A 1912 wedding portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Chris Tormandsen gives little indication of how the bride or groom might vote. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org) Well, Why Shouldn't They?

An officer of the Anti-Women Suffrage society of Washington earns her salary by writing to a New York paper that the vote of every married woman would undoubtedly represent the interest of her husband and her family, whether he were a saloon keeper, a gambler, a banker or a protected manufacturer. We have too much confidence in the faithfulness and good sense of American women to doubt this statement for a moment. We are inclined to go farther and believe that the so-called unattached or independent women, spinsters, widows and divorced women, would vote conscientiously in the interests of men or families to whom they are attached by sympathy, interest or affection. No woman is unattached in her own mind and nearly all women unconsciously place the interests of somebody else above their own, whether from nature or education. We do not see why this should be considered an argument against suffrage for women, married or spinsters, widowed or divorced. While the net result would be to duplicate the votes of men, we are inclined to think that women would bring to the joint consideration with husbands, lovers or friends of their individual interest in connection with the larger interest of the whole public, a higher conception of the latter and that the double votes would be more conscientious and patriotic than the single votes are now. Once more, we know of only one argument against suffrage for women. Bless their hearts, they don't want it.