Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 15, 1845, vol. 1, no. 7, p. ??

[page 110:]

LITERARY NOTICES.

A PLEA FOR WOMAN, being a Vindication of the importance and extent of her natural sphere of action. By Mrs. Hugo Reid; with an introduction by Mrs. C. M. Kirkland. New York: Farmer & Daggers, 30 Ann street.

The introduction to this book, by the accomplished author of Forest Life, is one of the most felicitous essays that we have seen from her pen, although it is not in her peculiar vein. Her recommendation of the work, is a guarantee of its claims to notice. “Woman's Rights” is a subject that we have never seen the propriety of handling with the kind of inconsiderate flippancy in which it is generally done. The motto of this little work is suggestive of all the wisdom belonging to the subject:

“Can man be free if woman be a slave?”

Assuredly not. In all ages, the relative rights of men and women have been the same; when we think of the Hindoo widow throwing herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband, we must not forget the condition of the husband himself when alive, nor the men who suffer by the wrongs of the wife. It appears to us that the surest way for women to gain their rights — always supposing that they do not enjoy them — is to train up their children properly, and they will see that their mothers suffer no wrong. When women dissipate their days and nights in idle amusements, and squander their incomes in dress, while their sons are entrusted to the keeping of hired servants, or sent away from home to distant schools, they must not blame men that they have no clearer perception of what is due to women. It is true that men make the laws by which women are governed, but the women make the men who govern them.