POLITICAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF WOMEN. 83 



tliem as miners or engineers — a disability affecting the greater 

 number would be likely to disenable the whole. 



This is the situation. The great body of men — the men in the 

 prime of their physical and mental powers — have no employments 

 or duties imposed upon them by Nature incompatible with the 

 strict performance of the obligations of public office. A man may 

 be a punctual and industrious executive officer, a studious judge, a 

 commanding general successfully conducting a campaign, and be 

 no whit less a faithful and helpful husband, a wise and provident 

 father. This very excellence in these purely private and do- 

 mestic virtues, while it would add to his popularity, would never 

 be thought of as impairing his efficiency as a public servant. 



Now it happens that women during the same period of their 

 physical and mental prime are by their ruling instincts and their 

 dominant sentiments assigned to duties which leave neither time 

 nor faculty for any absorbing and responsible public station. It 

 might be invidious to say that the best women are in this cate- 

 gory of disability; it must be said, however, that the women 

 whom men think the best — at least the best to be wives and the 

 mothers of their children — are not eligible to public office. 



In this actual condition of things what will be the probable 

 result of sharing with all women, by a sweeping enfranchisement, 

 the privileges of all political offices ? Only those will be likely 

 to be proposed as candidates, or at least will consent to be candi- 

 dates, who have no incompatible domestic duties — unmarried 

 women, who have no pleasant homes, or fathers, brothers, or sons 

 with whom they can live harmoniously, and all the forlorn class, 

 who have failed to come into agreeable relations with other per- 

 sons, or who have made shipwreck of their domestic ventures. I 

 question whether the great body of virtuous and intelligent 

 women, the mothers, wives, and sisters of the citizens, would be so 

 well satisfied to be represented by such persons as by those citi- 

 zens themselves. Our domestic experiences appoint and maintain 

 relations between women and men far more tender and intimate 

 than are possible between women and women, or betwen men and 

 other men. 



Nor is the contingent disability one to be lightly overlooked. 

 There hangs over the fortunes of every woman, at least during 

 the early periods of her career, the liability to the grande passion 

 that so greatly affects human destiny and character. Every 

 housekeeper knows how precarious is the engagement of her 

 domestic servant. If you have secured an exceptionally excellent 

 person in your kitchen, and have begun to look forward to 

 months and years of wholesome cooking and economic adminis- 

 tration, along comes the inopportune lover and carries off your 

 prize. You think her an admirable assistant ; so does he, and 



