242 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



acknowledge that woman ought to be represented in this fashion, 

 or else allowed to deposit a ballot for herself. The proposition of 

 woman suffrage alone does not trouble them, but they stumble 

 over the corollaries of political life and officeholding, and, rightly- 

 judging that the trio are logically involved and claimed by suf- 

 fragists, they demur at the result or reject all together. 



Political avocations seem to them utterly alien to the womanly 

 nature, or at least to what they know of it ; and since their concep- 

 tion of this elusive quality is undoubtedly founded on the particu- 

 lar instances which have fallen within their experience, it would 

 be useless to oppose it with a flurry of words. One of their num- 

 ber, however, in a paper on The Political Rights and Duties of 

 Woman, is explicit, and furnishes us with several statements which 

 may be debated. To the performance of political functions by 

 women, he holds there is " a serious natural impediment " that 

 " four fifths of the women all the world over, between the ages of 

 twenty and sixty, are occupied with paramount domestic obliga- 

 tions incompatible with public service." " Under this disability 

 of Nature, or closely related to it, all the objections to the exercise 

 of political functions by women may be classed, so that no other 

 objection need be considered." 



It is no longer, then, a vaporous theory that confronts us, but 

 an array of questionable facts. The condition of four fifths of 

 the women " all the world over " is certainly beside the issue. We 

 have no reliable statistics regarding them, and we are not at pres- 

 ent concerned with their political disabilities. The ballot is de- 

 manded only for the women of civilized communities, where the 

 right of suffrage is already possessed by men, and the question is 

 immediately pertinent to those in the United States. Here statis- 

 tics are available, and in New York State they run as follows : 



Women between the ages of nineteen and sixty-Jive. 



Total number 1,707,655 



Married women 1,244,291 



Mothers* 1,238,070 



Mothers disqualified for public service 550,252 



Eligible women 1,157,403 



= 67 per cent of the whole. 



Comparing men, we find certain classes among them ineligible 

 to political oflice by reason of their professional or business duties, 

 yet disfranchisement of their sex on that account has never been 

 considered. Priests and ministers of the gospel, even if devoting 

 some time to politics, could not give to public office " that entirety 



* The general proportion of mothers among married women is ninety-five per cent. Of 

 these, the maximum number disqualified would be four ninths. 



