Elizabeth, Susan and Lucretia - Mothers of our Revolution

So in case you've missed all the media hoopla, we are coming up on another Mother's Day. A day to honor only those women who have done what women are supposed to do. All the rest - forget you!

We've watched and waited for generations now to have a holiday proclaimed that honored one of the many heroic, courageous American females. If we must stick to honoring only mothers, it would be great if they were The Mothers of our own revolution. There is a monument of these three women which spent most of its time in the dungeons of the Capitol Crypt while Rotunda space was reserved to the glorification of male heroics.

It seemed to be just as well that this monument stayed hidden - when it was brought out and put on display in the Capitol Rotunda, it was promptly labeled, "Three women in a bathtub" and the laughs just kept on coming.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1865 to 1893; author of the woman's bill of rights, which she read at the Seneca Falls, New York, convention in 1848; first to demand the vote for women.

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), abolitionist, temperance advocate, and later president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, who joined with Stanton in 1851 to promote woman suffrage; proposed the constitutional amendment passed many years after her death.

Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), Quaker reformer and preacher, who worked for abolition, peace, and equality for women in jobs and education; organizer of the 1848 Seneca Falls, New York, convention, which launched the women's rights movement.

This group portrait monument to the pioneers of the woman suffrage movement, which won women the right to vote in 1920, was sculpted by Adelaide Johnson (1859-1955) from an 8-ton block of marble in Carrara, Italy.

http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/rotunda/suffrage.cfm

Inscription Originally Stenciled on the Portrait Monument
THE THREE GREAT DESTINY CHARACTERS OF THE WORLD WHOSE SPIRITUAL IMPORT AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE TRANSCEND THAT OF ALL OTHERS OF ANY COUNTRY OR AGE.

LUCRETIA MOTT AND ELIZABETH CADY STANTON IN THE CALL OF THAT FIRST WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION OF 1848 INITIATED AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY MARSHALLING THE LATENT FORCES THROUGH THREE GENERATIONS DOWN MORE THAN A HALF CENTURY OF TIME GUIDED THE ONLY FUNDAMENTAL UNIVERSAL UPRISING ON OUR PLANET. THE WOMAN'S REVOLUTION.

PRINCIPLE NOT POLICY; JUSTICE, NOT FAVOR; MEN, THEIR RIGHTS AND NOTHING MORE; WOMEN, THEIR RIGHTS AND NOTHING LESS, WAS THE CLARION CALL TO THE MOST ASTOUNDING UPHEAVAL OF ALL TIME. A CALL WHICH WAKED THE WORLD, SIGNALED AND INAUGURATED A REVOLUTION WITHOUT TRADITION OR PRECEDENT, AND PROCLAIMED THE FIRST INCONTROVERTIBLE CONCEPT OF HUMAN FREEDOM-THAT OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY-PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, INCLUDING WOMEN.

WOMAN, FIRST DENIED A SOUL, THEN CALLED MINDLESS, NOW ARISEN DECLARED HERSELF AN ENTITY TO BE RECKONED.

THIS MIGHTIEST OF REVOLUTIONS ENCIRCLING THE GLOBE ACCOMPLISHING WITHOUT BLOODSHED THE OVERTHROW OF ENTRENCHED DOGMA AND HOARY BIGOTRIES REACHED TO THE FARTHERMOST ROOTS OF BEING. HERE INDEED WAS THE FIRST, THE ONLY IMPEACHABLE DEMAND FOR RIGHT AS MIGHT EVER MADE.

SPIRITUALLY THE WOMAN MOVEMENT IS THE ALL-ENFOLDING ONE. IT REPRESENTS THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMANHOOD. THE RELEASE OF THE FEMININE PRINCIPLE IN HUMANITY. THE MORAL INTEGRATION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION COME TO RESCUE TORN AND STRUGGLING HUMANITY FROM ITS SAVAGE SELF.

HISTORICALLY THESE THREE STAND UNIQUE AND PEERLESS.

A SHAKEUP OF THE SHIBBOLETHS?

N.E. Hills are alive with the debate on whether marriage must be restricted to one husband and one wife - lesbian and gays need not apply. In Vermont, both Houses have passed bills that allow same-gender marriage but the Governor has promised a veto.

Vermont does have Civil Unions, which at the time of passage, appeared to be a big step forward but now as more states are making marriage legal, the push is on to join in or be left behind.

It is interesting to read the pros and cons and compare them to the hissy-fits that emerged during the Civil Union debates of yore. All the dire predictions of Vermont turning into California just never happened. Somehow those same gender couples that lived among us were remarkable just like us and the fervor died down to the plaintive bleating of a few diehards and of course the Fundies.

Today the debate is showing something quite different and it seems to me that it is pointing to the real fear of what same gender marriage will precipitate. Possibly this is because of the changes made by having Civil Unions and more people came to think of them as pals living together rather than a threat to their own marriage and children.

Now the caption under pictures of same gender couples identify them as Mary Roe - husband; or John Doe - wife. This has brought out one more of those hidden prejudices that manifest in sexism and misogyny. Man and his society, aided and abetted by women, have spent eons defining and enforcing gender roles. A woman husband! ? A man wife! ?

Oh, no! Our well entrenched patriarchy screams. This cannot be allowed because it will forever endanger our carefully constructed male superiority meme and challenge the Biblical admonition that: God is the head of the husband and man is the head of his wife.


Many may profess not to believe this but it is only buried in a shallow grave in the amygdala [Limbic System of the brain] because it is reinforced daily by our language, our customs, our laws and our fears.

Is it just possible that tearing down the old definition of marriage will force our society to re-evaluate women and men and gender rolls? Maybe all the Women's Movement needs is a shakeup of the shibboleths.