166 WISCON'SIN' ACADEMY SCIENCES, ARTS, AND LETTERS. 



as men. The disabilities that cut a man off from compensation for 

 labor he is not able to perform are possible and occasional; while 

 those thus hindering a womxn are inevitable and periodical. And 

 this, most certainly, at that period of life when family mainte- 

 nance, if left to her, would, from the youth of her children, be the 

 heaviest. That physiology which stands with its protest at the 

 ballot-box may well take the initiative of protection for woman 

 against this iniquity of more work for the same wages. For a 

 woman to do as much, and as good work as a man, at any contin- 

 uous employment, involves the using of her life-forces at the rate 

 of self-destruction. And for society to compel, or even permit, 

 this is to legalize by stronger than statutory provision the abroga- 

 tion of that law of self-preservation, and that duty of equal pro- 

 tection, for the enforcement of which society was formed. 



Another and most prolific source of discontent is the want of 

 appreciation which everywhere meets women in the performance 

 of the ordinary and ever-recurring duties of domestic life. 



This want of appreciation is apparently grounded, not so much 

 upon a depreciation of woman, herself, as of her occupation. It is 

 as wide-spread as domestic life, and a source of bitterness among 

 all classes not exempted from personal care in affairs of the house 

 by exceptional exaltation of rank. It is found equally among the 

 intelligent and the illiterate — a prevailing low estimate of home 

 duties. Strange as it may seem, this estimate steadily lowers as 

 the intelligence and pursuits of class advance; finding its ultimate 

 in the disdain of gentlemen of the best circles. 



The fact that women do not complain of this very much, or 

 that, to many, it is not distinctly formulated in thought, is all the 

 more to the argument of its being a great wrong and working ser- 

 ious injury. Indeed, next to the fact itself, that it finds so little 

 expression is the worst of it. It is a skeleton with a shadow for 

 every homely joy, dragging the body of its death, through the 

 weary round of woman's life. 



The depreciation of whatever industry, art, or gift belongs to the 

 furtherance of purely domestic ends, such as thrift, organization, 

 and device in the household, has gone so steadily on since the days 

 of King Lemuel, that, taking it up as a cause of revolution among 

 women is, as if in obedience to the command, "Open thy mouth 



