WOMAN AND HER DOMAIN.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
Question. What is your opinion of the effect of the multiplicity of women's clubs as regards the intellectual, moral and domestic status of their members?
Answer. I think that women should have clubs and societies, that they should get together and exchange ideas. Women, as a rule, are provincial and conservative. They keep alive all the sentimental mistakes and superstitions. Now, if they can only get away from these, and get abreast with the tide of the times, and think as well as feel, it will be better for them and their children. You know St. Paul tells women that if they want to know anything they must ask their husbands. For many centuries they have followed this orthodox advice, and of course they have not learned a great deal, because their husbands could not answer their questions. Husbands, as a rule, do not know a great deal, and it will not do for every wife to depend on the ignorance of her worst half. The women of to-day are the great readers, and no book is a great success unless it pleases the women.
As a result of this, all the literature of the world has changed, so that now in all departments the thoughts of women are taken into consideration, and women have thoughts, because they are the intellectual equals of men.
There are no statesmen in this country the equals of Harriet Martineau; probably no novelists the equals of George Eliot or George Sand, and I think Ouida the greatest living novelist. I think her "Ariadne" is one of the greatest novels in the English language. There are few novels better than "Consuelo," few poems better than "Mother and Poet."
So in all departments women are advancing; some of them have taken the highest honors at medical colleges; others are prominent in the sciences, some are great artists, and there are several very fine sculptors, &c., &c.
So you can readily see what my opinion is on that point.
I am in favor of giving woman all the domain she conquers, and as the world becomes civilized the domain that she can conquer will steadily increase.
Question. But, Colonel, is there no danger of greatly interfering with a woman's duties as wife and mother?
Answer. I do not think that it is dangerous to think, or that thought interferes with love or the duties of wife or mother. I think the contrary is the truth; the greater the brain the greater the power to love, the greater the power to discharge all duties and obligations, so I have no fear for the future. About women voting I don't care; whatever they want to do they have my consent.
—The Democrat, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1894.