A Young Man On The Woman Question

It is not often that young men have serious views on the woman question. The individual girl occupies their minds quite sufficiently, but woman in the abstract, her rights and her wrongs--no. Not till man is married and has been duly disciplined or otherwise does he, as a rule, begin to meditate on woman the sex.

When, therefore, an Intelligent, good looking, marriageable and lively young man evolves out of his own head "views" on the woman question, he makes a new departure and a record for youthful masculinity. He ought to be welcomed and encouraged to keep on thinking. Perhaps his example will inspire other youths to do likewise. In a private letter to a woman friend the young man, who thinks he may be called Mr. Smith for short, says:

"You know I see a good deal of domestic life. I am, I believe, as familiar with the inside of a home as are most folk of the 'sterner sex,' which expression makes me tired sometimes. On our side I see too often things which do not guilt me. How have you found it, speaking for women? It has seemed to me that women seldom get the credit they should for their part of the work of the world.

"Now I come to what has been in my bead, and it is concerning this 'love, honor and obey' business in the marriage ceremony. No real man would take advantage of such an unreasonable vow, but, then, real men are too scarce. Why should one of the male sex be loved if he is not lovable, honored if he is not honorable or obeyed if he Is wrong, or obeyed at all?"

Such are young Mr. Smith's conclusions in the matter of wives obeying husbands or even promising to do so. He also has opinions as to women earning money and engaging in business. He has a grandmother, a noble lady of that supposed new woman kind whose real prototype dates back to Solomon's vise woman of the Bible. Young Mr. Smith writes:

"My grandmother is one who has been obliged to Work for her living ever since she was a child. She is now seventy-four and says she will work and and enjoy her tasks until she dies. She has been a business woman all her life. She is a good woman, and her affection for the family has been of the kind that both speaks and works. Yet she never obeyed anything but her own sense of right and wrong."

Once more our young Mr. Smith has "views," this time on the matter of the ballot for women. On this point he writes:

"Does it seem to you that woman suffrage will extend over the United States in our time? Is it growing? I hope so. If woman, on whom devolves almost the whole work of forming the character of the nation, have no right to vote, the who should have? But since they cannot now vote it would be a good plan for them to keep track of public events and talk these over with their husbands and with them decide who should be elected to office. Again, though, a man likes to be considered a walking encyclopedia of knowledge.

"In this place, however, I have met a most independent lot of women, especially in respect to keeping a man up to the scratch--as we all have to be kept, if truth were known. Unemployed men here, instead of merely killing time, get up and hustle in the house, which does not hurt them, if they can't earn enough to do otherwise.

"Very likely some of this will make you smile, but just go ahead and smile. I am not sensitive. Or does it seem odd coming from a bachelor of twenty-seven long years' experience? Still, I have seen much of the home side of life."

One cannot help concluding that these just and admirable sentiments toward women have developed in young Mr. Smith's mind largely as the result of his having a live grandmother. If so, would that there were more live grandmothers!

Mary Edith Day