Women’s Emancipation in the United States “It is reported from New York that, among the petitions recently addressed to the President of the United States, there is one that has again raised the question of the eligibility of women for public employment. Ms. Françoise Lord, from New York, has requested to be sent abroad as consul. The President has taken her request into consideration, and she hopes the Senate will be favorable to her. Public sentiment is not as hostile to this innovation as might have been supposed, and several newspapers support Miss Lord's claim."
Siècle, April 5th, 1867
In the district commanded by General Sheridan, formed by the states of Louisiana and Texas, the electoral lists were opened, and the white and colored populations began to register without raising objections to the interference of the military authority in this whole affair. Despite the efforts of Washington lawmakers, the people of the North retain much of their prejudice against blacks. By a majority of 35 votes against, the New Jersey House of Representatives denied them the enjoyment of political rights, and the state senate joined in this vote, that is the subject of the most vigorous attacks in all the Republican press. In contrast, one of the western states, Wisconsin, gave the franchise to women over the age of twenty-one. This new principle is making its way in the United States, and there is no shortage of journalists approving the political courtesy of the Wisconsin senators. Alluding to a famous novel, a speaker at a meeting exclaimed: "How would we deny political capacity to Mrs. Beecher Stowe, when we recognize her in Uncle Tom?"
Grand Monitor, May 9th, 1867
The House of Commons in England also dealt with this question, in its meeting of May 20th, on the proposal by one of its members. We read in the Morning-Post report:
“On clause 4, Mr. Mill asks that we delete the word man and insert that of person.
“My goal is," he said, "to admit to electoral frankness a very large part of the population that is now excluded from the bosom of the constitution, meaning women. I do not see why unmarried, adult ladies and widows should not have a voice in the election of members of Parliament. It may be said that women already have enough power, but I maintain that if they obtained the civil rights that I propose we grant them, we would thereby raise their condition, and we would rid them of an obstacle that today prevents the expansion of their skills.
I admit that women already have great social power, but they don't have enough, and they are not spoiled children as is generally assumed. Besides, whatever their power, I want it to be responsible, and I will give them the of making their needs and their feelings known.”
Mr. Laing - The proposal is, according to him, untenable, and he is convinced that the great majority of women themselves would reject it.
Sir John Bowyer thinks differently. Women can now be superintendents of the poor, and he sees no reason why they should not vote for Members of Parliament. The Honorable Baronet cites the case of Ms. Burdetts Coutts to show that the property of women, though recognized like that of men, is not represented at all.
A vote was taken: the amendment was rejected by 196 votes to 73, and it was ordered that the word man will be part of the clause.”
The newspaper La Liberté, on May 24th, follows this report with the following sensible reflections:
Aren’t women already allowed to sit and vote in shareholders' meetings, just like men? If it is true, as the Honorable Mr. Laing has claimed, that women do not want the right that Mr. Stuart Mill proposes to be recognized to them, that would not be a reason not to attribute it to them, for it rightfully belongs to them. Those who would be reluctant to exercise it would be free not to vote, except later, the right to reconsider when the use would have made them change their minds.
The Laings, whose eyes are covered by the blindfold of routine, find it monstrous that women vote, and they find it quite natural and perfectly simple that a woman should rule!
O human inconsistency! O social contradiction!
A Fagnan”
We have addressed the issue of women's emancipation in the article entitled: Do Women Have a Soul? published in the Spiritist Review, January 1866, and to which we refer so as not to repeat ourselves here; the following considerations will serve to complement it.
There is no doubt that at a time when privileges, debris of another age and other customs, fall before the principle of the equal rights of all human beings, those of women cannot be late in coming to be recognized, and that, in the near future, the law will no longer treat her as a minor. Until now, the recognition of these rights is seen as a concession of power to weakness, and that is why it is negotiated with such parsimony. However, since everything that is granted voluntarily can be withdrawn, such recognition will only be final and imprescriptible when it is no longer subordinated to the whim of the strongest but based on a principle that no one can dispute.
The privileges of races have their origin in the abstraction that men generally make of the spiritual principle, in considering only the external material being. From constitutional strength or weakness in some, from a difference in color in others, from birth in opulence or misery, from noble or commoner consanguineous descent, they concluded by a natural superiority or inferiority; it is on this data that they have established their social laws and racial privileges. From this circumscribed point of view, they are consistent with themselves, since considering only material life, certain classes seem to belong and do indeed belong to different races.
But if we take his point of view of the spiritual being, of the essential and progressive being, of the Spirit in a word, preexisting and surviving everything, of which the body is only a temporary envelope, varying like the dress of form and color; if moreover, from the study of the spiritual beings emerges the proof that these beings are of an identical nature and origin, that their destiny is the same, that all start from the same point and tend to the same goal, that the corporeal life is only an incident, one of the phases of the life of the Spirit, necessary for its intellectual and moral advancement; that in view of this advancement, the Spirit can successively take on various envelopes, be born in different positions, we arrive at the fundamental consequence of the equality of nature, and from there to the equality of the social rights of all human beings, and the abolition of racial privileges. This is what Spiritism teaches.
You who deny the existence of the Spirit to consider only the corporeal man, the perpetuity of the intelligent being to consider only the present life, you repudiate the only principle on which the equality of rights is based. rights that you claim for yourselves and for your fellows.
Applying this principle to the social position of women, we will say that of all the philosophical and religious doctrines, Spiritism is the only one that establishes its rights over nature itself, by proving the identity of the spiritual being in both sexes. Since the woman does not belong to a distinct creation, that the Spirit can be born man or woman, at will, according to the kind of tests to which one undergoes for one’s advancement, that the difference is only in the external envelope that modifies its aptitudes, in the identity of the nature of the being, we must necessarily conclude that the rights are equal. This follows, not from a simple theory, but from the observation of the facts, and from the knowledge of the laws that govern the spiritual world. The rights of women finding in the Spiritist doctrine a blessing based on the laws of nature, it follows that the propagation of this doctrine will hasten her emancipation, giving her, in a stable way, the social position that belongs to her. If all women understood the consequences of Spiritism, they would all be Spiritists, for they would draw from it the most powerful argument they can invoke.
The thought of the emancipation of women is germinating in many brains at this time, because we are at a time when ideas of social renewal are fermenting, in which women, as well as men, are under the influence. of the progressive breath that agitates the world. After taking care of themselves a lot, men begin to understand that it would be right to do something for them, to loosen a little the bonds of the tutelage under which they hold them. We must congratulate the United States for the initiative taken on this subject, because they took it further, by conceding a legal position and of common right, to an entire race of humanity.
But from the equal rights it would be abusive to conclude that the attributions are equal. God has endowed each being with an organism appropriate to the role to be fulfilled in nature. That of the woman is outlined by her organization, and this is not the least important. There are, therefore, well-characterized attributions associated with each sex by nature itself, and these attributions imply special duties that the sexes cannot effectively fulfill departing from their role. It is the same in each sex, as from one sex to the other: the physical constitution determines special aptitudes; whatever their constitution, all men certainly have the same rights, but it is obvious, for example, that someone who is not organized for singing cannot make a singer. No one can take away from him the right to sing, but this right cannot give him the qualities he lacks. If nature has then given women weaker muscles than men, it is because she is not called to the same exercises; if her voice has another timbre, it is because it is not intended to produce the same impressions.
However, it is to be feared, and this is what will take place, that in the fever of emancipation that torments her, the woman does not believe herself capable of fulfilling all the attributions of the man and that, falling into a contrary excess, after having had too little, she does not want to have too much. This result is inevitable, but we should not be afraid of it; if women have incontestable rights, nature has its own, that are never lost; they will soon tire of roles that are not theirs; let them, therefore, recognize by experience their insufficiency in things to which the Providence has not called them; unsuccessful attempts will inevitably bring them back on the road that has been laid out for them, a road that can and must be widened, but from which it cannot be deviated, without prejudice to themselves, by undermining the very special influence they must exert. They will recognize that they can only lose in the exchange, because a woman with a too virile appearance will never have the grace and the charm that gives the power to the one who knows how to remain a woman. A woman who becomes a man abdicates her true royalty; she is looked at as a phenomenon.
Having the two articles above been read at the Parisian Society, the following question was proposed to the Spirits as a subject of study:
Which influence should Spiritism have on the condition of women?
Since all the obtained communications concluded in the same direction, we report only the following one, as it was the most developed.
(Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, May 10th, 1867; medium Mr. Morin, in spontaneous somnambulism; verbal dissertation)
“Men have always been proud; it is a constitutional vice, inherent to their nature. The man, I speak of sex, the strong man by the development of his muscles, by the somewhat bold conceptions of his thoughts, has not taken into account the weakness alluded to in the Holy Scriptures, weakness that brought misfortune to all his descendants. He believed himself strong, and used the woman, not as a companion, as a family: he used her from a purely bestial point of view; he made her a pleasant animal, and tried to keep her at a respectful distance from the master. But since God did not want one half of humanity to be dependent on the other, he did not make two distinct creations, one to be constantly at the service of the other; he wanted all his creatures to be able to participate in the banquet of life and infinity, in the same proportion.
In these brains that have been so long kept away from all science, unfit to receive the benefits of instruction, God has given birth, as a counterweight, to ruses that hold the strength of man in check. The woman is weak, the man is strong, he has learned; but the woman is astute, and science against cunning does not always have the upper hand. If it were real science, it would win; but it is a false and incomplete science, and the woman easily finds the weak spot. Provoked by the position that was given to her, the woman developed the germ that she felt in her; the need to come out of his belittlement gave her the desire to break her chains. Follow her path; take her since the Christian era and observe her: you will see her more and more dominating, but she has not expended all her strength; she has kept it for more opportune times, and the time is approaching when she will deploy it her way. Moreover, the rising generation carries in its flanks the change that has been announced to us for a long time, and the current woman wants to have a place equal to that of the man in society.
Observe well; look inside and see how much the woman tends to free herself from the yoke; she reigns supreme, sometimes a despot. You have held her bent for too long: she straightens up like a compressed spring stretching out, for she begins to realize that her time has come.
Poor men! if you only thought that the Spirits have no sex; that he who is a man today can be a woman tomorrow; that they choose indifferently, and sometimes preferably, the female sex, you should rather rejoice than grieve, at the emancipation of the woman, and admit her to the banquet of intelligence, by wide opening the doors of science, because she has finer, softer conceptions, more delicate touches than those of man. Why shouldn't the woman be a doctor? Isn’t she naturally called upon to care for the sick, and wouldn’t she take care of them with more intelligence if she had the necessary knowledge? Aren’t there cases where, when it comes to people of her gender, a female doctor would be preferable? Haven’t many women given proof of their aptitude for certain sciences, of the finesse of their sensitivity in business? Why then should men reserve a monopoly on them, if not for fear of seeing them take the lead? Without speaking of special professions, isn't a woman's first profession that of mother of a family? Now, the educated mother is better able to direct the instruction and education of her children; while she breastfeeds the body, she can develop the heart and the mind. The first childhood being necessarily entrusted to the care of a woman, if she is educated, social regeneration will have taken an immense step, and this is what will be done.
The equality of men and women would have yet another result. To be a master, to be strong, is very good; but it is also assuming a great responsibility; by sharing the burden of family affairs with a capable, enlightened companion, naturally devoted to the common interests, the man lightens his load and diminishes his responsibility, while the woman being under the guardianship, and therefore in a state of forced submission, has her voice in the chapter only when the man is willing to condescend to give it to her.
Women, they say, are too talkative and too frivolous; but whose fault is it, if not the men who do not allow them to think? Give them food for the spirit, and they will speak less; they will meditate and think. Are you accusing them of frivolity? But what do they have to do? I speak here especially of the woman of the world. Nothing, absolutely nothing. What can she do? If she reflects and transcribes her thoughts, she is ironically called a smart aleck. If she cultivates the sciences or the arts, her works are not taken into consideration, with very rare exceptions, and yet, like man, she needs incentive. Flattering an artist is to give them tone, courage; but for the woman, it is not worth it! Then they have the domain of frivolity in which they can incentivize one another.
Let man break down the barriers that his self-esteem opposes to the emancipation of women, and he will soon see her take off, to the great benefit of society. The woman, know it, has the divine spark just like you, for the woman is you, as you are the woman."
