Why Heyday?
“The hey-day of woman’s life”: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and finding your peak
Ask most people about the women who led the fight for women’s right to vote, and they’ll mention Susan B. Anthony. Anthony was indeed considered a founding mother of the movement—young activists affectionately dubbed her “Aunt Susan”—but she was not among the first to call for women’s right to vote. The true founding mother was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and she is one of my heroes.
Stanton was one of the organizers of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 people, men and women, attended the event and discussed the restrictions on women in American society. Stanton was the principal author of the Convention’s centerpiece document, the Declaration of Sentiments, which declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men AND WOMEN are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. . . .” The document, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, went on to list men’s offenses against women and then to offer up a set of demands, the most radical of which was that women be given the right to vote.[i]
Many critics, including many at the convention, were convinced that demanding the vote was just too radical for mid nineteenth century America, but Stanton was adamant. She insisted there was no way to secure women’s equality in other areas unless they had the right to vote—and thus the ability to pressure lawmakers to act on behalf of women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton dedicated the rest of her life to the fight for women’s rights. In 1851, she met Susan B. Anthony, and the two became partners in leading the movement. For many years while Stanton was confined at home raising her children (she’d have seven in all), she was the movement’s chief intellectual, formulating arguments, writing speeches and news articles, and developing strategy. Anthony was the movement’s spokesperson, taking to the road to drum up support for women’s suffrage all over the country.
Once Stanton’s children left the nest, she, too, went on the road to fight for the vote. Sadly, neither Stanton nor Anthony lived to see the achievement of their dream though both were engaged in the fight right up until their final days. Stanton died in 1902, at the age of 87, and Anthony died in 1906 at the age of 86. Women finally achieved the right to vote until August 26, 1920 when the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.
Of course, I admire Stanton for her tenacious pursuit of women’s right to vote. In recent years, I’ve also come to admire Stanton for her outspoken promotion of the joys of middle age and beyond. On the occasion of her seventieth birthday, a group of Stanton’s friends gathered in New York City to celebrate. On that occasion, she gave a twenty minute speech on “The Pleasures of Aging.” In it, she scoffed at the notion that growing older was necessarily a matter of decline. Instead, she insisted, “If we analyze the pleasures of youth, middle life, and old age, we find all alike depend on the capacity of the individual for enjoyment.” She went on to describe two hypothetical women and their responses to life at every age. One when young is “like a beam of sunshine wherever she goes. . . with her own glad outlook on life” while the other is “a discontented girl, more and more unhappy as the years roll round.”
In middle age, the sunny young woman had become an avid reader “engaged in the reforms of the day” who labored for the good of her family and her country while the other was rich in material goods but self-absorbed and discontented. In old age, Stanton said, these women’s experiences would be “as varied as their experiences in bygone years.” In other words, the woman who approached life with vitality and curiosity would enjoy her life while the one who was restless and discontented at every stage would remain restless and discontented. As Stanton put it, “The pleasures of age depend on what constitute the threads of our lives and how they are woven together.”[ii]
Stanton herself declared that her life had grown richer and more fulfilling with the passage of years. She chalked this up to her accumulated knowledge of how to live in the world. She said, “After many experiences on life’s tempestuous seas we learn to use the chart and compass, to take soundings, to measure distances, to shun the dangerous coasts, to prepare for winds and weather, to reef our sails, and when it is wise, to stay in safe harbor.”
Another factor that contributed to the pleasures of age, Stanton said, lay in the fact that as we age, we are freer to pour our energy into pursuits that give us great satisfaction. As she said, “Fifty, not fifteen, is the heyday of woman’s life, then the forces hitherto finding an outlet in flirtations, courtship, conjugal and maternal love, are garnered in the brain to find expression in intellectual achievements, in spiritual friendships and beautiful thoughts, in music, poetry, and art. It never is too late to try what we may do.”[iii]
“The hey-day of woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Of course, aging isn’t a piece of cake. As women age, we’ll face disappointment, health challenges, and loss. We often find ourselves thrust back into the role of caregiver. Stanton herself faced hardship as she aged. She grew more radical as she aged, which made her the target of harsh criticism. She faced the loss of loved ones and estrangement from friends. Many of us will struggle to find financial stability, as indeed Stanton herself did in the last half of her life. And as she said, “I suppose the time will never come when women, or men, either, will delight in crow’s feet, wrinkles or grey hairs, but the time will come. . . when they will view these blemishes as but a petty price to pay for the joy of added wisdom, for the deeper joy of closer contact with humanity, and for the deepest joy of worthy work well done.”[iv]
I don’t romanticize old age (and I think Stanton did—just a wee bit), but I believe that life fully lived is a journey toward that heyday—a period of success, happiness, and vigor. I believe we can work toward more happiness and vigor at any age, and that’s why I named this blog and my coaching practice Heyday Coaching, after the wise words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
[i] You can read Stanton’s autobiography, Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897, for the full story of her journey to activism. Today you can visit the National Women’s Rights National Park in Seneca Falls.
[ii] Stanton, “The Pleasures of Age,” Rutgers University, The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers Project, http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/thepleasuresofage.html.
[iii] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of class of 1832,” in Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences, vol. one, edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, pp. 344-345, digitized by Brigham Young University Library, Provo, Utah, https://archive.org/stream/elizabethcadysta01stan/elizabethcadysta01stan_djvu.txt.
[iv] Stanton, “The Pleasures of Aging.”
Photos courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.