Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?
by Helen H. Gardener.
DEDICATED
With the love and admiration of the Author,
To Her Husband
Who is ever at once her first, most severe, and most sympathetic critic, whose encouragement and interest in her work never flags; whose abiding belief in human rights, without s.e.x limitations, and in equality of opportunity leaves scant room in his great soul to harbor patience with s.e.x domination in a land which boasts of freedom for all, and embodies its symbol of Liberty in the form of the only legally disqualified and unrepresented cla.s.s to be found upon its sh.o.r.es.
PREFACE.
In the following story the writer shows us what poverty and dependence are in their revolting outward aspects, as well as in their crippling effects on all the tender sentiments of the human soul. Whilst the many suffer for want of the decencies of life, the few have no knowledge of such conditions.
They require the poor to keep clean, where water by landlords is considered a luxury; to keep their garments whole, where they have naught but rags to st.i.tch together, twice and thrice worn threadbare.
The improvidence of the poor as a valid excuse for ignorance, poverty, and vice, is as inadequate as is the providence of the rich, for their virtue, luxury, and power. The artificial conditions of society are based on false theories of government, religion, and morals, and not upon the decrees of a G.o.d.
In this little volume we have a picture, too, of what the world would call a happy family, in which a naturally strong, honest woman is shrivelled into a mere echo of her husband, and the popular sentiment of the cla.s.s to which she belongs. The daughter having been educated in a college with young men, and tasted of the tree of knowledge, and, like the G.o.ds, knowing good and evil, can no longer square her life by opinions she has outgrown; hence with her parents there is friction, struggle, open revolt, though conscientious and respectful withal.
Three girls belonging to different cla.s.ses in society; each ill.u.s.trates the false philosophy on which woman"s character is based, and each in a different way, in the supreme moment of her life, shows the necessity of self-reliance and self-support.
As the wrongs of society can be more deeply impressed on a large cla.s.s of readers in the form of fiction than by essays, sermons, or the facts of science, I hail with pleasure all such attempts by the young writers of our day. The slave has had his novelist and poet, the farmer his, the victims of ignorance and poverty theirs, but up to this time the refinements of cruelty suffered by intelligent, educated women, have never been painted in glowing colors, so that the living picture could be seen and understood. It is easy to rouse attention to the grosser forms of suffering and injustice, but the humiliations of spirit are not so easily described and appreciated.
A cla.s.s of earnest reformers have, for the last fifty years, in the press, the pulpit, and on the platform, with essays, speeches, and const.i.tutional arguments before legislative a.s.semblies, demanded the complete emanc.i.p.ation of women from the political, religious, and social bondage she now endures; but as yet few see clearly the need of larger freedom, and the many maintain a stolid indifference to the demand.
I have long waited and watched for some woman to arise to do for her s.e.x what Mrs. Stowe did for the black race in "Uncle Tom"s Cabin," a book that did more to rouse the national conscience than all the glowing appeals and const.i.tutional arguments that agitated our people during half a century. If, from an objective point of view, a writer could thus eloquently portray the sorrows of a subject race, how much more graphically should some woman describe the degradation of s.e.x.
In Helen Gardener"s stories, I see the promise, in the near future, of such a work of fiction, that shall paint the awful facts of woman"s position in living colors that all must see and feel. The civil and canon law, state and church alike, make the mothers of the race a helpless, ostracised cla.s.s, pariahs of a corrupt civilization. In view of woman"s multiplied wrongs, my heart oft echoes the Russian poet who said: "G.o.d has forgotten where he hid the key to woman"s emanc.i.p.ation."
Those who know the sad facts of woman"s life, so carefully veiled from society at large, will not consider the pictures in this story overdrawn.
The shallow and thoughtless may know nothing of their existence, while the helpless victims, not being able to trace the causes of their misery, are in no position to state their wrongs themselves.
Nevertheless all the author describes in this sad story, and worse still, is realized in everyday life, and the dark shadows dim the sunshine in every household.
The apathy of the public to the wrongs of woman is clearly seen at this hour, in propositions now under consideration in the Legislature of New York. Though two infamous bills have been laid before select committees, one to legalize prost.i.tution, and one to lower the age of consent, the people have been alike ignorant and indifferent to these measures. When it was proposed to take a fragment of Central Park for a race course, a great public meeting of protest was called at once, and hundreds of men hastened to Albany to defeat the measure.
But the proposed invasion of the personal rights of woman, and the wholesale desecration of childhood has scarce created a ripple on the surface of society. The many do not know what laws their rulers are making, and the few do not care, so long as they do not feel the iron teeth of the law in their own flesh. Not one father in the House or Senate would willingly have his wife, sister, or daughter subject to these infamous bills proposed for the daughters of the people. Alas! for the degradation of s.e.x, even in this republic. When one may barter away all that is precious to pure and innocent childhood at the age of ten years, you may as well talk of a girl"s safety with wild beasts in the tangled forests of Africa, as in the present civilizations of England and America, the leading nations on the globe.
Some critics say that every one knows and condemns these facts in our social life, and that we do not need fiction to intensify the public disgust. Others say, Why call the attention of the young and the innocent to the existence of evils they should never know. The majority of people do not watch legislative proceedings.
To keep our sons and daughters innocent, we must warn them of the dangers that beset their path on every side.
Ignorance under no circ.u.mstances ensures safety. Honor protected by knowledge, is safer than innocence protected by ignorance.
A few brave women are laboring to-day to secure for their less capable, less thoughtful, less imaginative sisters, a recognition of a true womanhood based on individual rights. There is just one remedy for the social complications based on s.e.x, and that is equality for woman in every relation in life.
Men must learn to respect her as an equal factor in civilization, and she must learn to respect herself as mother of the race. Womanhood is the great primal fact of her existence; marriage and maternity, its incidents.
This story shows that the very traits of character which society (whose opinions are made and modified by men) considers most important and charming in woman to ensure her success in social life, are the very traits that ultimately lead to her failure.
Self-effacement, self-distrust, dependence and desire to please, compliance, deference to the judgment and will of another, are what make young women, in the opinion of these believers in s.e.x domination, most agreeable; but these are the very traits that lead to her ruin.
The danger of such training is well ill.u.s.trated in the sad end of Ettie Berton. When the trials and temptations of life come, then each one must decide for herself, and hold in her own hands the reins of action.
Educated women of the pa.s.sing generation chafe under the old order of things, but, like Mrs. Foster in the present volume, are not strong enough to swim up stream. But girls like Gertrude, who in the college curriculum have measured their powers and capacities with strong young men and found themselves their equals, have outgrown this superst.i.tion of divinely ordained s.e.x domination. The divine rights of kings, n.o.bles, popes, and bishops have long been questioned, and now that of s.e.x is under consideration and from the signs of the times, with all other forms of cla.s.s and caste, it is destined soon to pa.s.s away.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
PRAY YOU, SIR, WHOSE DAUGHTER?
I
To say that Mrs. Foster was cruel, that she lacked sympathy with the unfortunate, or that she was selfish, would be to state only the dark half of a truism that has a wider application than cla.s.s or s.e.x could give it; a truism whose boundary lines, indeed, are set by nothing short of the ignorance of human beings hedged in by prejudice and handicapped by lack of imagination. So when she sat, with dainty folded hands whose jeweled softness found fitting background on the crimson velvet of her trailing gown, and announced that she could endure everything a.s.sociated with, and felt deep sympathy for, the poor if it were not for the besetting sin of uncleanliness that found its home almost invariably where poverty dwelt, it would be unjust to p.r.o.nounce her hard-hearted or base.
"It is all nonsense to say that the poor need be so dirty," she announced, as she held her splendid feather fan in one hand and caressed the dainty tips of the white plumes with the tips of fingers only less dainty and white.
"I have rarely ever seen a really poor man, woman, or child who was at the same time really clean looking in person, and as to clothes--"
She broke off with an impatient and disgusted little shrug, as if to say--what was quite true--that even the touch of properly descriptive words held for her more soilure than she cared to bear contact with.
John Martin laughed. Then he essayed to banter his hostess, addressing his remarks meanwhile to her daughter.
"One could not imagine your mamma a victim of poverty and hunger, much less of dirt, Miss Gertrude," he began slowly; "but even that sumptuous velvet gown of hers would grow to look more or less--let us say--rusty, in time, I fear, if it were the only costume she possessed, and she were obliged to eat, cook, wash, iron, sew, and market in it."
The two ladies laughed merrily at the droll suggestion, and Miss Gertrude pursed up her lips and developed a decided squint in her eyes as she turned them upon the folds of her mother"s robe. Then she took up Mr. Martin"s description where the laugh had broken in upon it.
"Too true, too true," she drawled; "and if she dusted the furniture a week or so with that fan, I"m afraid it would lose more or less of its--gloss. Mamma quite prides herself upon the delicate peach-fuzz-bloom, so to speak, of those feathers. Just look at them!"
The girl reached over and took the fan from her mother"s lap. She spread the fine plumes to their fullest capacity, and held them under the rays of the bra.s.s lamp that stood near their guest. Then she made a flourish with it in the direction of the music stand, as if she were intent upon whisking the last speck of dust from the sheets of Tannhauser that lay on its top A little cry of alarm and protest escaped Mrs. Foster"s lips and she stretched oat her hand to rescue the beloved fan.
"Gertrude! how can you?" She settled back comfortably against the cushions of the low divan with her rescued treasure once more waving in gentle gracefulness before her.
"Oh, no," she protested. "Of course one could not work or live constantly in one or two gowns and look fresh, but one could look and be clean and--and whole. A patch is not pretty I admit, but it is a decided improvement upon a bare elbow."
"I don"t agree with you at all," smiled her guest; "I don"t believe I ever saw a patch in all my life that would be an improvement upon--upon--" He glanced at the lovely round white arms before him, and all three laughed. Mrs. Foster thought of how many Russian baths and ma.s.sage treatments had tended to give the exquisite curve and tint to her arm.
"Then beside," smiled Mr. Martin, "a rent or hole may be an immediate accident, liable to happen to the best of us. A patch looks like premeditated poverty." Gertrude laughed brightly, but her mother did not appear to have heard. She reverted to the previous insinuation.
"Oh, well; that is not fair! You know what I mean. I"m talking of elbows that burst or wear out--not about those that never were intended to be in. Then, besides, it is not the elbow I object to; it is the hole one sees it through. _It_ tells a tale of shiftlessness and personal untidiness that saps all sympathy for the poverty that compelled the long wearing of the garment."