answer to the argument in favor of female
suffrage derived from the cases to which I have referred, that
men, not individually, but collectively, are the natural and
appropriate representatives of women, and that, notwithstanding
cases of individual wrong, the rights of women are, on the whole,
best protected by being left to their care. It must be observed,
however, that the cases which I have stated, and which are only
types of thousands like them, in their cruelty and injustice, are
the result of ages of legislation by these assumed protectors of
women. The wrongs were less in the men than in the laws which
sustained them, and which contained nothing for the protection of
the women. But passing this view, let us look at the matter
historically and on a broader field.

If Chinese women were allowed an equal share with men in shaping
the laws of that great empire, would they subject their female
children to torture with bandaged feet, through the whole period
of childhood and growth, in order that they might be cripples for
the residue of their lives? If Hindoo women could have shaped the
laws of India, would widows for ages have been burned on the
funeral pyres of their deceased husbands? If Jewish women had had
a voice in framing Jewish laws, would the husband, at his own
pleasure, have been allowed to "write his wife a bill of
divorcement and give it in her hand, and send her out of his
house"? Would women in Turkey or Persia have made it a heinous,
if not capital, offense for a wife to be seen abroad with her
face not covered by an impenetrable veil? Would women in England,
however learned, have been for ages subjected to execution for
offenses for which men, who could read, were only subjected to
burning in the hand and a few months imprisonment?

The principle which governs in these cases, or which has done so
hitherto, has been at all times and everywhere the same. Those
who succeed in obtaining power, no matter by what means, will,
with rare exceptions, use it for their exclusive benefit. Often,
perhaps generally, this is done in the honest belief that such
use is for the best good of all who are affected by it. A wrong,
however, to those upon whom it is inflicted, is none the less a
wrong by reason of the good motives of the party