“A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Women’s Rights. Certainly, let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us how she shall be served.”

To read Emerson’s comments about women is to gain insight into why some including me accord him the place of the greatest intellect America has ever produced. To his immense credit concerning social commentary he recognized that while those like Scott and others had given women position in society, men could never do for women what they needed to do for themselves, nor would the majority of men ever give women the opportunity to show how they should be served, and not a little of this continued subjugation of women to lesser status has to do with “A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men” that has not to this day fulfilled Emerson’s hope it “may give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Women’s Rights.”

The best of men like Emerson have always recognized the need for a “new chivalry in behalf of Women’s Rights,” knowing such a thing was needed on the historical basis of the fact men make wars while women attempt to make homes. It is this civilizing influence of girls and women the best of thinkers have recognized as essential to the progress of civilization. But the best of thinkers like Emerson also knew so long as women were subjugated to the status of anything less than equal value to men there was no hope for even the most civilized nations escaping the history of humankind being one of continual wars.

We have women in America today who are well placed in politics, there is even the thought a woman for President may become an actuality. But just as trade curses everything it touches though it be dealing in messages from heaven, so with politics. And while the softer and gentler part of that distaff half of humankind is sorely needed in all leadership positions, especially those in which the decisions are made about war, what is lost of virtue in attaining political power is no less for women than for men. It isn’t power over men that will best serve women; it is that new chivalry on the part of men in behalf of Women’s Rights, a new chivalry that only women in their best estate can possibly encourage showing how they shall be served, not in the shrill voice of harpies nor abusing the power of their sex, but in their distinctive “inspiring and musical nature.”

“Donnie and Jean, an angel’s story” is an unabashed romantic novel. The story revolves around two twelve year old children in Bakersfield during WWII and shortly thereafter who are discovering love for the first time. Fortunately for Donnie, he has a great-grandmother who was quite knowledgeable and well-educated, capable of leading him through the morass of so many misconceptions he had about girls, misconceptions he was being forced to reconsider because of his meeting this angel, Jean, who was unlike any other girl he had ever known.

For the first time in his life Donnie recognizes girls and women make music simply by their speaking, kind of like the birds singing, that “inspiring and musical nature” of which Emerson takes note begins to become intelligible to Donnie; and as a consequence he begins the civilizing process of paying close attention to matters of dress and personal hygiene, paying closer attention to his manner of speech and behavior; all this transformation in his life because he met a very special girl; Jean.

But Jean has her own problems; she had never met a boy like Donnie. And now she had to confront the things she used to resent about being a girl, and start getting used to the very confusing elements that went into what was going to be required of her eventually becoming a woman. That all of this is so very confusing to both children as well as the adults in their lives is the reason it took me four years to write the book. However, it wasn’t until some people remarked on the profound intellectual struggles to be found in the book I realized it was indeed far more than a story about two children, it was about the whole confusing society into which the children were born and how this confused society was in so many ways contradictory to what the children believed should actually be the state of things, it was Thoreau wishing he had the wisdom of childhood, a wisdom that adults forsake for the sake of “reality;” it is Harper Lee’s pointing out only children weep over injustice, but when they get a little older they won’t cry about it anymore. Which is why Atticus expresses the whimsical thought a police force of children might not be that bad an idea.

Alas for humankind the ideals and wisdom of childhood are betrayed as we grow up into the “real world” and the “realities of life.” But Jesus said unless we become as little children we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. I don’t doubt Jesus had in mind children like Donnie and Jean.

Jean’s father is a Baptist minister. But as a father and single parent having to confront his little girl growing up, her meeting this boy Donnie and what is obviously taking place between the two children plays a role in his coming to question his religious beliefs ever as much as Donnie is having to deal with his misconceptions, actually his prejudices about the “proper” role of girls in society. As his great-grandmother points out to him, there is nothing wrong with a girl enjoying shooting and fishing, even building model airplanes. These had been foreign to Donnie’s thinking about girls before he met Jean and “grandma” began to help him overcome his prejudices.

There seem too few adults capable of counseling children, too few like Donnie’s great-grandmother to lend needed guidance when the issues of life begin to make demands on children. But while Emerson recognized the need for women to take their needed and rightful place of equal value in society, I felt these 160 odd years later something further needed to be said on behalf of children, and especially for girls like Jean that can have such a profound influence on boys like Donnie, as well as the surrounding adults in the children’s lives.

While we read so much of “girls gone wild” where is the society that would encourage girls to be ladies and boys to be gentlemen? Conspicuous by its absence. It has come to the point where I have said America seems to have degenerated into a society that hates children. It is certainly not a society that cherishes children.

At one point in the book Donnie asks himself how anyone could consider Jean to be of any less value than a boy? But Donnie had been raised in a society that taught girls were of lesser value than boys, women were of lesser value than men. It was just the “way of things.” But as he encroaches upon mature thinking because of Jean, he has to deal with the same issue in regard to race. Why should the color of one’s skin make someone inferior to others? But in Little Oklahoma, in Bakersfield this was the “way of things.” It would take a girl like Jean; it would take good people like her father, Donnie’s great-grandmother and grandparents to help him sort it all out.

It takes good parents to have good children. It takes good leaders to have a good society encouraging good families. There has to be good men and women to encourage others to be good men and women. But we seek in vain today to find proper role models, good people of proven virtue to encourage children and families.

Yes, I continue to believe there is a “spirit of wickedness” pervading throughout history and throughout the world today. Seeming lunatic decisions being made by lunatic leaders. But nowhere is such seeming lunacy as prevalent as in the way children are abused in so many different ways.

I recall a time, the time of Donnie and Jean when families could plan a future for their children, when the children of good families would lead and instruct them, help them to determine their prospects in life. It should have been a time when Emerson’s thoughts on the subject of the proper chivalry arising from women taking their proper place in the scheme of things would at last come to fruition. But it is a mistake to confuse “rights” with “value” whether of race or gender. And it took Jean; it took good people in his life for Donnie to finally understand Emerson’s conclusion about women: “but I confide so entirely in her inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us how she shall be served.”