Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1911 — OPPOSED TO SUFFRAGETTES [ARTICLE]

OPPOSED TO SUFFRAGETTES

Prejudiced Views of a Henpecked Husband.

One night while traveling in th< country I stopped at a farmhouse. 1 could see plainly that the farmer’s .wife was not a person to be lived with on amiable terms. After she had gone to bed the farmer and I sat together chatting. I asked him if he liked to < ***d. * • "Waal, stranger,” he said, “I reckon I do like to read es I kin git the books.

For a long time I had nothin’ but Shakespeare and the Bible. But last winter I got a historical book about them kings and queens of England. 1 was interested in one of ’em, a king called Henry VIII. That king was the only man I ever read or heered about that got ahead of six wimmin, all bis wives, and didn’t hev to kill more'n two of 'em neither.” “He was a monster,” I protested. “Waal, now. stranger. I hain’t so sartin about that. I don't kdow that he was quite excusable.in the matter of his first wife, the Spanish woman; but, ye see, a man to git ahead of six wimmin has got to be mighty sharp. If 1 remember right. Henry bed married his brother's widder. which is contrary to Scripture, and after livin' with her twenty years his conscience troubled him. It may be thet he hadn’t orter married her in the first place, but it makes a good deal of difference whether a woman’s young and amiable or old and spiteful. No, I think, under the Circumstances.' Henry was excusable for gltten a tender conscience at thte right time." “You surely don’t approve of his beheading Anne Boleyn, his second wife?” ? “Waal, now, 1 haih't so sartin about that neither. Henry's conscience was a very tender one and. as 1 said afore, always pricked him at a convenient time. When his firM wife died he wanted to show her mark of respec’ and ordered his court to put on black. Appe Boleyn showed what kind of a woman she was when she ordered her wimmin to wear yaller. That made Henry fnad. It was a convenient time to be mad. He was gittin’ ready for his next wife.”

■'His ftflra wife.” I remarked, “Jane Seymour, was. I believe, the only one of the six who died a natural death while married to him. The next, Anne of Cleves, he divorced without beheading her.” “The Cleves woman was the only sensible one o’ the lot, the only one that come any ways near gittin’ even with the king. When he said ‘You gitr she was very much pleased to go.” “What do yon think of the case of Katherine Howard?” ,“Lemme see. What did she do? There’s so many of ’em 1 forgit.” “As a mere child she had been led into several indiscretions, including a sort of marriage with a low bred fellow who afterward turned pirate. As soon as she married the king all those who had led her astray”— “I remember now. They all turned office seekers, and the queen had to give ’em situations or they’d blow on her. Waal, now, 1 don’t see how Henry could ’a’ done any different. He wouldn’t believe nothin’ agin her till the hull thing was out. Katherine was one o’ them mlddle-o’-tbe-road wimmin. She might’a’ lived es she’d only given in. She wouldn’t own up to her first marriage. The king couldn't git a 'nullment of his marriage any other ground, so he had to chop her head off. She done that; Henry didn’t. Y’ see. stranger, there’s a peculiarity about wimmin that it requires jist such a man as Henry to handle. They never give in. Katherine preferred to love her head, and in doin’ so she only showed a woman’s natur’. “There’s another point in Henry’s fayor. He had two gals to leave the crown to and only one boy. an’ he a weakling. Henry had a nateral insight into wimmin's . on fitnessto run things, and, having a tender conscience, it grieved him to think o’ leavin' his people to suffer under ’em. And it turned out he was right. His first darter was ‘Bloody Mary,’ whose name speaks for her. Then comes Elizabeth, who cut off the heads of the men she loved. “No, stranger; in suinmin’ up the married life o’ Henry VIII. I consider that he was a remarkable man and a very conscientious one. He’ done all he could to keep England from bein' pestered with wimmin rulers, and for that alone he orter be honored by his grateful countrymen. Six of 'em! Jist think of it, stranger—six of ’em! What would you and I do with such a lot, restricted by law as we air? Henry VIII. was a great and good man.” The farmer’s arguments set me to thinking. Of late years we have had lives of Aaron Burr, setting forth his virtues, and of Benedict Arnold, showing how bad treatment and inexorable fate compelled him to betray his country. I confess the farmer’s logic impressed me as favorably as many lives I have read of the world’s prominent sinners. The farmer having no more of King Henry's queens to discuss except the last, who survived her husband, and, as the farmer expressed it. “didn’t count.” he showed me to my room. I overheard a curtain lecture he received from his wife ■’which somewhat diminished my respect for her opinion of women in general and the unbiased character of his excuses for the great British royal Bluebeard