Massachusetts Court Severe on Husbands

1896

According to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court husbands can no longer rule their wives. The Court says, in rendering a recent decision:

"By virtue of this legislation a married woman becomes, in the view of the law, a distinct and independent person from her husband, not only in respect to her right to own property, but also in respect to her right to use her time for the purpose of earning money on her sole and separate account. She may perform labor, and is entitled to her wages and earnings. If she complies with the statutory requirement as to recording a certificate she may carry on any trade or business on her sole and separate account, and take the profits, if profits there are, as her separate property."

Her husband can appropriate neither her earnings nor her time, but he is obliged to support her as in the old regime. He has few rights left, though, for, "to a certain limited extent, as for example, in fixing the domicile and in being responsible under ordinary circumstances for its orderly management, the husband is still the head of the family." — New York Press.

Russia's Awakening

1904

In Russia it is the government only that sleeps. The people are awake and astir, says the author of "Greater Russia." They are making few demands and feeling a new freedom which is apparent every day in the absence of the former rigid repression, and in the frequent indulgence in license that is miscalled liberty.

One will sometimes see on the palace quay in St. Petersburg a line of people waiting for the steamer to take them to the islands. Along comes some high official who, instead of awaiting his turn, drives to the head of the line and crowds in ahead of the others. Formerly such an occurrence would have been received in silence as a matter of course, but now the people hiss and denounce the official, and police do not interfere.

If a street-car is delayed for a connection at some transfer-station, the passengers often become riotous and demand their fare back, or begin to pound on the door and even break windows until the police make the driver go ahead without waiting for the other car; and he is not allowed to stop again until he reaches his destination.

If an officer remonstrates with a street-car conductor for lack of courtesy to a passenger the crowd will at once interfere, and even the offended passenger turns on him. The officer is told to give his orders to Soldiers who have to obey, not to free men who do not, and not to interfere between men who are as good as he is.

These are trifling things in themselves, says the traveller, but to one who has long known Russia they are startling signs of a new spirit of freedom.

No Equal Suffrage Movement in France After the American Fashion

1920

By Mme. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, in New York Times

So far as I have been able to observe, there is no equal suffrage movement in France in the sense that you in America regard a movement. From earliest times the women in France have always held a high position in the community. They have taken an active part in business projects, and the professions have always been open to them. They have been prominent in literature, science, and art. Indirectly they have exerted great influence on the political life of the country. Consequently there has been no pronounced movement for equal rights in France such as has been started elsewhere.

The women of France are not anxious to vote or to be elected to office. Therefore I am not of the opinion that suffrage will gain headway in my country. Nevertheless I am watching with great interest the progress of the women of other countries. We admire your progressiveness and are interested in the experiment of sending women to congress, of giving them seats on the bench. This is, of course, in line with your advancement and liberal ideas. But our own traditions, our social and racial conditions, are very different.

I find no cause for anxiety regarding the competition of the sexes in business. Women who had taken men's jobs on the outbreak of the war are gladly relinquishing them, and peace adjustment is coming without bitterness.

Was it not Ellen Key who avowed that even if the suffragist was striving to be free she was making a mistake if she thought the vote would free her from the limitation of nature? Women cannot pass beyond those limits without interfering with the rights of nature and the potential child. Woman, of course, has a right to avoid marriage, and to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, provided she finds in this her greatest happiness. But when all is told, motherhood is the central factor of existence for most women.

Listen, World! — "Chivalry and Equality"

1922

By Elsie Robinson

And right now we're going to talk about this business of taking off hats in elevators or giving up seats to ladies on the street cars. It is generally conceded that such acts indicate a chivalrous attitude toward the ladies and the Advocates of Chivalry bitterly deplore the hatted head and the seated seat. My opinion is that the Advocates of Chivalry had better take a cold shower and snap out of it.

I too believe in chivalrous attitudes and marks of honor. But the highest mark of honor, to my mind, which a man can give a woman is to treat her as an equal. None of this pedestal stuff. I would feel much more honored if a tired man would ask me to help him carry his bundles than if he should take off his hat in the elevator in which we are rising. There's infinitely more freedom, dignity and true comradeship for me in sharing 50-50 with a man on amusement expenses than in all the knightly jousts that ever kicked up the dust in honor of some fair lady's glove. I would much rather stand while a busy man tells me of his work though he does it with a cigar in his mouth and his coat off than have him honor me by giving me his chair while he inwardly curses at the interruption.

And why, in the name of common sense and fairness, should the average man give his seat to a woman in the street car — provided she be neither old nor infirm? Does a man not grow tired as well as a woman? He does. Doesn't he have back aches and headaches and heartaches and fallen arches just as frequently? He does. Can't the average Young Person to whom he is supposed to give that seat out dance him and outrun him? She can. Can't the average Dowager out eat him and out-window shop him? She can. Then that's that.

What I want are the tokens of Equality. I don't give two hoots for the politeness that's handed out to me because I'm a Woman. But beautiful to me as a sunrise and as full of golden promises are the indifferences and rudenesses which I encounter as a FELLOW WORKER.

The Bicycle a Benefactor

1895

A reliable correspondent writes to the New York World that in Chicago there flourishes a club of young women bound by a vow to ride horseback astride henceforth and forever. These young women have abandoned the spine-twisting side saddle; they have lived down the ridicule which accompanied the inauguration of their reform, and, most important of all, they attribute the success of their movement to the beneficent influence of the bicycle.

Each day it grows plainer that we must add the bicycle to the list of humanity's great benefactors. Already tens of thousands owe to it health, strength and their first intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. It has helped the farmer who foolishly despises it, by advancing the fight for good roads. It has filled the pockets of languishing owners of country inns. It has made the country boy and girl acquainted with their brothers and sisters from the city. It promises to do away with the stupid fashion of long trousers — to restore to mankind the graceful knickerbockers of old. It promotes equality. It discourages the separation of the people into hostile classes.

The bicycle is a democratic machine, a faithful servant, a luxury and a necessity, great and cheap. It is a good doctor, a destroyer of the blues. It deserves the monument which it is building to itself in the shape of a healthier, happier people.