About Washington: An Occupation of Civil Life

WASHINGTON, July 10 – There was great change in the nation in 1873, when the men of the Supreme Court sat together and ruled on Bradwell v. Illinois. It was an era when the slaves had been freed, the frontier was retreating and women were fighting for the constitutional right to practice law, tinally reaching the highest court with their case. “God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action.” the ma- jority ruled. “It belongs to men to make, apply and execute the law.” Thus did Myra Bradwell suffer defeat and the State of Illinois enjoy vic- tory in its law banning women lawyers. If Myra Bradwell sought comfort in a separate opinion, she found none in the concurrence of Mr. Justice Bradley, who felt the majority’s language too weak. “Man is, or should be, woman’s p~ tector,” he said, finding that the “deli,, cacy which belongs to the fair sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.” “This is the law of the Creator,” declared the man. Time has passed by Mr. Justice Bradley. But he is not forgotten by the successors of Myra Bradwell, particularly as they prepare for the coming Senate inquiry into the nomination of Judge Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman member of tfie Supreme Court. In the hours after Judge O’Connor’s nomination, this city’s phenomenal predilection for reducing eftnts to quick-fix, white-hot iSsues threatened to make her a mere adjunct to the endless abortion dispute, as more than a dozen anti-abortion lobbying groups found