The Health and Independence of American Women

This is the subject of discussion in a recent number of the North American Review, carried on by Dr. Dio Lewis, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Dr. James Herd Chadwick. Dr. Dio Lewis attributes the shortcomings of our women in the way of health to improper dressing. Corsets, tight shoes, and garments generally which impede locomotion and prevent free respiration have always been objects of the assaults of that zealous reformer. Mrs. Stanton, who has a far broader and more philosophical mind, refers the ill of American women to detrimental social customs and restrictions. The position of our women as mere dependents is also, according to Mrs. Stanton, a source of much evil for them. 'Household work is the profession without recompense—the contract made for all time. To go through weary days, doing with all thy might what thy hand findeth to do, and at the end have nothing that you can call your own, is a sting to the spirit, a rasp to the nerves, that will soon brush away the bloom from the rosiest cheek.' Mrs. Stanton regards remunerative employment and pleasant mental occupation as essential to the health and happiness of women. Dr. Chadwick agrees with Mrs. Stanton that it is essential to the health and to the general harmonious development of woman that the sphere of their employments should be extended.