There was not much applause this time, when the speaker resumed his seat. Some few laughed, but here and there, as you cast your eye over the audience, you could see compressed lips and flushed cheeks. But as the platform was a free one, where everyone was invited to freely speak his convictions, no one attempted to interrupt the speaker, although many felt the hot blood of indignation mount to their cheeks.
Almost immediately upon his resuming his seat a woman rose, and, upon addressing the chairman, had the right to speak accorded her. A woman probably forty years of age, but looking nearer thirty. A woman who in her youth might have been handsome and who was yet passably fair. Of figure she was tall and well developed. The light brown hair was combed back so as to leave the low brow free and uncovered. The blue eyes were sparkling with a light that was not caused by a sense of pleasure. The finely curved lips were quivering with suppressed emotions as she fearlessly walked forward and faced the audience.
“Friends! Comrades!” she began, with a voice both clear and strong. “It is not often that I feel myself called upon to make any remarks at these meetings. My sentiments generally are so clearly expressed and so well defended by those who are better able to treat the subjects that as a rule are under discussion here, that I find more pleasure and benefit in listening to others than in taking part in discussion. But this afternoon I feel impelled to make a few remarks, hoping that you will bear with me if I am not able to express myself quite as concisely and correctly as I might wish. I do not wish to find fault with our lecturer in regard to what she has said, but—if it could be called a fault—with what she did not say. Although she has painted you pictures most dismal and saddening I can assure you the half, nay, the one tenth has not been told. Methinks there are some things that she has too lightly touched upon, and which our friend, Mr. Roland, has somewhat more plainly pictured. The ‘looseness’ that Mr. Warden so much deplores in divorce laws does not exist. In fact these laws are so stringent as to place the possibility of obtaining a divorce beyond the reach of the poor. Divorce laws, like all other laws, are for the special benefit of the moneyed class. They can avail themselves of divorce if they see fit, and that they do see fit rather often is quite evident. And for once I must give the privileged class credit for something. Notwithstanding Mr. Warden’s lament that divorces are so easily obtained I claim there is nothing more difficult. The most excruciating torture that it is possible to inflict upon a sensitive and refined woman is to drag her into our modern courtroom and subject her to the quizzing process of shameless lawyers, who ply her with numberless questions that cut to the quick the sensitive heart and lacerate it as though some diabolical machine filled with knives of all shapes and sizes were making mince-meat of it. These lawyers luxuriate in cruelly delving in these wounded and bleeding hearts so that it takes a woman of tremendous courage to willingly undergo this dissecting operation, and therefore comparatively few seek the redress of the law. It drags forth, into a foul atmosphere, the most sacred treasures, and defiles them with the vileness that so often is found in the precincts of the law. It hurls a woman from her pinnacle of respected womanhood into the depths of disgrace. It prohibits her from the companionship of the good and pure. It ostracises her from what is called ‘good society,’ it points the finger of scorn at the child that calls her ‘mother.’ If that child be a boy there is a chance for it to win its way in the world, but if it be a girl then hard will it be for her to gain a foothold upon the steep and rugged pathway she will have to climb.
“How can a sensitive, womanly woman desire to confront a room filled with coarse, unsympathizing men and relate to them the stories of her woe? How can she tell of tears shed in the dead of night; of how her sacred womanhood has been abused; of how her outraged person is forced to submit to his loathsome touch? Broken down, suffering from oft-repeated child-bearing, tired unto death with her manifold duties, sick in soul as well as in body, I say how can she tell all this, with all those strange leering faces about her? She would rather go on suffering until death comes to her release, or perhaps her overburdened brain gives way, while the world wonders: ‘What could have been the reason? She had such a good, industrious, sober husband, who has always so handsomely provided for her every want, and such a nice large family of children growing up around her. How could she have been else than happy?’
“They really cannot understand what could have caused her brain to give way. Aside from this, not everywhere is it possible to obtain a divorce for such reasons as I have just mentioned. In some states if she is not treated to blows, neglected with her children to such an extent that cruel want speaks from the hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, she will be told she has no just cause for complaint, and should go home submissively to her liege lord and master, thankful for the home provided for her, and should bow her head in humility to the great and all-wise God who has made all things well.
“O, it is a noble sphere that has been marked out for woman—marked for her by her owner, her lord, her master! Why cannot she be content, why cannot she be satisfied? Aye, satisfied! O, if she could only be aroused to universal dissatisfaction, there would be hope for her emancipation in the near future.
“Our friend, Mr. Roland, has made the remark that in order to free woman, man, the workingman, must first be freed,—the economic conditions must first undergo a universal change. Then why, in freedom’s name, is woman’s cause not more frequently urged as an argument to that end? O, that woman herself would only awake to a sense of her condition! O, sisters, awake! Hasten the advent of the coming day that proclaims your freedom from the tyranny of man, by aiding him to obtain the rights that are justly his. Lend your aid in freeing man from the thralldom of state and monopoly, and ever bear in mind that the same blow which shatters your brother’s fetters will also free you. That which insures his freedom and independence will do the same for you. For when the day comes in which justice reigns, she can no longer stand with blindfolded eyes while woman’s life is fettered.”
As the speaker ceased, and the applause burst forth, Imelda bent her head near Margaret, whose cheeks glowed like twin roses.
“Who is she?” she asked, and Margaret in answer whispered:
“My mother!”