WOMAN IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION.

follow her advent into the legal profession. If she has introduced into society, into literature, and into the medical profession more refinement, tenderness and conscience, we have a right to infer that she will introduce the same elements into the "tender susceptibility, purity, delicacy, emotional science of jurisprudence. The impulses, and sympathetic feeling," which Chief Justice Ryan claims are "surely not qualities for forensic strife," certainly are the very qualities most needed to put flesh and blood and warm life upon the dry bones of judicial lore. The heart throb, the quick sympathy, the question of right and wrong, are the very elements, the union of which with cold, abstract reasoning, are essential to a symmetrical, well-developed science. As in the family, the mother love is no less essential than the father strength; so in the administration of the government of that larger family, the State, we need the Woman heart-beat behind the logic to secure the truest justice.

Third. How will the admission of Woman to legal practice affect society?

This question has of necessity been in part discussed under the two preceding Various and contraheads; for the effect upon Woman, and upon the profession, are, to a great extent, the effect upon society. Other points however, require notice.

dictory results of the entrance of Woman into the legal profession are predicted. We are told at one moment that man will lose his respect for her, and treat her roughly; and, in the next, that the powerful female influence brought to bear on judges, juries and opposing counsel will sway verdicts in favor of the causes she pleads, to the overthrow of justice. Both these results can scarcely follow to a disLet us see whether either will.

astrous extent.

It is said that men treat women deferentially in their homes and in society; but let them descend to the arena of business, and become their rivals, having interests which conflict with theirs, and men will treat them roughly, as they do each other. This argument assumes that hitherto the interests of women have never conflicted with those of men, and men have never treated women roughly. So far from this being true, women's interests, in the lower sense, have always conflicted more or less with men's, and men have usually treated women, in effect, roughly, whenever these Witness the unequal laws relating to men and women interests did so conflict. The common law gave the husband which have always prevailed, as a proof of this. all the property of the wife, at her marriage, and all she might acquire after it, either by gift, inheritance, or labor; gave him a control over her which it does not give her over him, and gave him, in preference to her, the custody and disposal of their children.

It is true, Man doffed his hat to Woman, gave her the best seat, took her to concerts, and told her she was an angel, while he took her property, her children, and In short, their interests conflicted, and he liberty; but he took them nevertheless. "as he would treat another man," but as he treated her, in effect, roughly,-not would never dare treat another man in a position to defend himself against such

treatment.

The multitudes of widows, and innocent, trusting young women, robbed of their property by men, sometimes even by sons, brothers and uncles, in whose care they had entrusted it; the wives deceived or threatened into signing deeds rendering them homeless; the innumerable multitude of working girls ground down to starvation wages and then insulted by their employers, all attest only too surely, not that men will, but that they do, and always have treated women roughly, when their interests conflicted with their own.

Forecasting the future from the past, we are forced to the conclusion that Man will treat Woman roughly, as he has done, whether at home or in business, when there is a conflict of interests; not with outward rudeness, when possible to avoid it, but in such a manner as to sacrifice her interests to his. As time passes, this "roughness" of treatment will become modified, as it has already been, by the influence of Christianity upon character, the improvement of public sentiment, and the increased facilities for self-defense, which Woman is coming to possess. Judging from analogy, Man will treat Woman in court as elsewhere, with outward courtesy; he will give her the best seat, pay her compliments, show her kind little attentions, enjoy her society, as in the parlor. But, when an important suit is at stake, or large pecuniary interests are involved, he will gain his point against her if he can; by fair means only, if he is a man of honor; otherwise, by means of such weapons as he is best capable of wielding. He would do the same if, instead of an attorney, she were a witness, or a party, an employee, or-possibly--a wife. The natural character of the man will show itself in business relations. Whether he is noble or base, the woman will come to know, sooner perchance than in the intercourse of social life; but not more surely. In time, Man will come to see that, in the higher sense, his interests are identical with Woman's, and that he best serves himself as he is just to her. Meanwhile, the true remedy for Man's injustice to Woman is, not in endeavoring to lessen the number of apparently conflicting interests, which we could not do if we would, but in giving her power for self-defense, ennobling him, and teaching both that their true interests are identical.

Whether the influence of women as attorneys in court is calculated to defeat justice, is a point which requires an essay of itself. Briefly, what has been already said will apply so far as the influence of a woman attorney over her opposing counsel is concerned. Men are rarely swayed by women to the serious detriment of their business interests. If the woman attorney has too great an influence over a masculine court and jury, the remedy is simple. Put women also on the bench and in the jury box. Absolute justice is an impossibility in human courts. Various and subtle influences sway courts and juries, more often than they reatize. Political, social, and pecuniary considerations, when no bribery is intended, identical class interests, personal prejudices, passing impressions, varying moods and whims, sometimes the merest trifles, bias jurors and even learned judges. The introduction of still another disturbing element would perhaps be a weight as often turning the scale in favor of justice as against it. Certainly the possibility that judges and jurors may be unduly influenced by women attorneys to the detriment of justice, is not greater than the possibility that judges, jurors, and a bar entirely composed of men, will be biased in favor of masculine privileges against justice to Woman. Those who are now so anxious lest justice suffer by the introduction of "female influence" into our courts, have been singularly oblivious to the injustice of a purely masculine judiciary. Let them, in imagination, reverse the present order, put women only on the bench, in the jury box, and inside the bar, and consider whether they would not be apprehensive lest men should suffer injustice. Let them, then, look back to the long record of judicial decisions, as they stand in the reports on the shelves of every lawyer, and see how again and again it has been decided that a man, however drunken, indolent and worthless, has a right to collect the earnings of an industrious and faithful wife, and spend them as he chooses, only giving her such "necessaries," food, clothing and medical attendance as will keep her in a suitable condition to perform her duties to her family; how again and again it has been decided that a man may administer "moderate chastisement" to his wife-softened in American decisions to "gentle

restraint on her liberty;" how it has been repeatedly decided that the right of the father to the custody and disposal of his legitimate children is paramount to the right of the mother; how all the way through, there is an assumption that the only right of the wife is the right to be kept in suitable physical condition to minister to the wants of the husband and children. Then let them consider, taking the whole human race into the calculation, whether the ends of justice will not be more nearly attained by the entrance of Woman within the bar, than by her exclusion.

The result of the admission of Woman to the legal profession, upon the family relation, has been variously prognosticated. That it will "tempt Woman from the proper duties of her sex❞—meaning the duties of motherhood-has been judicially foreboded. Let us see how largely this is likely to result. According to the census of 1870, there are 40,736 lawyers throughout the United States. That is probably quite as large a proportion as the business will sustain. We will suppose that onehalf of these were women. There would then be 20,368 women lawyers, in a population of 38,558,371 souls, or one to every 1,892 inhabitants. Allowing five persons to every family, there would be one woman lawyer to about 378 families. Even conceding that none of these women lawyers ever become mothers, and that all of them would do so but for their following that profession, the number of births would not be seriously diminished. But all women do not become wives and mothers now; and the single women will be more likely to enter professional life than the married. Among the latter, many would naturally be the wives of men belonging to the same profession, and, working with them, could without difficulty make arrangements by means of which the duties of motherhood need not clash with professional labor. It does not seem, therefore, that serious apprehensions of an untimely end of all things human, upon the entrance of Woman into the legal profession, need be entertained.

That the legal profession opens additional fields of lucrative and honorable employment to Woman, rendering her less dependent upon matrimony as a means of support, is an advantage not only to Woman but to society.

Unlike Carl Schurz, I would not have Woman dependent. In a sense, it is true, we are all dependent upon each other. But Woman should be no more dependent upon Man than he upon her. Above all things, she should be as free to choose a husband, unswayed by pecuniary considerations, as Man is thus free to choose a wife. If this freedom should result, for a time, in fewer marriages, it would also result in fewer divorces, fewer discordant families, and unfortunate, ill-balanced children, and in a higher standard of morality and culture for Man.

To recapitulate briefly: The admission of Woman to legal practice would result in a higher mental culture to Woman; the addition of an element now needed and lacking in the profession; and the security of more perfect justice, and a higher moral tone to society.

Prof. Mitchell here stated that the venerable Lucretia Mott had given a handsome donation to aid in defraying the expenses of the Congress, this announcement being received with great applause.

A paper on Women's Clubs, by Eliza Sproat Turner, was then read by Miss Cleveland. It recommended the establishment of a women's club in Philadelphia, which would attract gifted and intellectual women for social intercourse and the interchange of views having reference to the progress of the Woman's movement.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

BY ANNA GARDNER.

ORGANIZED effort can have no better or higher aim than to promote the progress of the race by striving to elevate the feminine half of humanity.

A Woman's Congress is eminently an appropriate occasion to consider what presents itself as the greatest obstacle to that end, and the perplexities, the manifold complications incident to it.

Civilization waits--nor can it march forward unencumbered, until the public mind shall be awakened to the great problem for which the opening Centennial epoch calls so loudly-how shall Woman be helped out of a constrained, unnatural position, inimical to a free and harmonious development of her faculties, and placed on an equal footing with man?

Many of the best minds and ablest thinkers of this or any other age have reached the conclusion that Woman's want of equal educational opportunities with Man, her industrial disabilities, her lack of personal independence, and, as wife and mother, of the due control of her offspring, with manifold other disadvantages, hinge upon her being denied the self-protecting power of the ballot.

The exercise of this right, inherent in a representative government, cannot consistently be denied to any class of citizens, of whatever nationality, complexion, or sex. While women continue to be treated as belonging to a lower rank, a subject order, no matter how generous the culture of the schools for her, she can never attain the highest possibilities of womanhood. While a whole scale of her faculties is crushed out by the law of custom, and she is denied opportunities for the practical application of her acquirements, profound learning, as it is comparatively aimless, must necessarily be to no small extent, if not absolutely, wasted.

In order to broaden the horizon of her mind and enlarge the scope of her aims, her legal status, now so belittling, must be changed; and, as an initial step in her elevation, the ballot, the acknowledged palladium of individual rights, itself an educationary force, must be placed in her hands.

We fail to appreciate the condescension of Man in volunteering to relieve Woman of responsibilities, of places of trust and honor which through all time have tended to elevate and benefit himself, have strengthened his intellect and developed his rea"that choicest gift of God to humankind." As in the material so in the mental world, the masculine and feminine elements should be wedded, and their action be co-operative.

son,

The fact that each sex possesses reciprocal superiority as complementary halves, is not recognized in the present distorted condition of society. The undue predominance of masculine authority interrupts the normal adjustment, the equilibrium of opposite forces, which, in harmony with the general law of the Universe, the advanced guard of humanity is struggling to realize. To what extent this false and pernicious idea of Woman as a subject being, wrought into our very habits of thought and action, depresses her below the dignity of a true womanhood, and consequently dwarfs the race, is beyond estimation.

It has robbed her of that which most elevates and ennobles human character-selfrespect and personal responsibility. While the stigma of disfranchisement remains, Woman must continue to be repressed, and to feel an enforced subjection, which alike impoverishes her affections and narrows the scope of her intellect.

Except by the indulgence of what is termed the "head of the family," Woman is not considered supreme even in the domestic circle, the word "wife" having woven into its very meaning the idea of a contracted hand employment.

Not only in domestic life, but in all the best and most effective work of the world, God employs as instrumentalities the joint influence and labor of Man and Woman. Why should that union be severed in the great family of the nation, in shaping laws and public institutions affecting alike both parties?

To the timid objector, who fears that Woman may be legislated out of "her proper sphere," and who dreads a "reform against nature," we would cite as apropos the words of Daniel Webster in relation to Texas: "The more fixed any sphere by the Maker of us all, the less necessary it is to fence in by statutes or to fence out by disfranchisement."

course,

In a paper so brief as this must necessarily be, a logical refutation of any of the countless objections urged by opponents to a change in Woman's position, is impossible. Permit me, therefore, to make only a few suggestive points which it is desirable to have brought out for special consideration, in reference to one of the most plausible of these objections—the assumed inferiority of Woman to Man. This olden dogma, which the thought movement of the Nineteenth Century has been endeavoring to eradicate, is revived in certain quarters during these latter days, by inference from an assumed scientific basis. Such a plea could be reasonably urged only on the ground of so vast a disparity in the capacity of the sexes as wholly to disqualify Woman from following her own impulse in the pursuit of happiness, or from exercising her own judgment in the choice of representatives to administer a government professedly based on the "consent of the governed." An inconsiderable inferiority would, of but augment the need of the self-protecting safeguard which the ballot affords. Let us consider whether there is any foundation for this alleged mental inferiority. Significant are the words of Victor Hugo, who said, “ George Sand died, but she has left us the right of Woman resting its evidence on the genius of Woman." While taking a retrospective view of the past from the savage valuation of Woman as commodity, and proceeding along the series of ages to the one immediately prior to our own, during which it was gravely asserted that "chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and geography enough to know the locality of the different rooms in her own house, is learning sufficient for a woman," we are led to see that she has been hampered in every department of mental endeavor, or active life; that, without regard to the bent of her genius, drudgery has hemmed her in, and tethered her to domestic work not always the most attractive, and that prejudice, with a scowling front, has loomed up along every pathway into which the instinctive yearnings of a higher nature have allured her, outside the home enclosure. We could but be amazed at the grand results she had reached, at the sum total of her efforts, calculating to the present period, were we to look at it from any other standpoint than that of the mental equivalence of the sexes. We behold with wonder her achievements in Art, Literature, Oratory, Science, Pathology, Jurisprudence, etc.

What more indubitable evidence that Woman was designed to be the peer of her brother can be furnished than such triumphs as these, everywhere won against the current of public sentiment, and in the face of obstacles which would appal the most strong-minded men.

Tennyson expresses but the baser sentiment of society, that which denies to Woman her God-given place in the scale of being, when he says:

"Woman's pleasure, Woman's pain,

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain."