THE RELATION OF THE SEXES TO GOVERNMENT. 727 



devoid of benevolence, especially toward the lower animals. Some 

 women imagine, for this reason, that their entire sex is morally the 

 superior of the male. But a good many women learn to correct 

 this opinion. In departments of morals which depend on the emo- 

 tional nature, women are the superior ; for those which depend on 

 the rational nature, man is the superior. When the balance is 

 struck, I can see no inferiority on either side. But the quality of 

 justice remains with the male. It is on this that men and women 

 must alike depend, and hence it is that women so often prefer to 

 be judged by men rather than by their own sex. They will not 

 gain anything, I believe, by assuming the right of suffrage, that 

 they can not gain without it, and they might meet with serious 

 loss. In serving the principle of " the greatest good of the great- 

 est number," man is constantly called on to disregard the feelings 

 of particular persons, and even to outrage their dearest ties of 

 home and family. Woman can not do this judicially. After the 

 terrors of the law have done their work, woman steps in and binds 

 up the wounds of the victims, and the world blesses both the 

 avenger and the comforter. 



In the practical working of woman suffrage, women would 

 either vote in accordance with the views of their husbands and 

 lovers or they would not. Should they do the former habitually, 

 such suffrage becomes a farce, and the only result would be to 

 increase the aggregate number of votes cast. Should women vote 

 in opposition to the men to whom they are bound by ties senti- 

 mental or material, unpleasant consequences would sooner or later 

 arise. No man would view with equanimity the spectacle of his 

 wife or daughters nullifying his vote at the polls, or contributing 

 their influence to sustain a policy of government which he should 

 think injurious to his own well-being or that of the community. 

 His purse would be more open to sustain the interests of his own 

 political party, and if he lived in the country he would probably 

 not furnish transportation to the polls for such members of his 

 family as voted against him. He would not probably willingly 

 entertain at his house persons who should be active in obtaining 

 the votes of his wife and daughters against himself ; and on the 

 other hand the wife might refuse entertainment to the active 

 agents of the party with which she might not be in sympathy. 

 The unpleasantness in the social circle which comes into view 

 with the advent of woman suffrage is formidable in the extreme, 

 and nothing less than some necessity yet undreamed of should in- 

 duce us to give entrance to such a disturber of the peace. We 

 need no additional causes of marital infelicity. But we are told 

 by the woman-suffrage advocate that such objections on the part 

 ot men are without good reason, and are prejudices which should 

 be set aside. But they can not be set aside so long as human na- 



