the origin of customs
and opinions now prevalent, it is as much our right to do it with
freedom, as it is our duty to do it with reverence. Many persons
forget that the highest question is, what ought to be? and not, What
has been or is? Usages frequently endure after their utility has
ceased, after their propriety has gone. The true ideal of human
conduct is not to be seen in the imperfections of the past, but to be
constructed from the perfections of the future. The fact that a thing
has always been, is an historic justification of it for bygone time,
but not a moral justification of it for coming time. This requires
intrinsic and enduring reasons--reasons of right and use. While the
exclusion of women from public life has been natural in the ages
behind us, it is a distinct inquiry whether such an exclusion be
either obligatory or expedient now.

History demonstrates that the male sex has greater muscular strength,
with its natural accompaniments, than the female. The more
differentiated and largely supplied nervous structure, connected with
the offices of maternity, detracts so much from the amount of force
furnished for the muscles and the will. In the rudeness of the
primitive state, it is an unavoidable result of the superior muscular
power of man that woman is his subject. But the more pronounced
nervous system of woman gives her certain spiritual advantages. Her
greater sensibility, her greater seclusion, with its relative
stimulus of solitude and meditation; the closer endearments of
maternity--develop her affections in a higher degree than his. Hence
arises a tendency to refinement, elevation, influence, on her part--a
tendency, to which, in proportion to his moral susceptibility, he
responds with sympathy, respect, and veneration. Every step of social
progress has been marked by a softening of the tyranny of man and a
lifting of the position of woman--an approximation towards an equal
companionship. First the tool of his will, next the toy of his
pleasure, then the minister of his vanity, she is at last to become
the free sharer of his life, the friend of his mind and heart. In the
first of these stages, no question of right was consciously raised:
the brute preponderance of strength decided all. In the last stage,
there will be no question in debate, no exercise of executive
authority on either side; all being settled by a spontaneous harmony
of privileges and renunciations on both sides. But in the
inter