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Welty, "The Need of White Cross Work," 1895
"To shield the young and weak from temptations to impurity.
"To advocate the highest standard of manhood and womanhood.
"To uphold in their integrity the institutions God has appointed for
social relations."
Is there any need for special work along these lines?
There is; and there never was a time in the history of our country
when such work was so much needed as now. This is evident from the
following considerations:
* * *
2. That White Cross Work is needed is evident from the fact that
the double standard of morality is still operative in society. It is well
known how that law binds the obligations of purity loosely upon men,
but tightly upon women; that it condones in men what it damns in
women; that it tolerates the scarlet man but condemns to eternal
infamy the scarlet woman. It has been described as
"A common law by which the poor and weak
Are trampled under foot of vicious men,
And loathed forever after by the good."
That unwritten but everywhere present and tyrannous law is
wrong, unjust and severely cruel to women. It makes them the hunted
game of protected libertines. It is wrong to men for it is a species of
license for them to commit nameless crimes against women. It is also
a wrong to society for it is a breaking down of the law that God gave
for social purity. For the man and for the woman it is written: "Thou
shalt not commit adultery."
The double standard means leniency to guilty men, and when lust
is treated with leniency virtue is treated with indifference. Tolerance to
scarlet men means danger to women--to our sisters and to our
daughters.
This invidious law is to be reprobated also because it excludes
the guilty woman from an equal chance with the guilty man for
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