LETTER VII.
CONDITION IN SOME PARTS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA.
Brookline, 8th Mo., 22d, 1837.
Dear Sister,—I now come to the consideration of the condition of woman in Europe.—In this portion of the world, she does not appear to have been as uniformly or as deeply debased, as in Eastern countries; yet we shall find little in her history which can yield us satisfaction, when we regard the high station she was designed to occupy as a moral and intellectual being.
In Greece, if we may judge from what Eustathius says, ‘women should keep within doors, and there talk,’—we may conclude, that in general their occupations were chiefly domestic. Thucydides also declares, that ‘she was the best woman, of whom the least was said, either of good or of harm.’ The heathen philosophers doubtless wished to keep woman in her ‘appropriate sphere;’ and we find our clerical brethren of the present day re-echoing these pagan sentiments, and endeavoring to drive woman from the field of moral labor and intellectual culture, to occupy her talents in the pursuit of those employments which will enable her to regale the palate of her lord with the delicacies of the table, and in every possible way minister to his animal comfort and gratification. In my humble opinion, woman has long enough subserved the interests of man; and in the spirit of self-sacrifice, submitted almost without remonstrance to his oppression; and now that her attention is solicited to the subject of her rights, her privileges and her duties, I would entreat her to double her diligence in the performance of all her obligations as a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter. Let us remember that our claim to stand on perfect equality with our brethren, can only be substantiated by a scrupulous attention to our domestic duties, as well as by aiding in the great work of moral reformation—a work which is now calling for the energies and consecrated powers of every man and woman who desires to see the Redeemer’s kingdom established on earth. That man must indeed be narrow minded, and can have but a poor conception of the power of moral truth on the female heart, who supposes that a correct view of her own rights can make woman less solicitous to fill up every department of duty. If it should have this effect, it must be because she has not taken a comprehensive view of the whole subject.
In the history of Rome, we find a little spot of sunshine in the valley where woman has been destined to live, unable from her lowly situation to take an expansive view of that field of moral and mental improvement, which she should have been busy in cultivating.
‘In the earliest and best days of Rome, the first magistrates and generals of armies ploughed their own fields, and threshed their own grain. Integrity, industry and simplicity, were the prevailing virtues of the times; and the character of woman was, as it always must be, graduated in a degree by that of man. Columella says, Roman husbands, having completed the labors of the day, entered their houses free from all care, and there enjoyed perfect repose. There reigned union and concord and industry, supported by mutual affections. The most beautiful woman depended for distinction on her economy and endeavors to assist in crowning her husband’s diligence with prosperity. All was in common between them; nothing was thought to belong more to one than another. The wife by her assiduity and activity within doors, equalled and seconded the industry and labor of her husband.’
In the then state of the world, we may conclude from this description, that woman enjoyed as much happiness as was consistent with that comparatively unimproved condition of our species; but now a new and vast sphere of usefulness is opened to her, and she is pressed by surrounding circumstances to come up to the help of the Lord against the giant sins which desolate our beloved country. Shall woman shrink from duty in this exigency, and retiring within her own domestic circle, delight herself in the abundance of her own selfish enjoyments? Shall she rejoice in her home, her husband, her children, and forget her brethren and sisters in bondage, who know not what it is to call a spot of earth their own, whose husbands and wives are torn from them by relentless tyrants, and whose children are snatched from their arms by their unfeeling task-masters, whenever interest, or convenience, tempts them to this sacrilegious act? Shall woman disregard the situation of thousands of her fellow creatures, who are the victims of intemperance and licentiousness, and retreating to the privacy of her own comfortable home, be satisfied that her whole duty is performed, when she can exhibit ‘her children well clad and smiling, and her table neatly spread with wholesome provisions?’ Shall she, because ‘her house is her home,’ refuse her aid and her sympathy to the down trodden slave, to the poor unhappy outcasts who are deprived of those blessings which she so highly prizes? Did God give her those blessings to steel her heart to the sufferings of her fellow creatures? Did he grant her the possession of husband and children, to dry up the fountains of feeling for those who know not the consolations of tenderness and reciprocal affection? Ah no! for every such blessing, God demands a grateful heart; and woman must be recreant to her duty, if she can quietly sit down in the enjoyments of her own domestic circle, and not exert herself to procure the same happiness for others.
But it is said woman has a mighty weapon in secret prayer. She has, I acknowledge, in common with man; but the woman who prays in sincerity for the regeneration of this guilty world, will accompany her prayers by her labors. A friend of mine remarked—‘I was sitting in my chamber, weeping over the miseries of the slave, and putting up my petitions for his deliverance from bondage; when in the midst of my meditations, it occurred to me that my tears, unaided by effort, could never melt the chain of the slave. I must be up and doing.’ She is now an active abolitionist—her prayers and her works go hand in hand.
I am here reminded of what a slave once said to his master, a Methodist minister. The slaveholder inquired, ‘How did you like my sermon to-day?’ ‘Very good, master, but it did not preach me free.’
Oh, my sisters, suffer me to entreat you to assert your privileges, and to perform your duties as moral beings. Be not dismayed at the ridicule of man; it is a weapon worthy only of little minds, and is employed by those who feel that they cannot convince our judgment. Be not alarmed at contumely, or scorn; we must expect this. I pray that we may meet it with forbearance and love; and that nothing may drive us from the performance of our high and holy duties. Let us ‘cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?’ and press forward in all the great moral enterprises of the age, leaning only on the arm of our Beloved.
But I must return to the subject I commenced with, viz. the condition of woman in Europe.
‘The northern nations bore a general resemblance to each other. War and hunting were considered the only honorable occupations for men, and all other employments were left to women and slaves. Even the Visigoths, on the coasts of Spain, left their fields and flocks to the care of women. The people who inhabit the vast extent of country between the Black sea and the North sea, are divided into various distinct races. The women are generally very industrious; even in their walks, they carry a portable distaff, and spin every step of the way. Both Croatian and Walachian women perform all the agricultural operations in addition to their own domestic concerns.’
Speaking of the Morlachian women, M. Fortis says, ‘Being treated like beasts of burden, and expected to endure submissively every species of hardship, they naturally become very dirty and careless in their habits.’
The Cossack women afford a contrast to this disgusting picture. They are very cleanly and industrious, and in the absence of their husbands, supply their places by taking charge of all their usual occupations, in addition to their own. It is rare for a Cossack woman not to know some trade, such as dyeing cloth, tanning leather, &c.
The condition of Polish and Russian serfs in modern times is about the same. The Polish women have scarcely clothing enough for decency, and they are subjected to great hardships and privations. ‘In Russia, women have been seen paving the streets, and performing other similar drudgery. In Finland, they work like beasts of burden, and may be seen for hours in snow water, up to the middle, tugging at boats and sledges.’
In Flanders and in France, women are engaged in performing laborious tasks; and even in England, it is not unusual to see them scraping up manure from the streets with their hands, and gathering it into baskets.
In Greece, even now the women plough and carry heavy burdens, while the lordly master of the family may be seen walking before them without any incumbrance.[1]
Generally speaking, however, there is much more comparative equality of labor between the sexes in Europe than among the Orientals.
I shall close this letter with a brief survey of the condition of women among the Aborigines of America.
‘Before America was settled by Europeans, it was inhabited by Indian tribes, which greatly resembled each other in the treatment of their women. Every thing, except war and hunting, was considered beneath the dignity of man.—During long and wearisome marches, women were obliged to carry children, provisions and hammocks on their shoulders; they had the sole care of the horses and dogs, cut wood, pitched the tents, raised the corn, and made the clothing. When the husband killed game, he left it by a tree in the forest, returned home, and sent his wife several miles in search of it. In most of the tribes, women were not allowed to eat and drink with men, but stood and served them, and then ate what they left.’
The following affecting anecdote may give some idea of the sufferings of these women:
‘Father Joseph reproved a female savage for destroying her infant daughter. She replied, “I wish my mother had thus prevented the manifold sufferings I have endured. Consider, father, our deplorable situation. Our husbands go out to hunt; we are dragged along with one infant at our breast, and another in a basket. Though tired with long walking, we are not allowed to sleep when we return, but must labor all night in grinding maize and making chica for them.—They get drunk and beat us, draw us by the hair of the head, and tread us under foot. Would to God my mother had put me under ground the moment I was born.”’
In Greenland, the situation of woman is equally deplorable. The men hunt bears and catch seals; but when they have towed their booty to land, they would consider it a disgrace to help the women drag it home, or skin and dress it. They often stand and look idly on, while their wives are staggering beneath the load that almost bends them to the earth. The women are cooks, butchers, masons, curriers, shoemakers and tailors. They will manage a boat in the roughest seas, and will often push off from the shore in the midst of a storm, that would make the hardiest European sailor tremble.
The page of history teems with woman’s wrongs, and it is wet with woman’s tears.—For the sake of my degraded sex every where, and for the sake of my brethren, who suffer just in proportion as they place woman lower in the scale of creation than man, lower than her Creator placed her, I entreat my sisters to arise in all the majesty of moral power, in all the dignity of immortal beings, and plant themselves, side by side, on the platform of human rights, with man, to whom they were designed to be companions, equals and helpers in every good word and work.
Thine in the bonds of womanhood
Sarah M. Grimke.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Since the preceding letters were in type, I have met with the following account in a French work entitled ‘De l’education des meres de famille ou de la civilization du Genre Humain par les femmes,’ printed at Brussels in 1837. ‘The periodicals have lately published the following circumstance from the journal of an English physician, who travelled in the East. He visited a slave market, where he saw about twenty Greek women half naked, lying on the ground waiting for a purchaser. One of them attracted the attention of an old Turk. The barbarian examined her shoulders, her legs, her ears, her mouth, her neck, with the minutest care, just as a horse is examined, and during the inspection, the merchant praised the beauty of her eyes, the elegance of her shape, and other perfections; he protested that the poor girl was but thirteen years of age, &c. After a severe scrutiny and some dispute about the price, she was sold body and soul for 1375 francs. The soul, it is true, was accounted of little value in the bargain. The unfortunate creature, half fainting in the arms of her mother, implored help in the most touching accents, but it availed nothing.—This infernal scene passed in Europe in 1829, only 600 leagues from Paris and London, the two capitals of the human species, and at the time in which I write, it is the living history of two thirds of the inhabitants of the earth.’