Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/107

 dimensions. "Her power for good is beyond all other agencies," but it is not wanted in affairs of State, where surely it is needed quite as badly as in any place in the world. "Man is her shield, guardian, defender and avenger." Witness the Common Law of England, made by men, under which women lived for centuries and which is still in force in a number of the States; witness the records of the courts with the wife-beaters and slayers, the rapists, the seducers, the husbands who have deserted their families, the schemers who have defrauded widows and orphans— witness all these and then say if all men are the natural protectors of women. But even if they were, witness the millions of women who are not legally entitled to the protection and assistance of any man. However, the report does not forget these women. ]

The exceptional cases of unmarried females are too rare to change the general policy, while expectancy and hope, constantly being realized in marriage, are happily extinguishing the exceptions and bringing all within the rule which governs wife and matron.

To permit the entrance of political contention into the home would be either useless or pernicious—useless if man and wife agree, and pernicious if they differ. In the former event the volume of ballots alone would be increased without changing results. In the latter, the peace and contentment of home would be exchanged for the bedlam of political debate and become the scene of base and demoralizing intrigue.

[What a breadth of statesmanship, what a grasp of the principles of a republican form of government, to see in the voting of husband and wife only an "increase of ballots;" what a reflection upon men to assume that if there were an honest difference of opinion "the home would become a scene of base and demoralizing intrigue;" what a recognition of justice to decree that, since possibly there might be a disagreement, the man should do the voting and the woman should be forbidden a voice!]