved but must go back and sit down beside the blue trunk again and--wait! He has merely exercised the man's right of choosing, and when he decides that he does not want her, she has no grounds for complaint. She must consider herself declined, "not from any lack of merit, but simply because she is unavailable." If her heart breaks, it must break quietly, and in secret.

She may see a young man to whom she feels attracted, but she must not show it by even so much as the flicker of an eyelash. Hers is the waiting part, and although marriage and homemaking are her highest destiny, or at least so she has been told often enough--she must not raise a hand to help the cause along. No more crus.h.i.+ng criticism can be made of a woman, than that she is anxious to get married. It is all right for her to be pa.s.sively willing, but she must not be anxious.

At dances she must _wait_ until someone asks her to dance; _wait_ until someone asks her to go to supper. She must not ever make the move--she must not ever try to start something. Her place is to wait!

At last her waiting is rewarded and a young man comes by who declares he would like to marry her, but is not in a position to marry just yet.

Then begins another period of waiting. She must not hurry him--that is very indelicate--she must wait. Sometimes, in this long period of waiting, the young man changes his mind, but she must not complain. A man cannot help it if he grows tired. It must have been her fault--she did not make herself sufficiently attractive--that's all! She waits again.

At last perhaps she gets married. But her periods of waiting are not over. Her husband wanders free while she stays at home. We know the picture of the waiting wife listening for footsteps while the clock ticks loudly in the silent house. The world has decreed that the woman and home must stay together, while the man goes about his business or his pleasures--the tied-up woman and the foot-loose man.

Her boys grow up, and when war breaks out, they are called away from her, and again the woman waits. Every telegraph boy who comes up the street may bring the dreaded message; every time the door bell rings her heart stops beating. But she cannot do anything but wait! wait!

wait!

Did you ever visit an old folks' home and notice the different spirit shown by the men and women there? The old men are restless and irritable; impatient of their inaction; rebellious against fate. The old women patiently wait, looking out with their dimmed eyes like marooned sailors waiting for a breeze. Poor old patient waiters! you learned the art of waiting in a long hard school, and now you have come to the last lap of the journey.

So they wait--and by and by their waiting will be over, for the kindly tide will rise and bear them safely out on its strong bosom to some place--where they will find not more rest but blessed activity! We know there is another world, because we need it so badly to set this one right!

Women have not always been "waiters." There was a day long past, when women chose their mates, when men fought for the hand of the woman they loved, and the women chose. The female bird selects her mate today, goes out and makes her choice, and, it is not considered unbirdly either.

Why should not women have the same privilege as men to choose their mate? Marriage means more to a woman than to a man; she brings in a larger contribution than he; often it happens that she gives all--he gives nothing. The care and upbringing of the children depend upon her faithfulness, not on his. Why should she not have the privilege of choosing?

Too long has the whole process of love-making and marriage been wrapped in mystery. "Part of it has been considered too holy to be spoken of and part of it too unholy," says Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Innocence has been esteemed a young girl's greatest charm, but what good has her innocence done her? No good at all! It is not calculated to do her good--her good is not the prime consideration. It makes her more charming in the eyes of men; but it may bring her great unhappiness.

Lady Evelyn's trusting heart has usually been broken. When the story begins about the farmer's pretty daughter with limpid blue eyes, sweet as bluebells washed in dew, all innocent of the world ways, the experienced reader knows at once what is coming. Innocence is hard on the woman, however charming it may be to men. The women who go a step beyond innocence and are so trusting as to be described as simple-minded, no matter how gentle, patient, and sweet they are, are absolutely unsafe in this world of man's chivalry and protection. If you want to know what fate overtakes them, ask the matron of the Refuge for Unfortunate Women, ask any person who has worked among this cla.s.s of women, and they will tell you how much good innocence and the trusting heart does any woman. This is a sore thought!

It would be perfectly delightful if our daughters might remain innocent. They should have that privilege. Innocence belongs to childhood and girlhood, but under present conditions, it is as dangerous and foolish as level and unguarded railway crossings, or open and unguarded trap doors. It is no pleasant task to have to tell a joyous, sunny-hearted girl of fourteen or fifteen about the evils that are in the world, but if you love her, you will do it! I would like to see this work done by trained motherly and tactful women, in the department of social welfare, paid by the school board. I know the mothers should do it, but many mothers are ignorant, foolish, lax, and certainly untrained. The mother's kindly counsel is the best, I know, but you cannot always rely upon its being there. This is coming, too, for public sentiment is being awakened to the evils of innocence.

I remember, twenty years ago, when Dr. Amelia Yeomans, of sainted memory, published at her own expense, a little leaflet called "Warning to Girls" and circulated it among girls who were working in public places, what a storm of abuse arose. I have a copy of the little tract, and it could be safely read in any mixed gathering today.

Ministers raged against it in the pulpit. I remember one brother who was very emphatic in his denunciations who afterwards was put out of the church for indecent conduct. Of course he wanted girls to remain innocent--it suited his purpose.

If any person doubts that the society of the present day has been made by men, and for men's advantage, let them look for a minute at the laws which govern society. Society allows a man all privilege, all license, all liberty, where women are concerned. He may lie to women, deceive them--"all's fair in love and war"--he may break many a heart, and blast many a fair name; that merely throws a glamour around him. "He's a devil with women," they say, and it is no disadvantage in the business or political world--where man dominates. But if a man is dishonest in business or neglects to pay his gambling bills, he is down and out. These are crimes against men--and therefore serious. This is also a sore thought!

Then when men speak of these things, they throw the blame on women themselves, showing thereby that the Garden of Eden story of Adam and Eve and the apple, whether it be historically true or not, is true to life. Quite Adam-like, they throw the blame on women, and say: "Women like the man with a past. Women like to be lied to. Women do not expect any man to be absolutely faithful to them, if he is pleasant.

The man who has the reputation of having been wild has a better chance with women than the less attractive but absolutely moral man." What a glorious thing it will be when men cease to speak for us, and cease to tell us what we think, and let us speak for ourselves!

Since women's sphere of manual labor has so narrowed by economic conditions and has not widened correspondingly in other directions, many women have become parasites on the earnings of their male relatives. Marriage has become a straight "clothes and board"

proposition to the detriment of marriage and the race. Her economic dependence has so influenced the att.i.tude of some women toward men, that it is the old man with the money who can support her in idleness who appeals to her far more than the handsome, clean-limbed young man who is poor, and with whom she would have to work. The softening, paralyzing effects of ease and comfort are showing themselves on our women. You cannot expect the woman who has had her meals always bought for her, and her clothes always paid for by some man, to retain a sense of independence. "What did I marry you for?" cried a woman indignantly, when her husband grumbled about the size of her millinery bill. No wonder men have come to regard marriage as an expensive adventure.

The time will come, we hope, when women will be economically free, and mentally and spiritually independent enough to refuse to have their food paid for by men; when women will receive equal pay for equal work, and have all avenues of activity open to them; and will be free to choose their own mates, without shame, or indelicacy; when men will not be afraid of marriage because of the financial burden, but free men and free women will marry for love, and together work for the sustenance of their families. It is not too ideal a thought. It is coming, and the new movement among women who are crying out for a larger humanity, is going to bring it about.

But there are many good men who view this with alarm. They are afraid that if women were economically independent they would never marry.

But they would. Deeply rooted in almost every woman's heart is the love of home and children; but independence is sweet and when marriage means the loss of independence, there are women brave enough and strong enough to turn away from it. "I will not marry for a living," many a brave woman has said.

The world has taunted women into marrying. So odious has the term "old maid" been in the past that many a woman has married rather than have to bear it. That the term "old maid" has lost its odium is due to the fact that unmarried women have made a place for themselves in the world of business. They have become real people apart from their s.e.x. The "old maid" of the past was a sad, anemic creature, without any means of support except the bounty of some relative. She had not married, so she had failed utterly, and the world did not fail to rub it in. The unmarried woman of today is the head saleslady in some big house, drawing as big a salary as most men, and the world kowtows to her. The world is beginning to see that a woman may achieve success in other departments of life as well as marriage.

It speaks well for women that, even before this era, when "old maids"

were open to all kinds of insult, there were women brave enough to refuse to barter their souls for the animal comforts of food and shelter. Speaking about "old maids," by which term we mean now a prim, fussy person, it is well to remember that there are male "old maids" as well as female who remain so all through life; also that many "old maids" marry, and are still old maids.

When women are free to marry or not as they will, and the financial burden of making a home is equally shared by husband and wife, the world will enter upon an era of happiness undreamed of now. As it is now, the whole matter of marrying and homemaking is left to chance.