"A Double Standard" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Though Frances Ellen Watkins Harper lived from 1825-1911, this poem could have been written today. Harper was a Jill of all trades (poet, fiction writer, journalist, and activist who helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad) and is something of a shero.


A Double Standard
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Do you blame me that I loved him? 
If when standing all alone 
I cried for bread a careless world 
Pressed to my lips a stone. 

Do you blame me that I loved him, 
That my heart beat glad and free, 
When he told me in the sweetest tones 
He loved but only me? 

Can you blame me that I did not see 
Beneath his burning kiss 
The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear 
The deadly adder hiss? 

Can you blame me that my heart grew cold 
That the tempted, tempter turned; 
When he was feted and caressed 
And I was coldly spurned? 

Would you blame him, when you draw from me 
Your dainty robes aside, 
If he with gilded baits should claim 
Your fairest as his bride? 

Would you blame the world if it should press 
On him a civic crown; 
And see me struggling in the depth 
Then harshly press me down? 

Crime has no sex and yet to-day 
I wear the brand of shame; 
Whilst he amid the gay and proud 
Still bears an honored name. 

Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think 
Your hate of vice a sham, 
When you so coldly crushed me down 
And then excused the man? 

Would you blame me if to-morrow 
The coroner should say, 
A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn, 
Has thrown her life away? 

Yes, blame me for my downward course, 
But oh! remember well, 
Within your homes you press the hand 
That led me down to hell. 

I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways, 
He does not see as man, 
Within His love I know there’s room 
For those whom others ban. 

I think before His great white throne, 
His throne of spotless light, 
That whited sepulchres shall wear 
The hue of endless night. 

That I who fell, and he who sinned, 
Shall reap as we have sown; 
That each the burden of his loss 
Must bear and bear alone. 

No golden weights can turn the scale 
Of justice in His sight; 
And what is wrong in woman’s life 
In man’s cannot be right. 




Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.