If, then, the movement for the emancipation of woman has for its final end the making of never so fine a quality, never so sublimated a sort of non-child-bearing women, it is an absurdity upon the face of it.

From the standpoint of the Chimney Corner it appears that too many even of the most gifted and liberal-minded of the leaders in the woman’s rights movement have not yet discovered this flaw in their logic.  They seek to individualize women, not seeing, apparently, that individualized women, old maids, and individualized men, old bachelors, though they may be useful in certain minor ways, are, after all, to speak with the relentlessness of science, fragmentary and abortive, so far as the great scheme of the universe is concerned, and often become, in addition, seriously detrimental to the right progress of society.  The man and woman united in marriage form the unit of the race; they alone rightly wield the self-perpetuating power upon which all human progress depends; without which the race itself must perish, the universe become null.

Reaching this point of the argument, it becomes evident that while the development of the individual man or individual woman is no doubt of great importance, since, as Margaret Fuller has justly said, “there must be units before there can be union,” it is chiefly so because of their relation to each other.  Their character should be developed with a view to their future union with each other, and not to be independent of it.  When the leaders of the woman’s movement fully realize this, and shape their course accordingly, they will have made a great advance both in the value of their work and its claim upon public sympathy.  Moreover, they will have reached a point from which it will be possible for them to investigate reform and idealize the relations existing between men and women.

Mr. President, it is no part of my purpose in any manner whatever to speak disrespectfully of the large number of intelligent ladies, sometimes called strong-minded, who are constantly going before the public, agitating this question of female suffrage.  While some of them may, as is frequently charged, be courting notoriety, I have no doubt they are generally earnestly engaged in a work which, in their opinion, would better their condition and would do no injury to society.

In all this, however, I believe they are mistaken.

I think the mental and physical structure of the sexes, of itself, sufficiently demonstrates the fact that the sterner, more laborious, and more difficult duties of society are to be performed by the male sex; while the more delicate duties of life, which require less physical strength, and the proper training of youth, with the proper discharge of domestic duties, belong to the female sex.  Nature has so arranged it that the male sex can not attend properly to the duties assigned by the law of nature to the female sex, and that the female sex can not discharge the more rigorous duties required of the male sex.