Constance Smedley

“ As a citizen all men would place her value higher than the unmarried woman who exists to support herself, however cultured and useful to the community the latter's intelligence may be. They know that her experience of life is necessarily deeper, and her judgment sounder; they know also the services which a good wife and mother renders to her nation are of the most supreme importance. ”

“ If such a woman trusts her husband too completely to ask for a settlement from him upon her marriage, and consequently freely gives the myriad services of a wife and mother, nurse and housekeeper, in exchange for a home alone, I do not see that it follows that she should be disqualified from having a voice in her own and her children's destinies, or from being directly represented in the Government which she must obey. ”

“ There are many men who support the plea of the working woman for her civic rights on the basis that she is a ratepayer, who yet absolutely dispute the justice of the clause which admits the married woman to a share of her husband's political responsibilities. They argue that the man pays the rent and taxes, and that to give his wife a vote would amount to giving him a double privilege for the sum he pays towards the nation's maintenance. This argument may be easily dismissed by the fact that representation is not granted according to the sum of money paid by the citizen. ”

“ No man bestows the epithet "unsexed" upon the butterfly of fashion, who spends her days climbing up the social ladder, injuring other women ruthlessly, wasting her husband's money in the satisfaction of vulgar vanity and uncloaked greed! ”

“ When her children grow up, go to school, marry, a woman's life is apt to become empty. Better surely that she seeks to help in the bettering of the conditions of society, than to waste her days in party-giving and frittering of her time in vapid "calls” or purposeless shopping. ”

“ He alone, therefore, has the right to an opinion on all questions of national importance, even though many of those questions peculiarly and personally affect women and children, and are therefore questions in the solving of which a woman's instinct and experience would be invaluable. When it is pointed out that the man of the household is not always the superior member of that household, morally or mentally, we are confronted with the argument that by giving the woman a vote we should give cause for terrible matrimonial dissension. ”

“ If she is one of the most valuable of the nation's citizens she should have a voice in its affairs. The argument that a woman has quite sufficient to do in looking after her house and children without worrying her head about politics strikes at the mainspring of a nation's development. The mothers of the nation are, to some extent, responsible for the world into which they bring the children ”

“ It almost drives one to the conclusion that men not only do not expect women to be worth much, morally or intellectually, but they do not want them to be worth much. Only then one remembers man's reverence for womanhood and his ideal of a noble, altruistic, ministering angel! ”

“ I admit the frivolity of her present interests; but I would ask men to remember that it is they who push woman into the social whirlpool, by the mere fact of their eliminating all serious interests from her life as "unwomanly."
Husbands dislike their wives to meddle with politics or any other pursuit or profession which man has decided is his own peculiar affair: they prefer her to concentrate her thoughts on themselves, their home and children ”

“ It cannot be too much insisted upon that motherhood is the strongest force in existence that makes for altruism, and altruism is the most essential factor in the wise and beneficial ordering of the State. ”

“ IT is universally acknowledged that marriage and motherhood are the woman's crown. From every point of view the married woman is considered a more mature, developed, and responsible being than the spinster; she is, moreover, the most precious possession of the nation, bearing and rearing, as she does, its children. A mother's instinct is held to be unerring ”

“ Given two beings of equal intelligence, the plea of withholding the right to vote from one on the ground that she lacks an economic stake in the country, is rather a feeble one when applied to the woman who has often given up lucrative employment to look after a man's house, bear his children, and make a home for him and them. ”

“ It can hardly be disputed that woman's intelligence and practicality is equal in the main to man's. If there were such a thing as an electoral examination women would not complain of having to pass it ”

“ The millionaire who pays in thousands and the clerk who pays his £5 note have each one vote alike; each has the vote simply as a citizen, quite apart from the value of his personal possessions.
The second argument is, that it is unnecessary for the woman to have a voice; the man is the head of the household, and is quite competent of deciding for his household. ”

“ Every law that has to do with education, sanitation, food, drink, housing, social questions, sexual relations, has to do directly with the wives and mothers who must obey such laws, and they are entitled to a direct voice in such matters just as much as any man. ”

“ Indeed, this threat of matrimonial trouble is voiced so frequently that it gives rise to a very shrewd suspicion on our part that a good many men know in their own hearts that their wives and mothers of their children would think very differently from them on certain matters, and especially as to the vital importance and urgency of certain matters. ”

“ So long as she takes care of her æsthetic possibilities, preserves an inane mind devoid of any serious sentiment or thought, and continues chaste according to the letter of the law, man merely calls her "feminine and forgives her obvious failings with amazing indulgence. ”