The Woman’s Exponent supported women’s suffrage, but it didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in what women would do with it.

For example, the 1 August 1872 issue explained why women would be unable to vote wisely.  If women voted, it said, they should be able to

“form a clear and irreprehensible judgment; but they have not cultivated those faculties. Their attention has been given to other things; and they are, therefore, unqualified, the majority of them, to act wisely in the capacity they so earnestly seek.”

However, assuming that women were given the chance to focus their attention on civic matters, the Exponent wasn’t sure that women wouldn’t abuse political power the way men do.  But it did believe that women were qualified to function as a kind of political air freshener:

“The fact that the motives of women are purer, their sentiments more refined and elevated than those of men, should be sufficient testimony that the right of suffrage ought to be conceded to them. Not that they may teach men wisdom by their superior intelligence, but that they may exert their more beneficient [sic] and chaste influences in endeavoring to purify the social atmosphere.”

But obtaining equal status with men would be an uphill battle. For example, the Exponent reports that as a wedding gift, a groom, thinking to honor his new wife, presented her with an original transcript of one of the first telegrams sent from Baltimore to Washington. It had been sent to the bride’s grandmother announcing the bride’s birth. It read “only a girl.”

The Exponent staff probably wanted to throw metaphorical bricks at that groom.

Those in favor of female suffrage had to deal with misguided but common opinions on why women should not vote. One often repeated reason was that voting would blunt a woman’s ability to bear and care for children. The Exponent was worried about the health of women as well, but thought it had much more to do with the way women dressed than their ability to vote. For example, the 15 August 1872 issue includes an article titled “Why Women Are Weak.” The main cause? Fashion.

The article was alarmed at the thin underclothes women wore, as well as the custom of baring the neck and arms, all of which was assumed to affect blood circulation and thus the health of the skin. Also under suspicion was the corset: “a rack of steel and whalebone about all the vital organs of the body.” The heaviness of long skirts affected the ability of a woman to walk—“if, indeed, we apply that term to the infantile toddle to which women are driven, thus endangering her life on all occasions.”

The article then decries the fact that the homebound occupations of a woman forbid her from taking exercise in the open air, of enjoying a change of scene, and becoming acquainted with the larger world. It concludes, “shall we find it a matter of surprise that women as a race are diseased and feeble, and are bestowing upon the world a future legacy of diseased and feeble children?”

From the publication of this article, these “diseased and feeble” children would have to wait 24 years until the constitution of the new state of Utah gave the women the vote once more. And they likely did a better job at voting than the prevailing wisdom of 1872 gave them credit for.