Francis Parkman, "Some of the Reasons Against
Women's Suffrage" (Albany, N.Y. Anti-Suffrage Association, 1905)
The
man is the natural head of the family, and is responsible for its maintenance
and order. Hence he ought to control the social and business agencies which are
essential to the successful discharge of the trust imposed upon him . . .
Woman
suffrage must have one of two effects. If, as many of its advocates complain,
women are subservient to men, and do nothing but what they desire, then woman
suffrage will have no other result than to increase the power of the other sex;
if, on the other hand, women vote as they see fit, without regarding their
husbands, then unhappy marriages will be multiplied and divorces redoubled . .
.
But
most women, including those of the best capacity and worth, fully consent that
their fathers, husbands, brothers, or friends, shall be their political
representatives . . .
Nothing
is more certain that that women will have the suffrage if they ever want it;
for when they want it, men will give it to them regardless of consequences.
Many
women of sense and intelligence are influenced by the fact that the woman
suffrage movement boasts itself a movement of progress, and by a wish to be on
the liberal or progressive side. But the boast is unfounded. Progress, to be
genuine, must be in accord with natural law. If it is not, it ends in failure
and in retrogression. . . . To plunge [women] into politics, where they are not
needed and for which they are unfit, would be scarcely more a movement of
progress than to force them to bear arms and fight . . .
Neither
Congress, nor the States, nor the united voice of the whole people could
permanently change the essential relations of the sexes. Universal female
suffrage, even if decreed, would undo itself in time; but the attempt to
establish it would work deplorable mischief. The question is, whether the
persistency of a few agitators shall plunge us blindfold into the most reckless
of all experiments; whether we shall adopt this supreme device for developing
the defects of women, and demolish their real power to build an ugly mockery
instead. For the sake of womanhood, let us hope not . . . Let us save women
from the barren perturbations of American politics. Let us respect them; and,
that we may do so, let us pray for deliverance from female suffrage.