On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (1)
-
A Victim. 177
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
have received from him much better treatment . How is this ? Her brothers would have said that it pleased Heaven sorely to try her ; and that is true as far as it goes ; but we rather think it also pleases Heaven to show by this , and similar examples , that the true morality , that which conducts to happiness , is not always correctly interpreted by society , not even by that portion of society
which claims to be eminently religious . / 'The restraint which crippled her faculties , the awful rod which made her an infant slave , was an immorality . This was the source of her own errors . The twig was twisted ^ and so grew the tree , though graceful even in its distortion . Her marriage was an immorality . So was her continuing through life in a sexual companionship where mutual affection was impossible : not that she was
conscious ofviciousness , but the contrary ; she no doubt thought her misery was her duty . •/ Ill fare the machinery that wrought the perversion and the suffering . For woman so situated there ought to be redress , open and honourable redress , in every country that calls itself civilized . Her situation was even worse than if she had committed that act which , by the law of Moses ,
would have subjected her to death by stoning ; for then she might have been liberated from an enforced and intolerable bond , and even have entered on a new state , perchance of the affection and enjoyment for which she was framed . But her mind was enslaved ; it had been scourged into the faith that she was a
property , and not a being ; her father had divorced himself for a twelvemonth ; her husband probably did worse ; but she never suspected reciprocity of right or equality of will . And they never suspected that there was degradation in the species of mastery which they arrogated . Savage man kicks and beats woman , and makes her toil in the fields ; semi-civilized man locks
her up in a harem ; and man three-quarters civilized , which is as far as we are got , educates her for pleasure and dependency , keeps her in a state of pupilage , closes against her most of the avenues of self-support , and cheats her by the false forms of an irrevocable contract into a life of subservience to his will . The
reason for all which is that he is the stronger / And the result of which is that he often lacks an intelligent and sympathizing companion when most he needs one ; a highr-minded helpmate to cheer him in noble toils and bitter sacrifices ; and a mother for his children who will take care that the next generation shall advance on the mental and moral attainments of the present .
Truly he makes as bad a bargain as he deserves . Do not you think so , Mr . Dove ? Was not Mehetabel Wesley ' s mother as much in the wrong as Andrew MarvelPs father ? And when you print your commendatory list of Critical Notices , especially for the Advertisement in the Methodist Magazine , ' will you not again add , See also the Monthly Repository ?'
A Victim. 177
A Victim . 177
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/33/
-