Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.
Miss Barber, of "The Madison (Ga.) "Visitor, promises to "sit in the corner and be a good girl," if we will admit her to our next "editorial soirée." Indeed we will, and brother Lamb, of "The Greenfield Democrat, shall sit in the other corner and "cast sheep's (Lamb's) at her; for he copies her naughty declaration of inferiority, and adds that she "is just the editress for him"; that he "don't like Mrs. Swisshelm, Mrs. Pierson, and "that class." We will let him off with a whispered reminder that there is a Mr. Swisshelm, Mr. Pierson, and more of the same sort for "that class." He has nobody on his side but the musty, fusty old bachelors of the—, and—, and—, who, never having wanted for anything but puddings and shirts, imagine, as Mrs. Pierson says, that "a shirt and a pudding are the two poles of woman's sphere."
But we can not let Miss Barber off so lightly. She says "it is written in the volume of inspiration, as plainly as if traced in sunbeams, that man, the creature of God's own image, is superior to woman, who was afterward created to be his companion. He has a more stately form, stronger nerves and muscles, and, in nine cases out of ten, a more vigorous intellect."
In the first place, it is paying no great compliment to man to suppose that God created an inferior to be his companion. But a man, "the creature of God's own image!" And was the material for God's image all worked up in creating Adam? And if so, whose images are the men of to-day, who can't possibly lay claim to more of the original stock than mother Eve, who set up existence with an "entire rib! And what has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she was created "afterward? If precedence in creation gave any advantage intellectually, the inferior animals may claim superiority of intellect over both man and woman. It would be quite as sound logic to maintain, as some do, that, as last in the series which commenced in nothing (?) and rose by gradations to image God, woman's superiority to all that preceded her in the creation, is probable …. Again, if women have less nerves and muscles, the ox and the ass have a great deal more while God and angels and disembodied spirits have none at all; so that nerves and muscles are of no more significance in this question of the intellectual equality or inequality of the sexes, than is the beard that grows on a man's face and not on a woman's. And arguments drawn from such premises always remind us of the profound logic of a gentleman we once met in a stage coach, and who is now holding a high office under Government at Washington. He professed to set great store by whiskers and mustaches he had none himself and gave as a reason why the beard should be tenderly cherished, that "it was given to man as a badge of his superiority over woman." We were young and mischievous then, and so we told him, most complacently, that the ladies would readily concede the point, and give him the full benefit of his argument and of his beard, since men shared their "badge of superiority" with goats, monkeys, and many other inferior animals. Some fifteen years have passed, but we never think of the honorable gentleman or see his name attached to official reports, without a laugh.
Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into whatsoever she will that "through him she can and will make the laws." And we only regret that she should speak so lightly of "depositing a little strip of paper in the ballot-box." To us it is a serious thing, that the depositing of that strip of paper gives and takes the rights, whose possession is the means of the highest intellectual and moral culture and enjoyment.—Windom County Democrat, Brattleboro, Vermont.
Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm.
