own livelihood by dispossessing men from their posts.
Others took a more cynical view of the question, and loudly contended that women were by their nature and constitution unfitted for any serious occupation. If put in any position that required continuous attention, they would be tempted to neglect their work for every trifling cause, and everything committed to them would be utterly mismanaged and go to ruin. The beautiful harmony that at present prevailed, whereby all parts of the intricate machinery of the state worked smoothly and regularly, would be disturbed, and anarchy and confusion would be substituted for order and regularity.
In short, it was the opinion of the great majority of both sexes, that man should work at the real business of life, and that women should remain as the mere ornaments and decorations of society. So the feeble attempt of the would-be reformers resulted in nothing; and, if any women sought to break through the conventional rules that bound them by engaging in productive occupations, they were denounced on all hands as unwomanly and especially shunned and despised by their own sex.
I have hinted that woman's rights were more hotly contended for by their advocates of the opposite sex than even by themselves—but this was not looked on as anything extraordinary. Indeed, I noticed at a very early period of my residence in Colymbia, that every body seemed to understand his neighbour's business and interests much better than the neighbour himself; and they got excited and eager about a thing in the, inverse proportion of their own concern with it.
