The good and beautiful scheme of life, then -- that is to say the
scheme to which we are habituated -- assigns to the woman a
"sphere" ancillary to the activity of the man; and it is felt
that any departure from the traditions of her assigned round of
duties is unwomanly. If the question is as to civil rights or the
suffrage, our common sense in the matter -- that is to say the
logical deliverance of our general scheme of life upon the point
in question -- says that the woman should be represented in the
body politic and before the law, not immediately in her own
person, but through the mediation of the head of the household to
which she belongs. It is unfeminine in her to aspire to a
self-directing, self-centered life; and our common sense tells us
that her direct participation in the affairs of the community,
civil or industrial, is a menace to that social order which
expresses our habits of thought as they have been formed under
the guidance of the traditions of the pecuniary culture. "All
this fume and froth of 'emancipating woman from the slavery of
man' and so on, is, to use the chaste and expressive language of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton inversely, 'utter rot.' The social
relations of the sexes are fixed by nature.
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