Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1895 — PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT. [ARTICLE]

PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT.

In Rome, Finland and Java Woman’s Supremacy is an Old Story. It is only among people of modern civilization that the supremacy of woman is regarded as a novelty. In Rome under the empire there was a singular institution where a tribunal of women was established to decide questions regarding luxury and etiquette. The Emperor Holiogabalus consulted this assembly frequently. They decided questions of precedence, the number and state of females at court, upon the style of carriage the emperor should ride in, whether sedan chairs should be ornamented with silver or ivory, and contested the rights of man with an intelligence worthy of the present time. It was a veritable Senate of Fashion, was approved by wiser men than Heliogabalus, and was re-established and maintained by his successors. There occurred in the reign of Henry VIII. a curious case of a woman who acted as a judge. She was Lady Anne Berkeley, of Gloucestershire, who appealed to the king to punish a party of rioters who had entered her park, killed her deer, and burned her hayracks. His majesty granted her a special commission to try the offenders, and, being armed with this authority, she appeared in court, heard the charge, and, on u verdict of guilty, pronounced the sentence. Tliis question of woman’s supremacy does not always signify an advanced state of society, as will be seen from the following account of a small State in Java, between the towns of Sainarang and Batavia, known as the Kingdom of Bantom a In regard to its form of government, and the mannersand customs of its inhabitants it far exceeds the wildest dreams of feminine minds. From time immemorial Bantam, though tributary to Holland, has been governed by women. The sovereign is a man ; but that is a small matter, as ho himself is subject to a council of three women. High dignitaries, officers, soldiers, and all the court attendants are without exception women, who see that the men are employed in agriculture and commerce. The king’s bodyguard is composed of a corps of women soldiers who ride astride their horses like men and handle a short, sharp lance with dexterity. They carry a rifle, too, with ease, and aim and fire witli accuracy at full uallop. The oldest son of the king succeeds to the crown; but, if the king dies without male heirs, a hundred women specially appointed meet and select one of their own sons by vote, and proclaim him the legitimate sovereign. In several villages of Finland the woman has authority, for a religious sect exists there whoso disciples are forced when about to marry to tuke a vow to submit to the woman for their governing head, whose duty it is to see that the mon behave themselves, and to punish them if they transgress. Similar are the I’uricants of Liberia, who also recognize the supremacy of women.