Wife-beating
is the masculine prerogative of matrimony. They wear remarkable boots of
brass and iron, and when they have polished off the mother of their
children with a black eye or so, they knock her down and proceed to
trample her very much as a Western stallion tramples a rattlesnake.
A woman of the lower Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her husband
as is the Indian squaw. And I, for one, were I a woman and had but the
two choices, should prefer being a squaw. The men are economically
dependent on their masters, and the women are economically dependent on
the men. The result is, the woman gets the beating the man should give
his master, and she can do nothing. There are the kiddies, and he is the
bread-winner, and she dare not send him to jail and leave herself and
children to starve. Evidence to convict can rarely be obtained when such
cases come into the courts; as a rule, the trampled wife and mother is
weeping and hysterically beseeching the magistrate to let her husband off
for the kiddies' sakes.
The wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike,
lose what little decency and self-respect they have remaining over from
their maiden days, and all sink together, unheeding, in their degradation
and dirt.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204