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PART II - SONS OF BONDSWOMEN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2011

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Summary

“We transmit, must transmit, being mothers,

What we are to mankind.”

—Charlotte Stetson.

Two great dangers to the race are involved in the bondage imposed upon women. The suppression of “sports” or varieties has been already treated. We now come to the injury, entailed upon men, as the sons, husbands, and brothers of bondswomen.

A man has been brought up, from earliest childhood, to regard a woman as of less importance than himself: he sees her trained to minister to his comfort, and to make herself pleasing in his eyes. He finds the respectable British matron eager to see her daughters marry well:—does she not know, poor woman, that if they do not marry well, society offers them small chance of doing well in any other way? Among the classes for whom the man of the world would feel called upon to profess respect, the voices of duty and religion mingle with that of self-interest, in counselling submission; while in the class that he would openly despise, the necessity to earn a living, and the dread of slaving at starvation wages, provides a motive for the bargain which, according to popular incoherence, disgraces beyond redemption one of the parties to it, while it leaves the other a pillar of society. Is any one so optimistic as to believe that from conditions such as these, it is possible to produce a community wherein all the worst instincts of mankind shall not run wild?

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Chapter
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The Morality of Marriage
And Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Woman
, pp. 212 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1897

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  • SONS OF BONDSWOMEN
  • Mona Caird
  • Book: The Morality of Marriage
  • Online publication: 16 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511704468.014
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  • SONS OF BONDSWOMEN
  • Mona Caird
  • Book: The Morality of Marriage
  • Online publication: 16 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511704468.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • SONS OF BONDSWOMEN
  • Mona Caird
  • Book: The Morality of Marriage
  • Online publication: 16 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511704468.014
Available formats
×