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diff --git a/36152.txt b/36152.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..017766f --- /dev/null +++ b/36152.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7394 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A New Atmosphere, by Gail Hamilton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A New Atmosphere + +Author: Gail Hamilton + +Release Date: May 18, 2011 [EBook #36152] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW ATMOSPHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + A NEW ATMOSPHERE + + + BY + + + GAIL HAMILTON, + + AUTHOR OF "COUNTRY LIVING AND COUNTRY THINKING," + "GALA DAYS," AND "STUMBLING-BLOCKS." + + + + BOSTON: + FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. + 1870. + + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by + TICKNOR AND FIELDS, + in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the + District of Massachusetts + + + + SEVENTH EDITION. + + + + UNIVERSITY PRESS: + WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, + CAMBRIDGE. + + + + +A NEW ATMOSPHERE. + + + + +I. + + +A vitiated atmosphere is fatal to healthy development. One may be ever +so wise, learned, rich, and beautiful, but if the air he breathes is +saturated with fever, pestilence, or any noxious vapor, nothing will +avail him. The subtile malaria creeps into his inmost frame, looks out +from his languid eye, settles in his sallow cheek, droops in his +tottering step, and laughs to scorn all his learning and gold and +grandeur. He must rid himself of the malaria, or the malaria will rid +itself of him. + +There are many evils in the world, deep-seated and deleterious. I +rejoice to see noble men and women working at the overthrow of these +old Dagons; but the processes are many and long. Grievances are +suffered which can be redressed only by the repeal of old and the +enactment of new laws. Health suffers from ignorance which scientific +discoveries, patient observation, and correct reasoning must dispel. +Religion suffers from a narrowness and shallowness which broader and +deeper culture must remove. Heaven send the laws, the science, and the +culture, for these ills are indeed sore and of long continuance; but +we need not wait upon the slow steps of law and science. Every man and +woman can begin at this moment a renovation. Behind all law and all +literature, the very air we breathe, the moral atmosphere not of books +and benches only, but of kitchen and keeping-room, is impure and +unwholesome. The interests of humanity demand a purification. + +What I am going to say may have been said before; but if so, the +present condition of things shows that it has been said to too little +purpose. I have myself glanced at it askance, but I have never looked +it square in the face. I have spoken ships bound to my port, but not +freighted with my cargo. Success to them all! There is sea-room for +every keel, and use for all their treasures. I am so far from claiming +to be original, that I rather marvel there is any necessity for my +being at all. The truths which I design to illustrate lie so on the +surface that I should suppose they would commend themselves to the +most casual notice. I can account for the obscurity which seems to +enshroud them only by supposing that the days of Eli have reached down +to us, and that there is no open vision. Therefore the truth needs to +be repeated and repeated, in different forms and tones, if it is to be +made effectual to the pulling down of strongholds. I will do my part +of the reiteration. If I can state no new truths, I will at least help +to ring the old truths into the ears of this generation till every +unjust judge shall moan in bitterness of soul, "Though I fear not God +nor regard man, yet, because these women trouble me, I will avenge +them, lest by their continual coming they weary me." + +In pursuance of my plan, it will be necessary for me sometimes to +recur more than once to the same topic; but the repetition involved +will be more apparent than real. It will be such repetition as the +multiplication-table displays, whose first column gives you two times +four, its third four times two, its fourth four times five, and so on +to the end. You have the same figures, but in different combinations. +I shall bring forward the same facts, but they will be presented under +different lights, and will bear upon different conclusions. + +I shall also, without hesitation, discuss topics on which I have +spoken at former times, but without perceiving all their relations. No +architect would reject stones which were necessary to the symmetry of +his building because he had previously used them for other purposes. + +I shall touch upon many and diverse themes; but nothing will be +irrelevant. An atmosphere embraces the whole globe, and nothing human +is foreign to it. + +One person may not succeed in dispelling all the miasms of the earth, +but if he can only cleanse one little corner of it, if he can but send +through the murky air one cool, bracing, healthy gale, he will do much +better than to sit under his vine, scared by the greatness of the evil +and the dignity of those who support it. + + + + +II. + + +The laws and customs regarding the education of girls and the +employment of women may be wrong and difficult of righting; but a more +elemental wrong, and one that lies within reach of every parent, is +the coarse, mercenary, and revolting tone of sentiment in which girls +are brought up and in which women live, entirely apart from their +technical education and employment. I refer now to the refined and +educated, as well as, and indeed more than, to the rude and +illiterate, for it is their altitude which determines the level of all +below. This tone of sentiment is such as to diminish girls' +self-respect, mar their purity, and dwarf their being. They inhale, +they imbibe, they are steeped in the idea, that the great business of +their life is marriage, and if they fail to secure that they will +become utterly bankrupt and pitiable. Naturally this idea becomes +their ruling motive; all their course is bent to its guidance; and +from this idea and this course of action spring crime, and sorrow, and +disaster, "in thick array of depth immeasurable." + +In this and in many other instances you will doubtless think that I +overstate the truth. Looking into an empty bucket, you would say the +air is colorless; looking into the depths of the atmosphere, you see +that it is blue. I am not writing about a bucket, but about the +atmosphere. + +Viewing the circumstances which form women, together with the women +who are formed by them, one is filled with astonishment at the +indwelling dignity and divinity of the womanly nature; and the thought +can but arise, if a flower so fair can spring from a soil so badly +tilled, what graceful and glorious growths might we not see did art +but combine with nature to produce the conditions of the highest +development! We lament heathendom, but much of our spirit is +essentially heathenish. Little girls see in their geographies pictures +of Circassian fathers selling their daughters to Turkish husbands, and +they think it very inhuman and pagan. But, little girls, your fathers +will traffic in you without scruple. Matters will not be managed in +quite so business-like a fashion, but such a pressure will be brought +to bear upon you that you will have very little more spontaneity than +the Circassian slave who looks so pitiful in the geography book. At +home you will hear yourself talked about, talked at, and talked to, in +such a manner that you will have no choice left but to marry. It is +expected and assumed. I do not mean girls who are to snatch their +unhappy fathers from exposure and disgrace by a rich and hated +marriage. Such things belong to ballads. We are dealing now with life. +I have seen girls,--respectable, well-educated, daughters of Christian +families, of families who think they believe that man's chief end is +to glorify God and enjoy him forever, who profess to make the Bible +their rule of faith and practice, to eschew the pomps and vanities of +this world, and consecrate themselves to the Lord,--who are yet +trained to think and talk of marriage in a manner utterly commercial +and frivolous. Allusions to and conversations on the subject are of +such a nature that they cannot remain unmarried without shame. They +are taught, not in direct terms at so much a lesson, like music or +German, but indirectly, and with a thoroughness which no music-master +can equal, that, if a woman is not married, it is because she is not +attractive, that to be unattractive to men is the most dismal and +dreadful misfortune, and that for an unmarried woman earth has no +honor and no happiness, but only toleration and a mitigated or +unmitigated contempt. + +What is the burden of the song that is sung to girls and women? Are +they counselled to be active, self-helpful, self-reliant, alert, +ingenious, energetic, aggressive? Are they strengthened to find out a +path for themselves, and to walk in it unashamed? Are they braced and +toned up to solve for themselves the problems of life, to bear its +ills undaunted and meet its happinesses unbewildered? Go to! Such a +thing was never heard of. It is woman's rights! It is strong-minded! +It is discontented with your sphere! It is masculine! Milton and St. +Paul to the rescue! + + "For contemplation he, and valor formed, + For softness she, and sweet attractive grace." + +So "she" is urged to cultivate sweet attractive grace by acquainting +herself with housework, by learning to sew, and starch, and make +bread, to be economical and housewifely, and so a helpmeet to the +husband who is assumed for her. This is the true way to be attractive, +she is informed. "Men admire you in the ball-room," say the mentors +and mentoresses, "but they choose a wife from the home-circle." +Marriage is simply a reward of merit. Do not be extravagant, or +careless, or bold, or rude, for so you will scare away suitors. Be +prudent, and tidy, and simple, and gentle, and timid, and you will be +surrounded by them, and that is heaven, and secure a husband, which is +the heaven of heavens. A flood of stories and anecdotes deluges us +with proof. Arthur falls in love with beautiful, romantic, poetic, +accomplished Leonie, till she faints one day, and he rushes into her +room for a smelling-bottle, and finds no hartshorn, but much confusion +and dust, while plain Molly's room is neat and tidy, and overflows +with hartshorn; whereupon he falls out of love with Leonie, in with +Molly, and virtue and vice have their reward. Or Charles pays a +morning visit, and is entertained sumptuously in the parlor by Anabel, +and Arabel, and Claribel, and Isabel, in silk, while Cinderella stays +in the kitchen in calico and linen collar. But Charles catches a +glimpse of Cinderella behind the door, and loves and marries the +humble, grateful girl, to the disappointment and deep disgust of her +flounced and jewelled sisters. Or Jane at the tea-table cuts the +cheese-rind too thick, and handsome young Leonard infers that she will +be extravagant; Harriet pares it too thin, and that stands for +niggardliness; but Mary hits the golden mean, and is rewarded with and +by handsome young Leonard. Or a broomstick lies in the way, over which +Clara, Anna, Laura, and the rest step unheeding or indifferent, and +only Lucy picks it up and replaces it, which Harry, standing by, makes +a note of, and Lucy is paid with the honor of being Harry's wife. +Moral: Go you and do likewise, and verily you shall have your reward, +or at least you stand a much better chance of having it than if you do +differently. "Be good, and you will be married," is the essence of the +lesson. + +Laying aside now all question of the dignity and delicacy of such +proceedings, assuming for the time that it is the proper course, let +us notice whether it is followed out to its conclusions. Not in the +least. Having done its best to transpose the feminine raw material +into the orthodox texture and pattern of "good wives," society lays it +on the shelf to run its own risk of finding a purchaser. It neither +provides husbands for the "good wives" which it has made, nor suffers +them to go and look up husbands for themselves. If a girl is ready to +enter service, she can enroll her name at the intelligence office. If +she is prepared to teach, she sends to the "Committee." If she desires +to be a saleswoman, she applies at the different shops; but your "good +wife" candidate must wait patiently,--not the grand old theological +"waiting in the use of means," but the Micawber waiting for something +to turn up. She has learned the bread-making and the clear-starching; +she is mistress of domestic economy; she is familiar with all the +little details of puddings and preserves; she is ripe for wifehood and +green for all else, and now she wants an arena for the exercise of her +skill. But she would better pull her tongue out at once than say so. +People may talk to girls at pleasure of the fair domestic realm where +they will be queen, of the glory of such a kingdom, and the +unsatisfying emptiness of any and every other; but no crime is more +fatal to a girl's reputation and prospects than the suspicion of +husband-hunting. That fate, that career, that glory, which has been +constantly mapped out to her as the very Land of Promise, the goal of +her ambition, the culmination of her happiness, is the one fate, the +one career, the one glory, which she must not lift an eyelash to +secure. Let a girl, the very same girl whom you have been pushing +through a course of the received proper training, be supposed to set +but so much as a feather on her hat, a smile on her lips, a tone in +her voice, to attract the admiration which she has been constantly +taught is the guerdon of all the virtues,--and her reputation sinks at +once to zero. "Trying to get a husband," whether couched in the +decorous phrase of polite society, or in the uncompromising language +of more primitive circles, is the death-warrant of a girl's good name. +She must sedulously prepare herself for a position to which she must +be totally indifferent. She must learn all domestic accomplishments, +but she must take no measures, she must exhibit no symptoms of a +desire to secure a domestic situation. You bid her make ready the +wedding-garments and the marriage feast, and then sit quietly waiting +till the bridegroom cometh, her small hands folded, her meek eyelashes +drooping, no throb of impatience or discontent or anxiety in her +heart, no reaching out for any career at home or abroad, except a meek +ministration in her father's house, or a mild village benevolence. But +will Nature set aside her laws at your behest? Is it of any use for +you to lay down your yardstick and say, "Thus far shalt thou go, and +no farther"? Do you not see the inevitable result is a course of +falsehood? + +Is this a strong statement, a libel upon the female sex? But you read +novel after novel in which the larger number of women--all, perhaps, +except the heroine--are represented as artful, sly, deceitful, +managing; and generally the main object of their artifice is to secure +a husband for themselves or for their daughters: yet you do not at +once cry out in indignant protest against such misrepresentation. On +the contrary, you follow the plot with lively interest, think the +author has a very clear insight into human nature, and especially +excels in the delineation of female character! + +Hear what one of your own writers says: "If all the world were paper, +all the sea ink, all the plants and trees pens, and every man a +writer,--yet were they not able, with all labor and cunning, to set +down all the craft and deceits of women." + +If my statement is a libel, it is less a libel than statements and +implications under which people have hitherto rested with a wonderful +degree of equanimity. It would be marvellous if it were a libel. A +girl receives such training that it is wellnigh impossible for her to +be sincere. You cannot give her whole life for six or a dozen years +one direction, and then set her face suddenly towards another quarter, +banishing from her mind every remembrance of past lessons, and every +thought of her portrayed future. But unless such an erasure is made, +or seems to be made, she knows that she forfeits good opinion, and +stands in great danger of losing the one prize which has been placed +before her, and which she may hope, but must not be detected in +hoping, to win. Consequently she learns to dissemble. It is her only +resource. Duplicity passes into her blood, and she learns to conceal +and deny what you have taught her it is improper to feel, but what you +have also made it impossible for her not to feel. I only wonder that +any uprightness is left among women. That there are women upon whose +garments the smell of fire has not passed,--that there are women whose +robes of whiteness have but a faint tinge of flame,--is not because +the fagots have not been piled around them and the torch applied. + +This is one result of the famous, the infamous "good wife" doctrines. + +Another, less fatal but sufficiently evil and more vexatious, is the +injury that is inflicted upon natural and healthful association. Men +and women are not allowed to look upon each other as rational beings; +every woman is a wife in the grub, every man is a possible husband in +the chrysalis state. If young people enjoy each other's conversation, +and make opportunities to secure it, there are dozens of gossips, male +and female, who proceed to forecast "a match." Intelligent interchange +of opinion and sentiments between a man and a woman for the mere +delight in it, with no design upon each other's name or fortune, is a +thing of which a large majority of civilized Americans have no +conception. Such a commodity never had a place in their inventory. A +man and a woman find each other agreeable, they cultivate each other's +society, and anon, East, West, South, and North goes the report that +they are "engaged." It is easy to see what a check this gives to an +intercourse that would be in the highest degree beneficial to both +sexes; beneficial, by giving to each a more accurate knowledge of the +other, and by improving what in each is good, and diminishing what is +bad. + +One of three things should be done: cease to urge a girl on to +marriage by every terror threatened and every allurement displayed; by +making it the reward of all her exertion, the arena of all her +accomplishment, the condition of all her development; or take measures +to provide her with a suitable husband, so that she shall not be left +for an indefinite time in uncertainty and doubt, settling, perhaps, at +length into frivolity, waste, and despair; or cease to condemn her for +taking matters into her own hand, and furnishing herself an +opportunity for the exercise of those powers whose cultivation you +have strenuously urged, and for whose employment you have made no +provision. "Get a husband!" Why should she not get a husband? What +should you think of a boy who had been fitted by long training for the +duties and responsibilities of a clergyman, or a lawyer, or a +statesman, and should then make no attempt to become a clergyman, a +lawyer, or a statesman? What would you think of a father who should +train his son for any especial office, and should then forbid his son, +upon pain of universal derision, to do anything to secure an induction +into office? + +I am loath to linger here, but I descend into the valley of shadows to +show that, even on your own ground, you are a wicked and slothful +servant. + +Whom do I mean by "you"? I mean ninety-nine out of every hundred of +the men who will read this, and, in a modified degree, all the women +whom they have drilled to acquiescence in their decisions. + +This baleful teaching goes still further. It not only drives girls +into deception: it drives them into uncongenial marriages. It forces +them to degradation. It does not permit them to view marriage in its +natural and proper light. By perpetually assuming it as their destiny, +even before they have any knowledge either of marriage or destiny, you +so force their inclinations that they come to prefer marrying an +indifferent person to not marrying at all,--or even to running the +risk of not marrying at all. Instead of letting their minds take a +healthful turn, branching off in such directions as nature chooses, +you dwarf them in every direction but one, and in that you stimulate. +If society were equally divided; if for every girl there were a man +exactly adapted to her, and the two might by your words be induced to +meet and marry, your talk might be harmless, and possibly beneficial; +but as the world is, at least this part of it, there is no such +arrangement, and no remote possibility of such an arrangement. The +material does not exist, even suppose the sagacity to discern and +dispose of it did. The number of women is much larger than the number +of men. In New England, at least, it is a dangerous thing for a woman +to set her heart on marrying for a living. When, therefore, you make +marriage indispensable, you institute an indiscriminate scramble. +Since in theory every girl must marry, and there are few to choose +from, she must take such as she can get, and be thankful. She would +like this, that, or the other quality, but it will not do to dally. +The chance of a better husband is very remote; numbers are worse off +than she, inasmuch as they have none at all; the contingency of going +unsupplied is not to be thought of, and accordingly she takes up with +what comes to hand. The few who are endowed with unusual charms of +mind or person may exercise a limited choice, but the common run of +girls must make a common run of it. If one who is so attractive as to +have many admirers remains long unmarried, she is abundantly +admonished of her danger. She is duly informed that she will one day +grow old, and will certainly not always have such opportunities as she +now enjoys. Her attractiveness is her stock in trade, which she must +invest while the market is brisk. Great will be her loss if she does +not. If without special attractions, a girl's position is still more +embarrassing. Dependent in her father's house, with no career open to +her, no arena for her action, what is to become of her? Anything is +better than a dependence which, her own heart tells her, is not long +grateful to her father. He may not be unkind or miserly toward her; he +may not--and he may, for such things are done--taunt her with her want +of success in making a match; he may even be generous and chivalric +towards her; but she is conscious that he is disappointed. He may not +acknowledge it even to himself, but she knows that she is not +fulfilling his wishes, not meeting his ideal. Her support is somewhat +a burden, her enforced presence somewhat a shame. He rejoiced in her +infancy, childhood, and youth, but he did not expect to have her on +his hands all her life. He would gladly spend twice as much on her +dowry as he gives for her allowance. She has a _sense_ of all this, +and, rather than remain in this state of pupilage, a woman in +character, a child in position, she marries the first man that holds +out the golden spectre,--I meant sceptre, but perhaps the first will +do just as well. I am speaking of the masses. I know that there are +exceptions. In spite of circumstances, there are women so +strong,--strong-minded if you like, but so symmetrical that you see no +peculiar strength or sweetness, only "a perfect woman,"--so strong, +that public opinion and private opinion, all the blare and blarney of +lecture-room and female-school orators, all the thinly disguised +paganism of church-worldlings, beat against them and leave them +unmoved as Gibraltar by the summer ripples of its southern sea. You +see them yourself, perhaps; but so beautiful, so gentle and lovely, +that you do not discern the granite which underlies beauty and grace, +and which alone redeems beauty and grace from the charge of gaud, and +makes their value; and in your low Dutch dialect you "wonder she +doesn't get married." + +There are fathers and mothers, though these are rarer, who joy in +their children with a rational and Christian joy; who believe in God +and righteousness, immortality and human destiny; whose daughters are +polished stones, not in the palaces of earthly pride, vanity, and +ambition, but in the temple of the living God. Such parents and such +children are few, but they are enough to reveal possibilities. The +higher the few can reach, the higher the many shall rise. But these +are the strong, and the strong can take care of themselves. I have +nothing to say for them. I speak for those who are not strong,--for +the good and true-hearted, who feel themselves overborne by external +pressure, and swept along into a hateful and hated vortex,--for those +who wish to lead an upright Christian life, but who need a helping +hand. Still more, and saddest of all, I speak for those on whom the +blight has so long rested that they have lost the sense of +uprightness; they feel no wrong, and aspire to nothing higher. More +than this, I speak for those whose opening lives are yet untouched, +for whom warning and caution may not be too late. It is these--the +weak, the plastic, the impressible--whom your earth-born morality is +corrupting, whose possibilities of happiness and self-respect your +enervating woman's-sphere-ism is destroying. Women may be weak, yet +even in weakness is strength, but you have trodden down strength. You +trample under foot all sensibility, all delicacy, all dignity. A woman +can preserve her integrity only so far as she repels and represses +your miserable didactics;--by word and look, if the power be given +her; by a silent indignation of protest, if that is her only resource. + +I know well, judging from past experience, that there will not be +wanting those who will think I am depreciating and deprecating +marriage. But it would be extremely foolish to set one's self against +marriage, for it would be holding out a straw to dam a river. I not +only do not hold out the straw, I do not even wish to dam the river. +But I would prevent it from being banked up here and banked up there, +and narrowed, twisted, and tortured, till it bursts all bounds, +natural and acquired, and rushes wildly over the country, destroying +villages, inundating harvests, sweeping away lives, and becoming a +terror and a fate instead of the beneficence it was meant to be. + +_I_ depreciate marriage? I magnify it! It is you that depreciate, by +debasing it. You lower it to the level of the market. You degrade it +to a question of political and domestic economy. You look upon it as +an arrangement. I believe it to be a sacrament. You subordinate it to +ways and means. I see in it the type of mortal and immortal union. You +make it but the cradle of mankind. I make it also the crown. All that +is tender, grand, and ennobling finds there its home, its source and +sustenance, its inspiration, and its exceeding great reward. + +But by as much as marriage is sacred, by so much is he a blasphemer +who travesties it; and he thrice and four times blasphemous who leads +others to do so. No sin is so dwelt on in the Bible with a stern, +reiterated fixedness of divine abhorrence as the sin of Jeroboam, the +son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. They who barter their children +for a string of beads, or a talent of gold, are no more pagan than +they who, by accumulated indirections, lead them to barter themselves. +I do not undertake the defence of all "woman's rights," but with +whatever strength God has given me I will do battle for woman's right +to be pure. "Caesar's wife should be above suspicion," said haughty +Caesar, and the world applauds; but every woman is czarina by divine +right. No wretched outcast, wandering through the darkness of the +great city, + + "With hell in her heart + And death in her hand, + Daring the doom of the unknown land," + +but has lost a crown. For her who, through weakness or despair, has +forfeited her birthright, the world has no pardon. I do not say that +ye should pray for it to be otherwise. But a deeper sin, a tenfold +more gross and revolting violation of God's law written on the human +heart,--giving force to the law written erewhile on the tables of +stone,--does she commit who, in the holy name of love, under the holy +forms of marriage, burns incense to false gods. Where love may walk +white-robed and stainless, brushing the morning dews from the grass, +only to descend again in fresher and fragrant showers, pride or +prudence or ambition can but bring the deepest profanation: roses +spring in his pathway; behind them is the desert. + +Marriage contracted to subserve material ends, however innocent those +ends may be in themselves, is legalized prostitution; as much more +vilifying, as mischief framed by a law is more destructive than +mischief wrought in spite of law. To such vice the world is lenient, +scarcely recognizing it as vice; but the soul bears its marks of +wounds forever and forever. + +Marriage is a result, not a cause. In God's great economy it may have +its separate and important work; but from a human point of view, it is +conclusion and not premise. It cannot be made the premise without +bringing fatal and disastrous conclusions. Whatever ends nature may +design her institution to compass, be sure nature will work out. + + + + +III. + + +I do not design to sketch any Utopia for woman; but there are certain +things which can be done in this world, in this country, in this +generation, at this moment,--simple, practical, practicable measures, +which can be accomplished without any change in laws, without any +palpable revolution or disruption of society, but by which women shall +be relieved of the indignity that is constantly put upon them, even by +the society which considers itself, and which perhaps is, the most +civilized and chivalric in the world. + +First, every man who has daughters is either able to support them or +he is not. If he is, he ought to do it in a way that shall make them +feel as little trammelled as possible. He should so treat them, from +first to last, that they shall feel that they are dear and pleasant to +him, his delight and ornament. So far from wishing to be rid of them, +he finds his balm and solace and zest of life in their society, their +interests, and their ministrations. While he contemplates the +contingency of their marriage, and makes what preparations such +contingency may require, it should be well understood that he +contemplates it only as a contingency; and that all his wishes and +hopes will be best met by their happiness, whether it is to be +promoted by a life away from him or with him. If they are so deficient +in amiability, capability, or adaptability that his home cannot be +comfortable with them in it,--that, so far from being a reason why he +should be eager to part with them, is the strongest reason why he +should earnestly endeavor to keep them with him. Almost without fail, +their faults lie at his door; and it is just and right that, if any +home is to be made miserable by them, it should be the one which has +made them _miserific_. On the other hand, if they wish to go from his +roof to follow paths of their own, he ought to aid and encourage them +as far as lies in his power. It matters not that he is able and +willing to supply their every want. He is _not_ able, if they have +immortal wants,--wants which the parental heart and purse cannot +satisfy,--want of activity, want of a plan, want of some work which +shall engage their young and eager energies. However liberal, kind, +and fond he may be, in their father's house their position must be +subordinate, and it may well happen that they shall wish to taste the +sweets of an independent, self-helping, self-directing life. They wish +to feel their own hands at the helm; they wish to know what +responsibility and foresight and planning mean. They are drawn by a +strong, inexplicable attraction in certain directions; and as he +values not only their happiness, but their salvation,--their love for +him, their health of body and mind,--he shall give them ample room and +verge enough. He shall not abate one jot or tittle of fatherly +affection. He shall not attempt to persuade them from their +inclination till he finds persuasion of no avail, and then in a fit of +angry petulance bid them go, and leave them to their own destruction. +He shall give them such aid as can be made available. He shall +surround them with his love, if not with his care. He shall, above +all, show them that his arms are always open to them, if through +weakness or weariness they faint by the way. His sympathy and +protection, and fatherly cherishing, shall be new every morning and +fresh every evening. If they quickly tire in their new paths, they +will come back to him with stronger love and faith. Their life abroad +will have only endeared their happy home. The enlargement of their +experience will have intensified their appreciation of their +blessings. If their call was indeed from above, and their first feeble +explorations opened for them a new world, through which they learn to +walk with ever firmer tread, they will return from time to time to lay +at his feet with unutterable gratitude the treasures which he enabled +them to discover. He will know that he has contributed to the world's +wealth, and his happy children will rise up and call him blessed. + +But if they do not incline to such a life, he shall not force them, +however strongly he may be persuaded of its propriety, wisdom, and +dignity. Because they are obliged to grow under the whole +superincumbent weight of society, he must not be severe if they attain +but a partial growth. With boys the preponderance of influence is +overwhelmingly on the side of an active, positive life. With girls, it +is against it. If a boy does not do something in the world, he must +show cause for it; a girl must show cause if she does. Therefore, if +the father is not able, by precept and persuasion, to induce his +daughters to embrace an active life, he must lay it to society, and do +the next best thing by protecting them as far as possible from the +resultant evils of their situation; not quite all to society either, +for, as a general thing, if his own precept and example have been +right, his children will be right; the influence of father and mother, +by its nearness, intensity, and continuity, very often more than +balances the superior bulk of society's influence. Parents say things +which they ought to mean, and which they wish to be considered to +mean, and which they suppose they do mean, but which they are really +the farthest in the world from meaning, and then marvel that their +children should disregard their instructions and go wrong; but such +instructions are but as the dust in the balance. The ideal which they +actually, though perhaps unconsciously, hold up to their children, is +the model upon which the children form themselves. What they are, not +what they say, is the paramount influence. So if a father heartily +believes in womanly work, his daughters will hardly fail to be +woman-workers. + +If a father is not able to support his daughters in a manner +compatible with comfort and refinement, he should see to it that they +have some way opened in which they can do it, or help do it, for +themselves, in a manner consistent with their dignity and +self-respect. It is very rarely that a human being is born without +possible power in some one direction. The field which is traversable +to women is much more circumscribed than that which is traversed by +men, yet I have somewhere read a statement that the number of +employments in which women of the United States are actually engaged +is, I think, greater than five hundred. If this is so, or anything +nearly so, men surely have no need to "marry off" their daughters as +an economical measure. Out of five hundred occupations, a woman can +certainly choose one which, though not perhaps that which enlists her +enthusiasm, is yet better than the debasement of herself which an +indifferent marriage necessitates. It is better to be not wholly +well-placed than to be wholly ill-placed. Indeed, there are many +chances in favor of the assumption that she may find even a suitable +employment. Literature and art are open to her on equal terms with +men. Teaching is free to her, with the disadvantage of being +miserably, shamefully, wickedly underpaid, both as regards the +relative and intrinsic value of her work; but this is an arrangement +which does not degrade her, only the men who employ her. Many +mechanical employments she is at perfect liberty to acquire, and the +greater delicacy of her organization gives her a solid advantage over +her masculine competitors. In factories, in printing-offices, and in +all manner of haberdashers' shops, she is quite at home; and this +branch of trade she ought to monopolize, for surely a man is as much +out of his sphere in holding up a piece of muslin at arm's length, and +expatiating on its merits to a bevy of women, as a woman is in the +pulpit or before the mast. Especially do private houses invite her +over all the country. The whole land groans under inefficient domestic +assistance; and if healthy, intelligent, well-behaved American girls +would be willing to work in kitchens which they do not own one half as +hard as most women work in kitchens which they do own, thousands of +doors would fly open to them. There is a foolish pride and prejudice +which rises up against "going out to service." But everybody in this +world, who is not a cumberer of the ground, is out at service. If it +is true service and well performed, one thing is as honorable as +another. The highest plaudit mortal can hope to receive is, "Well +done, good and faithful servant." It is the absence of moral dignity +and character, not, as is often supposed, its presence, which causes +this reluctance. A nobleman ennobles his work. A king among +basket-makers is none the less a king. How women can be so enamored of +the needle as to choose to make a pair of cotton drilling drawers, +with buckles, button-holes, straps, and strings, for four and one +sixth cents, or fine white cotton shirts with fine linen "bosoms" for +sixteen cents apiece, rather than go into a handsome house in the next +street to make the beds, and scour the knives, and iron the clothes +for a dollar and a half a week,[1] besides board and rent, I do not +understand. That so many are ready to brave the din of machinery, and +the smells of a factory for ten hours a day, with only a great, +dreary, unhomelike boarding-house to go to at night, while there are +so very few, if any, who are willing to preside over a comfortable and +plentiful kitchen, with at least a possibility of home comforts, +pleasant association, and true appreciation, is equally inexplicable. + + [1] This was written before the advent of high prices. At + present such service would command perhaps twice that sum. + +But enough has been said to show, that, if women have a desire, or are +under the necessity, of getting an honest living, ways and means may +be found; not so stimulating, not so lucrative, not so varied as might +be desired, but honest and honorable. Girls, however, make the mistake +of rushing pell-mell into school-houses, as if that were the only +respectable path to independence. I heard a man the other day speaking +about the High School of his native city. It was a good school,--he +had nothing to say against its conduct,--it gave girls a good +education; and yet he sometimes thought it did more harm than good. +Every year a class was graduated, and they were all ladies and did not +want to work, but must all teach, and there were no schools for so +many; what could be done with them? It was an evil that seemed to be +growing worse every year. The implied grievance was, that educated +women were a drug in the market; and the implied remedy, that girls +should be left more uncultivated that they might be turned to commoner +uses. I pass over that accurate knowledge of things shown in the +unconscious contrast between working and teaching,--over the gross +utilitarianism implied in both grievance and redress,--simply +remarking, that, if the excess of supply over demand would justify the +breaking up of High Schools, the domestic education of this generation +should be largely discontinued for the same reason, and that in fact +there seems to be no real and adequate resource, except to manage with +girl babies as you do with kittens, save the fifth and drown the +rest,--to say that girls do very wrong in regarding teaching as the +sole or the chief honorable employment. That occupation is the one for +them to which a natural taste calls them, no matter what may be its +rank in society. In fact, let it not be forgotten that society looks +with a degree of disfavor on any remunerative employment for women. To +be entirely beyond the reach of cavil, they must be consumers, and not +producers; and since, to turn into producers will forfeit somewhat +their caste, let them make capital out of the rural and remote adage, +that one may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and while they are +about it, follow the thing that good is to them. If girls of wealth +and standing, who also possess character and decision, would act upon +their principles when they have them, and follow the lead of their +tastes when their taste leads them into a milliner's shop, or a watch +factory, or a tailor's room, they would do much more than satisfy +their own consciences. They would do a service to their sex, and +through their sex to the other, and so to the whole world, which would +outweigh whatever small sacrifice it might cost them. For the world is +so constituted that to him that hath shall be given. If he have power, +he shall have still more. Those who are independent of the world's +sufferance are tolerably sure to get it. Let a poor girl go to work, +and it is nothing at all. She is obliged to do it, and society does +not so much as turn a look upon her; but let a girl go out from her +brown-stone five-story house, from the care and attendance of +servants, to work for three or five hours a day, because she honestly +believes that the accident of wealth does not relieve her from moral +responsibility, and because, of all forms of labor practicable to her, +that seems the one to which she is best adapted, and immediately there +is a commotion. The brown-stone friends are shocked and scandalized, +which is probably the best thing that could happen to them. Desperate +cases can only be electrified back into life. But it is the first girl +alone that will cause a shock. The second will make but a faint +sensation. The third will be quite commonplace, and when things come +to that pass, that if a woman wishes to do a thing she can do it, and +that is the end of it, there is little more to be desired in that +line. + +I know a young lady, the only daughter of a distinguished family, with +abundant means at her command, with parents whose great happiness it +is to promote hers,--a young lady who has only to fancy what a nice +thing it must be to live in a bird's-nest on a tree-top, and +immediately the carpenters come and build her a bower in the tallest +tree that overlooks the sea. This young lady has a strong inclination +to surgery, a most perverted and unwomanly taste, of course; but so +long as it is a womanly weakness to break one's arms, perhaps it is as +well that some woman should be unwomanly enough to set them. At any +rate, there was the taste; nobody put it there, and something must be +done about it. Being the sensible daughter of sensible parents, who +looked upon tastes as hints of powers, instead of disregarding this +hint and devoting her life to her garden, making calls, and a forced +and feeble piano-worship,--all very nice things, but not quite +exhaustive of immortal capacities,--she set herself down to the study +of surgery and medicine. It was no superficial and sensational whim. +Year after year, month after month, week after week, showed no +abatement of enthusiasm. On the contrary, her interest grew with her +growing knowledge. She left without regret, without any weak regrets, +her luxurious home for the secluded and severe student's life, and by +patient and laborious application made herself master of the science. +I look upon her almost as an apostle, though she is very far from +taking on apostolic airs. She quietly pursues the even tenor of her +way as if it were the beaten track. But in doing this she does ten +thousand times more. She opens the path for a host of feet less strong +than hers. + +But one great obstacle in the way of woman's attaining strength is her +lack of perseverance. Of the many pursuits possible to women, few are +embraced to any great extent, because girls are said to be, and +probably are, unwilling to bestow upon a trade or a profession the +study and thought which are necessary to insure skill. But this is a +result as well as a cause, and must be removed by the removal of the +cause. Promotion and political preferment shine before a man as a +reward for whatever eminence of character or intelligence he may +attain. His business is a separate department, and dispenses its +separate reward. The first of these is entirely, and the second +partially, wanting to women. A female assistant in a high school, a +woman of education, refinement, accomplishments, tact, and sense, +receives six hundred dollars, and if she stays six hundred years she +will receive no more. A male assistant, fresh from a college or a +normal school, thoroughly unseasoned, without elegance of manners, or +dignity of presence, or experience, teaching only temporarily, with a +view to the pulpit, or the bar, or a professorship, receives a +thousand dollars. His thousand is because he is a man. Her six hundred +is because she is a woman. Her little finger may be worth more to the +school than his whole body, but that goes for nothing. In a certain +"college" I wot of, the "Professors" have a larger salary than the +"Preceptresses," who perform double the amount of labor, and without +any hope of promotion. Female assistants in a grammar school receive +three or four hundred dollars where the male principal has ten or +twelve hundred, and where the difference of salary bears no proportion +to the difference of care and labor. No matter how assiduously they +may devote themselves to their duties, nor how successful they may be +in results, they have attained the maximum. Worse than this: since the +increase of prices consequent upon the war, teachers' salaries have +been increased; but where two hundred dollars have been added to the +salary of the male principal, only twenty-five have been added to +those of the female assistants: so that the man's salary is sixteen +per cent higher, while the woman's is only six per cent higher. This +is done in Massachusetts. One excuse is, that it does not cost a woman +so much to live as it costs a man. It costs a woman just as much to +live as it does a man. If men would be willing to practise the small +economies that women practise, they could live at no greater expense. +There are some things in which women have the advantage; there are +others in which it lies with the man. A woman's calico gown does not +cost so much as a man's broadcloth coat, but her dress, the wardrobe +through, costs just as much as his. He can be decent on just as small +a sum as she. Another excuse is, that men have a family to support. I +suppose, then, that women never have families to support. No female +teacher ever has a widowed mother or an invalid father to assist, or +brothers and sisters to educate. No widow ever had recourse to the +school-room to provide bread for her fatherless children. Or if such +things ever happen, the authorities make adequate provision for it. +The school committee, of course, before it assigns the salary inquires +into these background facts, and acts accordingly. The rich girl has +indeed but a small income from her teaching, but the poor girl is paid +according to the number of people dependent upon her, and the +unmarried man is confined to narrower fortunes. + +You know that such a thing is never done. The men always receive the +high salaries and the women always receive the low salaries; no one +ever asks who does the work or who supports the families. It is only a +feeble excuse to hide men's selfish greed. They are the lions, and +they take the lion's share. They _can_ give themselves plenty and +women a pittance, and they do it, and they mean to do it, and they +will do it. It matters not that the ten or twelve or fourteen hundred +dollars divided among the man's family of himself, his wife, and his +one or two or no children, gives to each, even to the little baby +playing on the floor, as much money for support as the female teacher +receives who devotes her whole time and strength to the school. It +matters not that his children are growing up to be the staff of his +declining years, while the unmarried female assistant has only her own +self for reliance. Man is a thief and holds the bag, and if women do +not like to teach for what they can get, so much the better. They will +be all the more willing to become household drudges. + +Again, read the following paragraph from a prominent newspaper printed +in Massachusetts. + +"The custom of employing ladies as clerks in the public departments at +Washington is meeting with increased favor. It is said that, generally +speaking, they write more correctly than the men, and as they receive +much smaller salaries, the gain to the government is considerable." + +Could six lines better express the wickedness of the relations which +exist between man and woman under the "best government in the world"? +The shabby chivalry of "ladies"; the matter-of-fact manner in which +not only a wrong, but an absurdity, is mentioned, as if it were as +evident as a syllogism, and had no more to do with morality than the +multiplication-table; and then the neat little patriotico-economical +chuckle at the end! Women do the work better than men, and receive +much smaller salaries. A logical sequence, and an excellent example of +the reasoning which is brought to bear on women. Especially dignified +and commanding is the attitude assumed for our government. The Great +Republic, stretching its arms across a continent, vexing every land +for its treasures, and whitening every sea with its sails, yet stoops +over a poor woman's pocket to take toll of the few pennies which her +labor has fairly earned. "The wise _save_ it call." + +But there is a lower deep than this. The very same paper that so +naively blazoned forth its own shame, made another brilliant essay at +about the same time. I quote the paragraph from memory, but it is +substantially correct. + +"Miss Anna Dickinson demanded three [or six, or whatever it was] +hundred dollars for two lectures delivered for the benefit of the +Sanitary Fair in Chicago. Miss Charlotte Cushman gave eight thousand +dollars, the entire proceeds of her theatrical tour, to the Sanitary +Commission. Comment is unnecessary." + +For all that, we will have a little comment. Here is one woman in a +million rising by the sheer force of her God-given genius above the +miserable necessities of women. She needs not to endure or to beg. She +is sovereign in her own right and can dictate her own terms. Men +cannot grind her face, for she is stronger than they. What do they do? +They hold her up to odium because they cannot extort from her the +money which they cannot prevent her from earning. Most women they can +prevent from earning it. Most working-women they can keep down to what +prices they choose to pay. But here is one to whom they cannot dole +out pennies: "with one white arm-sweep" she gathers in a golden +harvest. But they will at least force her Pactolian stream into a +channel of their own choosing. Not at all. + + "If she will, she will, you may depend on 't; + If she won't, she won't, and there's an end on 't." + +Nothing, therefore, is left to these high-minded gentry, but to stand +at a distance and "make faces"! + +Somebody assumed to excuse Miss Dickinson, by saying that she gave up +other and far more lucrative engagements for this; but it was entirely +a work of supererogation. Miss Dickinson needed no excuse. One might, +indeed, think within himself that Miss Cushman has nearly closed her +public career, and is already possessed of an independent fortune, +while Miss Dickinson's life lies before her, and her fortune is still +to be made. But all this is irrelevant. The whole paragraph is an +impertinence. Why is any person to be mulcted at another's instance in +any sum for any charity or any purpose whatever? What right has any +newspaper to decide the direction or the amount of a citizen's +benevolence? Had it concerned a man, it would have been impertinence; +concerning a woman, it is something worse,--not because of her +womanhood, but because of the injustice which is wrought upon her sex +wherever there is the ability to be unjust. + +These are very small things, but they are signs of great ones. + +It may be inferred, therefore, that woman's indifference to excellence +in work does not necessarily impugn either her character or calibre. +Excellence is indeed good in itself, and desirable, without reference +to the money it brings; yet money and promotion are a spur, and +therefore they must be taken into the account when we are dealing with +facts and not merely with theories. + +Now, then, let women, disregarding senseless and wicked customs, make +a point of making a point of something, and then let them lay aside +every weight which social injustice or indifference hangs upon them, +and the consequent sin of superficiality which so easily besets them, +and make that point perfect. No matter that they are ill-paid and held +down, let them assert themselves; let them work so well that their +work shall assert itself, and pay and promotion will come--to woman, +if not to themselves--as the inevitable result. + +I do not mean that every woman should study medicine, or apprentice +herself to a trade. Indeed, I consider it to be a wrong state of +society in which there is any other necessity for her doing so than +that which arises from her own inward promptings. It is very likely +that she can find in her father's house abundant scope for the +exercise of every faculty. She may have a leaning to home life, and to +no other. Because a girl remains at home, it by no means follows that +she is accomplishing nothing. What I do mean is, that she shall not +dawdle away her time simply because she is a girl; and that if, moved +by her own instincts, which are from God, or impelled by +circumstances, which are generally the fault of men, she enters the +arena where men strive, she shall have no other disabilities than +those which Nature lays upon her. Do not fail to note the distinction +between choice and necessity in her adoption of a career. When a +woman, of her own free will and delight, pursues a study or an +occupation beyond the common female range, it is one thing. When she +is obliged to earn her own living, and for that purpose goes out into +the paths where men walk, it is another thing. In both cases she +should work on equal terms with men; in the first, because the very +strength of her purpose, overcoming the natural disinclinations of her +sex, shows it to be of celestial origin, and therefore worthy of +respect; in the second, because, if man fails to give to woman the +support which is her due, the smallest step towards reparation is to +allow her every advantage in the attempt to support herself. It is +always a sorrowful, I think it is always an injurious thing, for a +woman to be obliged to compete with men, that is, to earn money. She +can do it only at the constant torture, or the constant +sacrifice--perhaps both--of something higher than can be brought into +the strife. But so much the more should she be freed from every +unnecessary pain and hinderance. Moreover, evil as is the imperative +assumption by woman of man's work, it combats a greater evil, and +therefore also should her hands be upheld. The most persistent and +kindly encouragement can never change, in the womanly heart, love of +home into love of conquest and renown; but it can do much to soften +the harshness of an uncongenial lot, and take somewhat from the +bitterness of a cup that never can be sweet. + +The mere fact of a daughter's services being needed at home is no +reason why they shall be claimed after she has become of age, either +through years, or maturity of character, when such service is +distasteful to her, and other service is tasteful and possible. If, +for instance, a girl has a strong desire to be a milliner, or a +mantua-maker, or an artist, she should not be prevented because her +mother wants her at home to help take care of the children and do the +work. I suppose to many this will seem unnatural and undutiful. It is +neither the one nor the other. There are remarkable notions afloat +concerning nature and duty. If one may judge from popular ethics, the +duty seems to lie chiefly on one side. Lions, we are told, would +appear to the world in a very different light if lions wrote history; +so filial and parental relations, discussed as they always are by the +parental part of the community, have a different bearing from what +they would if looked at from the children's point of view. In our +eagerness to enforce the claims which parents have on children, we +seem sometimes ready to forget the equally stringent claims which +children have on parents. Much is said about the gratitude which +parental care imposes upon the child; very little about the +responsibility which his involuntary birth imposed upon himself. + +Here is a daughter, an immortal being, accountable to God. Surely, +when she has become a woman, she has a right to direct her life in the +manner best adapted to bring out its abilities. No human being has a +right to appropriate another human being's life,--even if they be +mother and daughter. You say that she owes life itself to her parents. +True, but in such a way that it confers an additional obligation on +them to give her every opportunity to make the most of life, and not +in such a way as to justify them in monopolizing it, nor in such a way +as to render her accountable to them alone for its use. The person who +gives life is under much stronger bonds than the person who receives +life. Life is a momentous thing. It may be an eternal curse. It is +almost certain to involve deep sorrow. Sin, disease, pain, are almost +sure to follow in its wake. It is a Pandora's box whose best treasure +is only a compensation. The happiest thing we know of it is, that it +will one day come to an end: Psyche will rend off her disguises, and +soar in her proper form. The uncertainty of the future is our solace +against the certainty of the present. Surely, then, of all people in +the world, those who impose this fearful burden are the very last who +should add even a feather's weight to it, and the very first and +foremost who should at any sacrifice of less important matters lighten +it as far as possible. Filial unfaithfulness is a sin, but parental +unfaithfulness is a chief of sins. The first violates relations which +it finds. The second violates those which it makes. Almost invariably +the second is the direct cause of the first. There may be +extraordinary malformations: a child may be born with some organic +incapacity for love, or gratitude, or virtue, as children are born +blind or deaf. But, as a rule, parental love and wisdom result in +filial love and duty growing stronger and stronger every day, and +removing the possibility of sacrifice by making all service a +pleasure. Because, where I knew the circumstances, I never saw an +instance of filial misbehavior that could not be traced directly to +parental mismanagement or neglect, I believe it is so where I do not +know the circumstances. I am persuaded that Solomon had the spirit of +truth when he declared, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and +when he is old he will not depart from it." A son administers arsenic +to his parents, and the world starts back in horror. I would not +diminish its horror; but before you lavish all your execration on the +son, find out whether the parents have not been administering poison, +or suffered poison to be administered, to his mind and heart from his +earliest infancy. Be shocked at that. I never saw or heard of a son +born of virtuous parents, and wisely trained in the ways of virtue, +who turned about and poisoned his parents after he had grown up. The +eider-duck plucks the down from her own breast to warm the nest for +her young, and I do not suppose an ungrateful or rebellious +eider-duckling was ever heard of; but if the eider-duck plucks the +down from the breasts of her young to line the nest for herself--what +then? + +If a daughter, out of love or a "sense of duty," chooses to sacrifice +her inclinations,--by inclinations I do not mean the mere promptings +of self-indulgence, but the voice of her soul calling her to a work in +life,--I say not that she does not well. I only say that her mother +has no right to demand such a sacrifice. It is an unjust exaction. It +is a selfish building up of comfort on the ruins of another's +happiness, possibly of character, since few things are so apt to warp +the tone of mind and temper as a forced performance of unsuitable +work. Before children are old enough to choose for themselves, their +parents must choose for them,--even then with a wary care lest they +mistake a prompting of nature for a whim, but every restraint that is +put upon a child for any other purpose than his own benefit is a sin +against a soul. What duty his love does not prompt, you shall not by +the sheer brute force of your position require. His life is in his own +hands, put there by you, and he must make it into a vessel of honor or +dishonor. You shall not hold back his hand from working its own +beautiful designs, that it may putty up the cracks in your time-worn +vessel. You make great account of the care which you took of his +helpless infancy; but he owes no especial gratitude for that. As may +be inferred from what I have before said, it was a debt you owed him. +Having endowed him with life, the least you could do was to help him +make the best of it. It would have been cruel not to do it. You have +only made things even in doing it,--and hardly that. Besides, such +considerations are logically useless. You may fill a child's book, +paper, and ears with his mother's anxiety and care for him. You may +tell him how she has watched over him and toiled for him during his +helpless infancy, and conjure him on that account to love and obey +her. It will be a waste of breath. You might just as well conjugate a +Latin verb to him. He will no more form an intelligent conception of a +mother's love and care from your most forcible description, than he +would from _amo_, _amas_, _amat_. He is not capable of such a +conception. A child's love is an instinct. It gradually develops into +a sentiment which permeates his whole being. The mother's love is also +an instinct. She nurses her child just as instinctively as a hen +gathers her chickens under her wings. There generally is something +more than instinct, but there is instinct. But at no stage of a +child's life is love a matter of reasoning. If it is within him, it +cannot be argued out; if it is not, it cannot be argued in. Never a +person loved because he was convinced he ought to love. He loves +because he loves, and that is all that can be said about it. + +I hope I shall not be considered as attempting to weaken the cords +between parents and children. On the contrary, I wish to strengthen +them. But I wish to strengthen them by making them of that unseen, +spiritual substance which alone is worthy of the relation,--proof +against every external force, and drawing more and more closely with +every opening year,--not of that gross and palpable outward material +which chafes and irritates, and which will snap asunder the moment +that young vigor spreads its wings. + + + + +IV. + + +Another truth, which seems to have been forgotten, and which needs to +be newly revealed to this generation, is, that though manhood and +womanhood are two distinct things, the humanity which underlies them +is one and indivisible. We are told that God made man male and female, +but we are first told that God made man in his own image. There is no +distinction. Woman is made in God's image just as much as man; and it +is just as wicked to deface that image in her as in him. It is defaced +when her powers are crippled, and her organs enfeebled, whether it be +by turning her toes under till they touch the heels, and then +bandaging them so, or whether that process be enacted on her mind. If +a boy should stand god-like erect, in native honor clad, so should a +girl. She may not be as tall, but she may be as straight. The palm +cannot turn into an oak, and has not the smallest desire to turn into +an oak; but there is no reason why it should not be the best kind of a +palm,--and in the deserts of this world a fruitful palm cheereth the +heart of both God and man. + +Read, in the light of these facts, a "sonnet" and its accompanying +comments, which I chanced to find while looking over a twelve-year-old +number of a magazine which stands among the first in America. + +"The learned 'science-women' of the day, the 'deep, deep-blue +stockings' of the time, are fairly hit off in the ensuing satirical +sonnet:-- + + 'I idolize the LADIES! They are fairies, + That spiritualize this world of ours; + From heavenly hot-beds most delightful flowers, + Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies, + But learning, in its barbarous seminaries, + Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours, + And on their gossamer intellect sternly showers + SCIENCE, with all its horrid accessaries. + Now, seriously, the only things, I think, + In which young ladies should instructed be, + Are--stocking-mending, love, and cookery!-- + Accomplishments that very soon will sink, + Since Fluxions now, and Sanscrit conversation, + Always form part of female education!' + +"Something good in the way of inculcation may be educed from this +rather biting sonnet. If woman so far forgets her 'mission,' as it is +common to term it now-a-days, as to choose those accomplishments whose +only recommendation is that they are 'the vogue,' in preference to +acquisitions which will fit her to be a better wife and mother, she +becomes a fair subject for the shafts of the satirical censor." + +Leaving "gossamer intellects" to educe whatever of good in the way of +inculcation may be found in this biting sonnet, and in the equally +mordacious remarks of the mulierivorous commentator, let me refer to +another paragraph in which popular opinion is crystallized. It is +found in a book printed and published in London, and coming to me +through several hands from the library of an English nobleman, but a +book so atrocious in its sentiments, and so feeble in its expression, +that I will not give the small impulse to its circulation which the +mention of its name might impart: "In woman, weakness itself is the +true charter of power; it is an absolute attraction, and by no means a +defect; it is the mysterious tie between the sexes, a tie as +irresistible as it is captivating, and begetting an influence peculiar +to itself." This is the fancy sketch. One of our best writers has +drawn the true portrait of such a woman: a woman "to be the idol of +her school-boy son, to be remembered in his gray old age with a +reverential tenderness as a glorified saint, but a woman also to drive +that same son to desperation in actual life by her absorption in +trifles, by her weak credulity,... by her inability to sympathize with +his ambition, to enter into his difficulties, or to share in the +faintest degree his aspirations." + +"In short," proceeds the advocate of the oak-and-vine humanity, "_all +independence is unfeminine_; the more dependent that sex becomes, the +more will it be cherished." + +Independence is unfeminine: what a pity that starvation and insanity +are not unfeminine also! Independence is unfeminine, but what +provision is made for dependence? Look about the world. How many men +are there, dependence on whom would be agreeable to a sensitive woman? +and what shall the women do who have nobody to be dependent on,--the +women without husbands or fathers, and the women with drunken, +thriftless, extravagant, miserly, feeble or incapable husbands or +fathers? When every woman in the country is placed above the +possibility of want, it will be time enough to talk about the sweets +of dependence; but so long as women are liable, and are actually +reduced to want, to shame, to ignominy, to starvation, and degradation +and death, through the meanness, the misconduct, or the inability of +their natural protectors, it will be well at least to connive at their +efforts to help themselves. An independent woman may be a nuisance, +but I think rather less so than an immoral woman, or an insane woman, +or a dead woman in the bottom of a canal in Lowell, or a live woman +making shirts for Milk Street merchants in Boston, at five cents +apiece. O men, you who shut your eyes to the stern and awful facts of +life, and rhapsodize over your fine-spun theories, what will you say +when the Lord maketh inquisition for blood? In that great and terrible +day that shall open the books of judgment, that shall wrest from the +earth and the sea the secrets which are in them, when the dead women +come forth from their suicidal graves, when they swarm up from under +the river-bridges, when they pour out from the gateways of hell, will +it seem to you then a wise and righteous thing that you branded +independence as unfeminine? + +Apart from the bearings of this doctrine, one word as to its facts. +There are two kinds of dependence,--the one of love, the other of +necessity. Each may comprise the other, and all is well. But each may +exist without the other, and then half is ill. The first is a delight. +The second is a dread. The first is a delight,--but no more to woman +than to man, for though the matters in which they are dependent +differ, the dependence itself is mutual, and mutually dear and +precious. Nobody need enforce it by argument. It commends itself by +its own inherent sweetness. But the second is an evil, and only an +evil under the sun,--a state which no man and no woman of any spirit +will for a moment willingly endure. Dependence is a joy only where it +is a boon; other wise it is a burning torture if there is any soul to +feel. + +But masculine deprecation of feminine independence is not entirely +owing to a tender regard for the preservation unimpaired of feminine +loveliness. Men think if women strike out in a career of their own, +the matter of securing and disposing of a wife may not be quite the +easy thing it is at present. + +They now have things their own way. The world is all before them where +to choose. They have only to walk leisurely on, and it is O whistle +and I'll come to you, my lad. You think I put it too strongly: that is +because you are looking into the bucket. I am speaking of the +atmosphere. You have only to listen to the usual talk of usual people +in villages and cities, and to the floating literature. You are not to +take the intellectual in the one, nor the immortal in the other, for +their rills spring from deeper sources, and represent the individual. +It is the flitting, the ephemeral, the stories that Maggie Marigold +and Kittie Katnip print in the county papers; it is the talk that Mrs. +Smith and Mrs. Jones have about Nancy Briggs; it is the women in the +novels who are not the heroines,--these give the best photograph of +actual popular opinion, and these give you six women intriguing for +one man. It is not surprising that at first sight men should think it +a fine thing to have a whole bazaar of beauty to choose from, with the +market so glutted that the goods will be sold at prices to suit the +purchasers. It is not necessary to be very good or very great, to win +the prize. There is no prize to be won. It is only pick and choose. +But have men no misgivings? Is necessity the surest warrant of +adaptation? Are men conscious that their assumption is, that they are +so unattractive, and the marriage yoke so heavy, that women will not +endure either unless they are left without any other resource? Is it +pleasant to reflect that they cannot trust themselves to woo, but that +girls must be reduced to the alternative of marriage or nothing? What +pleasure can there be in a victory so easily gained? I know a man who +says the reason why he married his wife was, because she was the only +girl in the town whom he was not sure of beforehand. With nothing to +do, women are as beggars by the wayside, holding up their feeble hands +to the passer, and entreating, "We will eat our own bread and wear our +own apparel: only let us be called by thy name to take away our +reproach." Is this pleasant to think of? Does it flatter a man's +self-love? Would it not be more agreeable for a husband to suppose +that he is his wife's choice and not--Hobson's? + +Let boarding-school anniversary orators and Mother's Magazine editors +trust more in nature, and make themselves easy. Providence is never at +a loss. There is not the slightest danger that marriage will fall into +disuse through the absorption of female interests in other directions. +If every girl in the world were independent, full mistress of herself, +she would not be any more disinclined to marriage than she is now. She +would not hang upon its skirts, dragging them into the mud, with such +a helpless, desperate death-clutch as now. She would not be at the +mercy of every schemer, every speculator, every unprincipled, +unscrupulous manikin, who knows no better use for angels than to wash +the dishes. She would not be such an article of traffic, such a beast +of burden, such a tame, spiritless, long-suffering, sly little +sycophant, as she too often is now. There is not one woman in a +million who would not be married, if--I borrow a phrase from the +popular, pestilent patois, but I transfigure it with its highest +meaning--if she could get a chance. How do I know? Just as I know that +the stars are now shining in the sky, though it is high noon. I never +saw a star at midday, but I know it is the nature of stars to shine in +the sky, and of the sky to hold its stars. Genius or fool, rich or +poor, beauty or the beast, if marriage were what it should be, what +God meant it to be, what even with the world's present possibilities +it might be, it would be the Elysium, the sole complete Elysium, of +woman, yes, and of man. Greatness, glory, usefulness, happiness, await +her otherwhere; but here alone all her powers, all her being, can find +full play. No condition, no character even, can quite hide the gleam +of the sacred fire; but on the household hearth it joins the warmth of +earth to the hues of heaven. Brilliant, dazzling, vivid, a beacon and +a blessing, her light may be, but only a happy home blends the +prismatic rays into a soft serene whiteness, that floods the world +with divine illumination. Without wifely and motherly love, a part of +her nature must remain unclosed,--a spring shut up, a fountain sealed; +but a thousand times better that it should remain unclosed than that +it should be rudely rent open, or opened only to be defiled. A +thousand times better that the vestal fire should burn forever on the +inner shrine than that it should be brought out to boil the pot. But +the pot must boil, you say, and so it must; but with oak-wood and +shavings, not with beaten olive-oil. + +This it is that I denounce,--not the use, but the abuse, of sacred +things. I want girls to be saved from sacrilege. I do not want them to +lay open their lives to spoliation. I want every woman to fill her +heart with hopes and plans and purposes; and if a man will marry her, +let him be so strong as to break down all barriers, check the whole +flood-tide of her life, and sweep it around himself. If a woman is +worth having, she is worth winning. Jacob served seven years for +Rachel and seven more, and they seemed unto him but a few days for the +love he had to her. Shiver and scatter the wan, weak attachments that +dare to call themselves _love_. Scorn for this frothy, green whey that +stands for the wine of life! Better that girls should be pirated away +as the rough-handed Romans won their Sabine wives, than that a man +should have but to touch the tree with his cane as he walks through +the orchard, and down comes the ready-ripe fruit. In Von Fink's fiery +wooing of Lenore, I hear the right trumpet-ring: "With rifle and +bullet I have bought your stormy heart." I would have a woman marry, +not because it is the only thing that offers, but because a +magnificence sweeps by, in whose glorious sun her pale stars faint and +fade. Her soul shall be filled and fired with the heavenly radiance. +All her dross shall be consumed, and all her gold refined. She shall +go to her marriage-feast as Zenobia went to Rome, crowned with +flowers, but bound with golden chains, a conquered captive, and the +banner over her shall be love. I would have her go obedient, not to +the requirements of a false and fatal materialism, naming itself with +the names of morality and womanhood, but to the unerring instincts of +her own nature. She shall not fly to the only refuge from the vacuum +and despair of her life; but her great heart and her strong hands +shall be wrenched from their bent by the mysterious force of an +irresistible magnetism. When you have a character that can so command, +a love that can so control, you have set up on earth the pillars of +Heaven, and redemption draweth nigh. + + + + +V. + + +But if the pursuit of a separate and independent career should not +disincline girls to marriage, you think it would unfit them for its +duties; that an education, an occupation, and an interest in any other +than a domestic direction would produce an indifferent housewife. Is +this necessary? Is it even probable? Is there any sufficient reason +why a woman who has trained her judgment in a medical school, shall +not go into life, not only with no disadvantage, but with positive +advantage from such training? If her mind have acquired power of +observation, and her fingers skill in execution, will she not be so +much the better prepared for the duties of her situation, whatever +they may be? The ordering of a family is not like a trade,--a thing to +be learned. It is multifarious and distracting. The mistress of a +household is like the sovereign of a free empire. She does not need, +and cannot serve, an apprenticeship. The only way to prepare her for +its duties is to enlarge her capacity to discharge them. She needs a +thorough education. Everything that helps to build up mind and +body,--everything that makes her healthful, hopeful, cheerful, +spirited, self-reliant, energetic, strong, helps her to administer her +affairs successfully. A woman who can do one thing can do another +thing, and she can do it all the better for having done the other one +first; so that the pursuit of a profession, instead of incapacitating +her for a domestic life, makes her better fitted for it. If for a +year, or two or three, she has been studying the human system, or the +stars, or the flowers, or the mysteries of cloak, or bonnet, or +counter, or mint, she can turn aside at the beck of the master just as +well as if she had been all the while frittering herself away, and she +will also be a great deal better worth beckoning to. The entrance upon +a "career" does not, as many seem to think and fear, prescribe +perpetual adherence to it. + +A girl may have a certain end in view, and design most clearly to +follow it, and she does follow it--God bless her! But Nature also has +her ends, and when her unerring finger points in another quarter, +"This is the way, walk ye in it," be sure the girl will go. Activity +will never keep her from happiness, but it will keep her from byways +and stumbling-blocks, from the traps which Nature never set, but which +a sentimentalism, born of selfishness, has put in her path. And be +doubly sure of this: if one or two or a dozen years of industry and +resolution unfit a girl to be a wife, she would never have been a +prize. Any intelligent girl can learn household science in six months, +and every girl ought to have, and generally does have, at least six +months' warning. Experience will do the rest for her, and do it well, +if she is a girl of sense; and if not, nothing would have helped the +matter. One of the best cooks I know started in life with only a +cabbage for capital; and with sense and spirit, out of that solitary +cabbage, with whose proper management she chanced to be acquainted, +sprang pies, puddings, preserves, such as it is not well even to think +of in war-times. + +So much for that portion of the objection which is put forward and has +a just foundation. But the main part of it is under ground. In my +opinion, the real danger lies in quite the opposite quarter from the +one that is sought to be defended. The trouble is not that women do +not think enough about household affairs. It is that they think too +much. But if one might judge from the tenor of public and private +talk, one would suppose that cooking was the chief end of woman and +the chief solace of man. I distinguish cooking above all the other +items of the domestic establishment, because I find it so +distinguished before me. Four hundred volumes of papyrus, recovered +from Herculaneum, related chiefly to music, rhetoric, and cookery. The +god of whom Paul told the Philippians, even weeping, is worshipped +to-day. Isaac acted after his kind when he loved Esau because he did +eat of his venison! To know how to cook, to keep the husband in good +humor with tempting viands, to prevent his being annoyed with burnt +meat, soured with heavy bread, or vexed by late dinners, is the burden +of a thousand ditties besides that of our sarcastic sonneteer. Printed +"Advice to Marriageable Young Ladies" informs them that "a man is +better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his +wife talks good French." I should like to be absolute monarch of +America long enough to enact a decree that every man who opens his +mouth to tell girls to learn to make bread, shall live a week on putty +and water. What! are girls then to neglect to learn to make bread? By +no means. Nor to roast beef, nor to boil potatoes. But suppose General +Hooker should lead out his whole army against a detachment of the +Rebels, and, neglecting Lee and Jackson with their myrmidons, should +expend all his ammunition and skill on a handful of the foe, would you +not adjudge him worthy of court-martial? But the detachment ought to +be captured. Perhaps it ought. Send out a detachment and capture it. +But do not waste your whole strength on an awkward squad, and leave +the main body of the enemy to ravage at will. Defeat the latter, and +the former will disappear of themselves. + +Now when you bring out your drums and beat your dismal tattoo about +learning to cook, you are doing just this; you are devoting all your +strength to the destruction of an outwork whose fall will but very +remotely affect the citadel. The remedy for an ignorance of cookery is +not necessarily a knowledge of cookery. What is the reason that a man +has cause to complain that his wife does not know how to cook? Is it +that she devoted too much of her maiden time to teaching, preaching, +doctoring, and dressmaking? Ten thousand to one, no. It is because she +is ignorant or because she is silly. Treat girls sensibly. Educate +their observation, their perception, their judgment. Give them a +knowledge of human nature: and then be yourself so noble as to command +their respect, and so amiable as to secure their affection, and you +will have no trouble with heavy bread. If you insist on making women +ignorant and silly, be sure their ignorance and silliness will crop +out. Thrust them down in one place, and they will immediately rise in +another. Sooner or later, you will prove the truth of Lord Burleigh's +assurance to his son, and "find to your regret that there is nothing +more fulsome than a she-fool." + +But the general direction of your counsel is wrong, even supposing the +immediate object at which it is aimed to be right. Its tendency is to +induce women to give more attention to cookery than they now do; and +they already devote to it a great deal more than they ought. They do +not cook too well, but too much. A few mixtures should be better +arranged than now, but a great many should be left alone. Cooking is +the chief concern of a very large number of New England wives and +mothers. They spend the larger part of their ingenuity in devising, +and the larger part of their strength and skill and time in preparing, +food which is unnecessary and often hurtful. It never occurs to them +to alter their course. They do not think of it as an unjust conjugal +exaction, but as a Divine allotment. It is not always the one, and +seldom if ever the other; but it is a custom. We are pre-eminently an +eating people. Our women are cooking themselves to death, and cooking +the nation into a materialism worse than death. Suppose you have been +boarding or visiting for a month or two in a stranger family, and some +one asks you if they live well, what do you understand him to mean? Is +he inquiring if they are honorable, if they conduct their lives on +Christian principles, if they are courteous, and self-respectful and +self-controlled? Are they just in their dealings, disinterested in +their motives, pure in word and work? Nothing is further from his +thoughts. He means--and you at once understand him--Do they have +highly-spiced and numerous meats, much cake and pie, many sauces and +preserves? To what degradation have we descended! To live well is to +eat rich food! Honor, integrity, refinement, culture, are all chopped +up into mince-pie. Heart and soul are left to shift for themselves, +and the guaranty of right and righteous living is + + "A fair round belly with good capon lined." + +In the olden times there lived, we are told, a race of men called +Bisclaverets, who were half man and half wolf; or, to speak more +accurately, were half the time man and half the time wolf. Some +indications in our own day lead us to believe that the race of the +Bisclaverets is not wholly extinct. Some stragglers must have found +their way from the shores of Bretagne to our Western wilds, and left a +posterity whose name is Legion. I copy from one of the most prominent +and liberal of our religious newspapers the following "elegant +extract," not original in its columns, but adopted from some other +paper, with such undoubted indorsement and commendation as an +insertion without comment implies:-- + +"The business man who has been at work hard all day, will enter his +house for dinner as crabbed as a hungry bear,--crabbed because he is +as hungry as a hungry bear. The wife understands the mood, and, while +she says little to him, is careful not to have the dinner delayed. In +the mean time, the children watch him cautiously, and do not tease him +with questions. When the soup is gulped, and he leans back and wipes +his mouth, there is an evident relaxation, and his wife ventures to +ask for the news. When the roast beef is disposed of, she presumes +upon gossip, and possibly upon a jest; and when, at last, the dessert +is spread upon the table, all hands are merry, and the face of the +husband and father, which entered the house so pinched, and savage, +and sharp, becomes soft, and full, and beaming as the face of the +round summer moon." + +Are we talking about a man or a wild beast? Is it wife or female? Are +they children or cubs? Does he wipe his mouth or lick his chops? +"_Ventures_ to ask the news"! "_Presumes_ upon a jest"! The whole +picture is disgusting from beginning to end. It is the portraiture of +sensuality and despotism. Hunger is not a sublime sensation, nor is +eating a graceful act; but both are ordained of God, and are given us +with that broad blank margin which almost invariably accompanies His +gifts. Religion and culture can take up the necessity, and work so +deftly that it shall become an adornment; and the ordinance of eating +stand for the sunniest part of life. The grossness of the act, the +mere animal and mechanical function of furnishing supplies, can be so +larded with wit and wisdom, with love and good-will, with pleasant +talk, interchange of civilities and courtesies, and all the light, +sweet, gentle amenities of life, that a bare act becomes almost a +rite. The rough structure is veiled into beauty with roses and lilies +and the soft play of lights and shadows. But this paragraph portrays +gobbling. A woman, instead of pandering to it by service and silence, +ought to lift up her voice and repress it in its earliest stages. Make +a man understand that he shall eat his dinner like a gentleman or he +shall have no dinner to eat. If he will be crabbed and gulp, let him +go down into the coal-bin and have it out alone; but do not let him +bring his Feejeeism into the dining-room to defile the presence of his +wife and corrupt the manners of his children. + +If you think the picture is overdrawn, I pray you to remember that I +did not draw it. It is a published, and, I think, a man's sketch of +manhood. I only take it as I find it. I do not myself think that +materialism has attained quite that degree of repulsiveness, but it is +too near it. Eating is not perpetrated, but the appetite is pampered. +If a man is able to hire a cook, very well. Cooking is the cook's +profession; she ought to attain skill, and her employer has a right to +require it, and as great a variety and profusion of dishes as he can +furnish material for. But if he is not able to hire a cook, and must +depend entirely upon his wife, the case is different. Cooking is not +her profession. It is only one of the duties incident to her station. +It is incumbent upon her to spread a plentiful and wholesome table. It +is culpable inefficiency to do less than this. It is palpable +immorality to do more. No matter how fond of cooking, or how skilful +or alert a woman may be, she has only twenty-four hours in her day, +and two hands for her work; and one woman who has the sole care of a +family cannot, if she has any rational and Christian idea of life, of +personal, household, and social duties, have any more time and +strength than is sufficient for their simple discharge. Overdoing in +one direction must be compensated by underdoing in another. She cannot +pamper Peter without pinching Paul. Much that you laud as a virtue I +lament as a vice. You revel in the cakes and the pastries and the +dainties, and boast the skill of the housewife; and indeed her marvels +are featly wrought, sweet to the taste, and to be desired if honestly +come by; but if there has been plunder and extortion, if it is a soul +that flakes in the pastry, if it is a heart that is embrowned in the +gravies; if leisure and freshness and breadth of sympathy and keen +enjoyment have been frittered away on the fritters, and simmered away +in the sweetmeats, and battered away in the puddings, give me, I pray +you, a dinner of herbs. Johnny-cake was royal fare in Walden woods +when a king prepared the banquet and presided at the board. Peacocks' +tongues are but common meat to peacocks. + +The _pate de foie gras_ is a monstrous dish. A goose is kept in some +warm, confined place that precludes any extended motion, and fed with +fattening food, so that his liver enlarges through disease till it is +considered fit to be made into a pie,--a luxury to epicures, but a +horror to any healthful person. Just such a goose is many a woman, +confined by custom and her consenting will in a warm, narrow kitchen, +only instead of her liver it is her life which she herself makes up +into pies; but the pastry which you find so delicious seems to me +disease. + +The ancients buried in urns the ashes of their bodies: we deposit in +urns the ashes of our souls, and pass them around at the tea-table. + +Women not only injure themselves by what they neglect, but injure +others by what they perform. Such stress is laid upon the commissary +department, that they lose discrimination, and come to think that +dainty morsels are a panacea for all the ills of the flesh, instead of +being the chief cause of most of them. I knew a young wife whose +husband used to come down from his study worn and weary with much +brain-work, his muscles flaccid, his eyes heavy, his circulation +sluggish, and she would come up from the kitchen her face all aglow +with eagerness and love and cooking-stove heat, her hands full of +abominable little messes which she had been plotting against him, +reeking with butter and sugar, and all manner of glorified +greasiness,--I am happy to say I do not know by what name she called +her machinations, but I call them broiled dyspepsia, toasted +indigestions, fricasseed nightmare,--and the poor husband would nibble +here and nibble there, sure of grim consequences, but loath to seem a +churl by indifference, and neither give nor take satisfaction. I could +bear his suffering with great equanimity, for there was a poetic +justice in it, though he himself was not a sinner above others, nor +yet so much as many. If only those men who are continually preaching +the larder could be forced, sick or well, to swallow every combination +which the fertile feminine brain can devise, and the nimble feminine +fingers accomplish, I should listen to their exhortations with the +most lively satisfaction. But even that would not atone for the female +suffering. With what disconsolate countenance would my tender, anxious +young wife ring the bell and send away the scarcely-diminished +dish-lings, and wonder in her fond tortured heart what next she could +do to smooth the wrinkled brow and light up the dull eyes, and so +revolve perpetually in her troubled mind the mysterious question that +loomed up mystically before us all in our Mother Goose days, "Why +didn't Jack eat his supper?" + +Why? O sweet and silly little wife? Because he wanted a thorough +shaking-up. Because mind and body were flabby from too long poring +over his books. If you could but have performed the impossible; if you +could but have parted with the feeble cant which you had learned from +infancy; if you would but have driven him out alike from his study and +your sitting-room, going with him, if such inducement became +necessary, into the fresh air; if you would but have walked him, or +worked him, or in some way kneaded him into firm, hard thew and sinew, +and kept him out and active till he should have got such an appetite +that cold brown bread and molasses would have seemed to him a dish fit +to set before a king, you would have done him true wifely service. +Then you might have come home and fed him with butter and sugar to +your heart's content,--and not to the perpetual discontent and +rebellion of his body. + +But among all the lectures to young wives or old wives or no wives at +all, I never heard or read one that counselled a woman to take her +husband out walking, or rowing, or riding, or driving, or bowling, or +do any other sensible thing. I have dived into oceans of nonsense, but +never found the pearl. + +Our New England people considers itself to have advanced much further +in civilization than the aborigines, whose chief occupation, according +to the histories, is hunting and fishing. But why is it barbarous to +devote your life to procuring food, and civilized to devote your life +to cooking it? Of the two, I think I should prefer the former. The +Savage may not present an inviting bill of fare; but the excitement of +the chase, the close contact with nature, the wide freedom of sea and +sky, the grand play of all the powers, the mighty strengthening of all +the organs, the fine culture of the senses, the health and vigor of +every nerve and tissue, the leap and sparkle of all the springs of +life, this, surely, would be no insignificant compensation: but a +continual pottering over gridirons and frying-pans is good for neither +brain nor brawn. Civilization may quick upfly and kick the beam: I +would much rather be a good Sioux Indian than most New England +housewives. + + + + +VI. + + +The much talk of fitness for marriage leads one to reflect on the +advantages of living in the nineteenth century. With all the +sewing-machines, washing-machines, wringing-machines, carpet-sweepers, +cooking-ranges, and the innumerable devices by which labor is sought +and is supposed to be saved, I do not see that there is any great +gain. The requirements of civilized society rather more than keep +abreast with the inventions of civilized ingenuity. Fifty years ago a +bonnet cost twenty dollars. Now a comely bonnet can be bought for one +dollar. But the twenty-dollar bonnet lasted ten years, and the +one-dollar bonnet three months, so that, notwithstanding the superior +cheapness of the material, the item bonnet costs more money than it +used, and vastly more time and thought. A calico dress was not deemed +unreasonable at seventy cents a yard. Lately it could be had for +twelve and a half: but at seventy-five cents it was an heirloom, while +at twelve and a half it stands over the wash-tub by the second year, +and by the third goes into the rag-bag. The lively sewing-machine runs +up a seam twenty times as swiftly as the most lively fingers: but +there are twenty times as many seams to run up. Just as fast as skill +"turns off" work, just so fast fashion turns it on. Nay, fashion in +heaping up entirely outstrips ingenuity in lowering the pile of work; +so that we do not get the benefit of our skill. The day now is no +longer than the day of fifty years ago. The mother of five children +seems to have no more time for educating her five children, for +enjoying and training their opening lives, for studying their +characters, for associating with them and acquiring their confidence, +for planting unexpected roses in the little flower-plats of their +years, for sitting a whole summer day with them among the beauties and +wonders and delights of the woods, for spending a whole winter evening +with them in games and reading, for informing her own mind and +disciplining her own heart and strengthening and beautifying her own +body, for cultivating the possible beneficences of society, for genial +and growing acquaintance and sympathy with the poets, the +philosophers, the historians, and the sages, than the mother of five +children had fifty years ago. I suppose more women now-a-days know how +to read and write; but do they read and write? Of the people in your +village, your street, your sewing-society: how many do you find who +spend as much as an hour a day in reading Milton, or Chaucer, or +Spenser, or Tennyson, or Mrs. Browning? How many are there who are +familiar with Hume, or Robertson, or Macaulay, or Motley, or Palfrey? +How many have lingered with delight over the pages of Lord Bacon, or +Jeremy Taylor, or John Stuart Mill? How many know the relation between +a cat and a tiger, or what are the ingredients of buttermilk, or why +yeast makes bread rise, or how the heat of the oven works, or whether +a cloverhead has anything to do with a marrowfat pea? How many are +interested to peer into the mysteries of the heavens above or the +earth beneath or the waters under the earth? How many ever heard of +the Areopigitica or the Witena-gemot, or discern any connection +between Runnymede and Fort Sumter, or have the faintest opinion as to +whether Runnymede is a man or a mouse? How many can tell you whether +the Reformation was a revelation confronting a superstition or a +fruitful branch grafted upon a barren olive-tree, or an old religion +throwing off the layers of acquired corruption? How many understand +the origin and bearings of Calvinism or the Nicene Creed or the +Pauline Epistles? I speak, you see, not of things which have passed +away leaving only a slender and hidden thread of connection, but of +those which still touch life at many points. The great boast of the +present day is the dissemination of knowledge: but knowledge is trash +if it is not assimilated into wisdom. Knowledge which is simply +plastered on to the outside of the soul and does not chemically +combine to become part and parcel of the soul's substance, produces an +effect little better than grotesque. Names and dates may store the +memory; but why have the memory stored if you do not use its +treasures? What better off am I for having a heap of isolated facts in +my lumber-room if I have nothing for those facts to do? I may know in +what year the battle of Hastings was fought, but unless I can locate +that battle otherwhere than in geography and chronology, I might as +well have committed to the charge of my memory the youthful facts of + + "Onery Twoery ickery see, + Halibut crackibut pendalee. + Pin pon musket John, + Triddle traddlecome Twenty-one." + +Bricks and boards are neither shelter from wind nor shade from sun. It +is only when all are fitly framed together into the strength and +sweetness of spirit that they become the temple of the living God, +whereinto Shekinah shall come. We talk about the universal circulation +of newspapers, but sometimes it seems to me that newspapers are only +an enormous expansion of village gossip. Now if a murder is committed +in New York we hear of it, whereas formerly we did not know it unless +it were committed in the next town. But such knowledge we could very +readily dispense with. Is anything added to the worth of life by +learning that Bridget McArthy has been fined five dollars and costs +for breaking Ellen Maloney's windows. In the old wars, it was three +weeks after a victory was gained before you heard of it; now you hear +of it six months before the battle is fought, and after all it turns +out to be no victory, but a masterpiece of strategy.[2] What I wish to +know is this: does the constant interflow of currents really deepen +and broaden the channel of life? Are women any stronger of will, +firmer of purpose, broader of view, sounder of judgment, than they +used to be? Can they front fortune with serener brow, unawed by her +malice, unflattered by her promise, unmoved by her caprice? Are they +any more independent of the circumstances of life, any more +concentrated in its essence? Do they think more deeply, love more +nobly, live more spiritually? Are they any more divorced from the lust +of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; any more +wedded to whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, +whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever +things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report? + + [2] Heaven be praised that the course of events has blunted + the point of this sentence. + +I think we are in a transition-state. The increased facilities of +labor are improvements, and we shall by and by reap the fruits of +them; but we have hardly yet done so. We have lassoed our wild horse, +but we have not harnessed him. He shows us wonderful freaks of +strength, but he drags us quite as often as we drive him. "Sweet Puck" +has been caught, and made to put his girdle round about the earth in +forty minutes; in + + "one night, ere glimpse of morn, + His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn, + That ten day-laborers could not end." + +But he is not yet tamed down into a trustworthy domestic drudge. If he +does not actually transmute himself into a Robin Goodfellow, that +bootless makes the breathless housewife churn, and the drink to bear +no barm, and mislead night-wanderers, he yet annuls his work, shutting +the eyes of the ten day-laborers so that they do not gain rest for his +interference; his earth-girdle binds no bundle of myrrh for the +well-beloved. Our great diffusion of knowledge has not given us +corresponding mastery. Our knives are sharper, but we only whittle. +Knowledge is poured abroad, but it is not absorbed. Yet the hour +approaches. By and by, out of this wishy-washy chaos, slowly shall +arise the coast-line of a new continent whereon the redeemed shall +walk: meanwhile, do not let us deceive ourselves. The millennium is +not yet come. We are scarcely beyond the multiplication-table of our +mathematics. We are blind and blundering, and for all our skill and +science, we stumble through life but little wiser than our fathers. We +have the swift, clean stove-oven for the cumbrous old bake-kettle, but +meanwhile we have lost the fireside, and have found no substitute; and +a man's life lies not in ovens or bake-kettles, but in firesides. + +This truth needs to be engraven on our brains and hearts with a pen of +iron and the point of a diamond. The soul is the king and not the +servant of the body. Every device, every invention, every measure, +that does not subserve the interests of the soul, is worthless. Every +invention that may subserve those interests, but stops short of such +subserviency, stops so far short of its goal. If the cooking-range +only makes that mince-pie be eaten once a day instead of once a year; +if steam-power only causes that fine wheat-bread shall take the place +of coarse corn-bread; if sewing-machines are going to give women more +tucks to their skirts, more flounces to their gowns, more dresses to +their wardrobes, and not more hours to their day, we might just as +well be without the sewing-machines and the cooking-ranges and the +steam-power. Is a woman any better, or any better off, for having six +gowns where her mother had three? Is she not worse off? She can wear +but one at a time, and she is expending brain-power and heart-power, +and lifting the incidents of life into the sphere of its essentials. +There are women who buy dresses, and make them, and hang them up in +their closets, there to remain till the fashion changes, and the dress +has to be re-made without having been once worn. O terrible emptiness +of life which this signalizes! O wanton and wicked waste of priceless +treasures! What shall be said in the day when God maketh inquisition? +I wage no war against the aesthetics of life; but I do protest that +they shall be means and not ends. Let richness drape the form, and +variety crown the board, and luxury fill the house, if so be you do +not wrong the king, the Master. There need be no other limitation. +Wrong to one's self involves and implies all other wrong. Nothing +human is foreign to any man. Nothing personal is foreign to humanity. +You cannot defraud yourself of your birthright without defrauding all +those to whom your birthright might bring blessings. The keenest barb +of your injustice to another pierces your own breast. + +But the larger number of New England families earn their bread by the +sweat of their brow, and must sacrifice the one or the other,--the +soul or the body. They cannot command both luxury and life; and they +choose--which? Look around and answer. How many houses do you know +that have no carpets on the floors, no cushions in the chairs, no +paper on the walls, no silks in the wardrobes, no china in the +closets, but plenty of books in the library; a harp, a piano, a +violin, in one corner, an easel, a box of crayons in another; an +aquarium by the window, a camp-stool in the cupboard, a fishing-rod on +the shelf, a portfolio on the table; where pies and fries and cakes +and preserves and pickles and puddings seldom come; where flounces and +velvets and feathers and embroideries are unseen, but where the walls +are adorned with drawings from the mother's own hands, with bouquets, +finely selected, pressed and arranged by the daughters; with cabinets +of minerals gathered, classified, and labelled by the sons; and fresh +flowers from the garden, cultivated and culled by the father; where +the homely fare is seasoned with Attic salt; where wit and wisdom and +sprightliness and fun and heart's-ease make the simple, wholesome, and +plentiful meal a fit banquet for gods; where work is work, and not +simply labor; where rest is change, and not simply torpidity; where +the heart is rich in love, and the head rich in lore, and intellect +and affection go hand in hand; where the inmates are not the creatures +of the house, but the house is the dear handiwork of the inmates; +where they derive no lustre from their dwelling, but shine all through +it with such sweet, soft lights, that elegance waits upon their +footsteps, beauty lingers upon their brows, every spot which they +tread is enchanted ground, every room which they enter is the +audience-chamber of a king. On the other hand, how many houses do you +know where everything is in abundance except that which alone gives +abundance its value? Where moss-soft carpets and heavy curtains and +gilded cornices and silver and china and sumptuous fare make a +glittering pageant, but work and worry and weariness, or frivolous +pleasures and frivolous interests, empty life of all its priceless +possessions. How many do you know where neither wealth nor worth +reigns? Where hard, grinding, pinching toil is all that the evening +and the morning have to give, and everything lovely to the eye and +pleasant to the soul is crushed between the upper and the nether +millstones? How many young couples think they could begin housekeeping +without a carpet for the parlor floor? How many think of providing +that parlor with a score of the rich, ripe, mellow English classics? +But to the end of the days, the authors will be a joy and strength and +consolation, and the carpet will be only a dusty woollen rag. No, no; +we cannot give up our trappings. Such is the poverty of our life, and +we may not uncover its nakedness. We must have jewels and gold to hide +our squalor and our leanness. It is tinsel or nothing. Take away our +fine clothes, our fine furniture, our much eating and drinking, and +what is left? True,--what is left? Vacancy and desolation. Suppose the +work and worry to be suddenly abrogated to the degree that the +thousands of harassed women who toil with broom or needle or +dish-cloth or kneading-trough from morning till night should suddenly +find on their hands four hours every day of leisure,--leisure that +absolutely need be filled up by no family knitting, mending, or +oversight,--would it be a boon? In many cases I greatly fear not. +After the first luxury of utter rest from strenuous work, I greatly +fear that that four hours would be the dullest and dreariest part of +the day, and its close more gladly welcomed than its commencement. But +this only shows the need, not the impossibility, of reformation. If it +has come to this, that we know not what to do with ourselves, shall we +go on providing toys, or shall we turn about and straightway learn +self-direction? Is it so that we must fill our lives with husks, +because we have fed on them so long that we have no relish for +nourishing food? Have we so held in abeyance our spiritual forces that +they have lost their life? Have we so given ourselves to our grosser +uses, that they have usurped the throne, and shall we now make no +effort to depose them and restore the rightful lord? Shall we go on +forming and frocking our wax dolls, and give no heed to the marble +which it is our life-work to fashion into the image and likeness of +God? Better Romulus and Remus, suckled by a wolf, than our puny +nurslings of conventionality! O for men and women with blood in their +veins, and muscles in their bodies, and brains in their skulls,--men +and women who believe in their manhood and their womanhood! who will +be as valiant, as aggressive, as enduring in peace as they are showing +themselves in war, who dare stand erect, who will walk their own +paths, who brave solitudes, who see things and not the traditions of +things, who will blow away, with one honest breath, our shabby gew-gaw +finery! America was founded on the rights of man: why do we set our +affections on silks and satins? Why entangle our young limbs with the +fetters of an old civilization, golden though they be? Never had any +nation such opportunity as ours. Here is the race-course ready, the +battle-ground prepared. It needs only that we be swift and strong. +There are no morasses of old prejudice to beguile our feet, no tangle +of old growths to retard our progress. We have no institutions to +fight against: all our institutions fight with us. No garter, no +ribbon, no courtly presentation, is demanded as our stamp of rank; the +badge of each man's order is set on his brow and breast. Worth needs +not to have flowed down through musty ages if it would receive its +meed; every man bears his seal direct from God. Humanity is more +accounted of than a coat of arms. We have only to be noble, and we +belong at once to the nobility. It is ourselves alone that will fail +if there be failure; not opportunity. It is for us to rise to the +height of the great argument. It is only that we reverence ourselves, +that we esteem man as of greater mark than his meat or his raiment. +Give us full and free development. Tear away these gilded fetters, and +let the children of God have free course to run and be glorified. +Throw off allegiance to trifles, and with the heart believe, and with +the mouth make confession, and with the upright life attest: There is +no God but God. + +This can be done only when women and men will work together to the +same end. It is not to be done by stripping away the restraints of +fashion and society and leaving life bare of its proprieties. +Deformity is not lovely by being exposed. What we are to do is to +supplant those restraints by the gentle growths of a larger and finer +culture; to replace meagreness with rounded beauty; to make the life +so rich and full that all else shall seem poor in comparison; to show +it so fair and fertile that every luxury shall seem but its natural +outgrowth, its proper adornment; to make the soul so simply dominant +as to give their laws to fashion and society instead of receiving laws +from them, and so have fashion and society for its nimble servitors +instead of being itself their creature and slave. Is it not so now? +Who dares bend social life to his uses? Who dares run counter to its +caprices? Who dares stand on his own dignity and defy its frown or +sneer? But, you say, this adaptation of one's self to others is what +Christianity requires. This self-seeking, this self-elevation, is +directly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which demands that every +one seek not his own, but the things which are another's. Not at all. +You can in no other way benefit your generation than through your own +heart and life. Can a stream rise higher than its fountain? Can a +corrupt tree bring forth good fruits? The Apostle says: Let no man +seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Does that mean that a +farmer must not plough his own field, or plant his own corn, or hoe +his own potatoes, but go over to till his neighbor's farm and leave +his own fallow? But it is written, "He that provideth not for his own +house hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel," and common +sense need not be propped up by revelation, for it stands firmly on +the same ground. You say a woman must not be thinking of herself, her +own growth, and good all the time. So do I. But is she to obtain and +exhibit self-forgetfulness by self-culture, or self-neglect? Will you +be most likely to forget your head by thoroughly combing and brushing +your hair every morning, or by brushing it not at all? Does not health +consist in having your organs in such a condition that you do not know +you have organs? A dyspeptic man is the most subjective person in the +world. He thinks more about himself in a week than a well person does +in a year. The true way for women and men to be thoroughly +self-forgetful, is to be so thoroughly self-cultured, so healthy, so +normal, so perfect, that all they have to do is their work. Themselves +are perfectly transparent. No headaches and heartaches interpose +between themselves and their duties. They are not forced back to +concentrate their interest on a torpid liver, or tubercled lungs. They +are not wasting their power by working in constant jar and clash. They +are at full liberty to bring means to bear on ends. And just in +proportion as sound minds have sound bodies, will people be able to +forget themselves and do good to others. + +Now--the connection between some of my paragraphs may be a little +underground, but it is always there. If you don't quite see it, you +must jump. If I should stop to say everything, I should never get +through. I am not sure I shall, as it is--now, such has been the +amount of gluttony, and all manner of frivolity and materialism, +indirectly but strenuously inculcated by literature, that we are +arrived at a point where they are almost the strongest grappling-hooks +between the sexes. Understand: I am not saying that dress is +frivolity. Dress is development. A woman's dress is not her first +duty, but it follows closely on first duty's heels. She should dress +so as to be grateful to her husband's eye, I grant, nay, I enjoin: and +he is under equally strong obligations to dress so as to be grateful +to her eye. But this is scarcely a matter of expense. It need not +cost, appreciably, more to be neat and tasteful than it does to be +dowdy and slouching. But, I have heard women say, variety in dress is +necessary in order that a husband may not be wearied. But does a man +ever think of having several winter coats or summer waistcoats, so +that his wife may not weary of him? Does she ever think of being tired +of seeing one hat till it begins to look shabby? And if a man buys his +clothes and wears them according to his needs,--which is quite +right,--why shall not a woman do the same? Is there any law or gospel +for forcing a woman to be pleasing to her husband, while the husband +is left to do that which is right in his own eyes? Or are the visual +organs of a man so much more exquisitely arranged than those of a +woman, that special adaptations must be made to them, while a woman +may see whatever happens to be _a la mode_? Or has a man's dress +intrinsically so much more beauty and character than a woman's, that +less pains need be taken to make it charming? + +But granting to variety all the importance that is claimed for it, are +we using the lever to advantage? Suppose the gown is changed every +day, while the face above it never varies, or varies only from one +vapidity to another, and what is gained? If variety is the +desideratum, why not attempt it in the direction in which variety is +spontaneous, resultant, and always delightful? You may flit from brown +merino to blue poplin, and from blue poplin to black alpaca, and be +queen of all that is tiresome still. But enlarge every day the horizon +of your heart: be tuneful on Monday with the birds; be fragrant on +Tuesday among your roses; be thoughtful on Wednesday with the sages; +be chemical on Thursday over your bread-trough; be prophetic on Friday +with history; be aspiring on Saturday in spite of broom and duster; be +liberal and catholic on Sunday: be fresh and genial and natural and +blooming with the dews that are ready to gather on every smallest +grass-blade of life, and a pink-sprigged muslin will be new for a +whole season, yes, and half a dozen of them. Take example from the +toad: swallow your dress; not precisely in the same sense, but as +effectually. Overpower, subordinate your dress, till it shall be only +a second cuticle, not to be distinguished from yourself, but a natural +element of your universal harmony. + +What are you going to wear to church this summer? I say church, +because I am speaking now to people whose best dress is their Sunday +dress. I am not writing for the Newport and Niagara frequenters, who +know no currency smaller than gold eagles. You will not have many new +clothes because it is "war-times," but you must have a silk mantle; +that will cost fifteen dollars. You could have bought one last summer +for ten dollars, but silk is now higher. You will have a barege dress, +which, with the increased price of linings and trimmings and making, +will cost before it is ready to be worn fifteen more. Your gloves will +be a dollar and a half, and your bonnet, whitened and newly trimmed +with last summer's ribbon, will be three dollars or so. The whole cost +will be about thirty-five dollars. But suppose, instead of a barege +gown and silk shawl, you had bought a pretty gingham and had it made +in the same way, dress and mantle alike, and had taken that for your +summer outfit; and had substituted for your kid gloves a pair of +Lisle-thread at sixty-two cents. The gingham will last longer than the +barege, and will be good for more uses after it is outworn as a dress. +It will last as long in the mantle as the shape of the mantle will be +fashionable, and then it will make over as economically, and into a +larger number of articles. The Lisle-thread gloves will last as long +as the kid, and will be much better on the whole, because they will +wash. "But I should make a figure, walking up the broad aisle in a +gingham mantilla!" Be sure you would, and a very pretty figure too. +For you look, in it, perfectly fresh and tidy; and because you have +not been fagged and fretted with its great cost you will be quite +happy and pleased, and that pleasure will beam out in your face and +figure, and your young, elastic tread; and there is not a man in +church who will suspect that everything is not precisely as it should +be. Men judge in generals, not in particulars; and the few who are +conversant with minutiae, and look beyond the facts of becomingness or +unbecomingness into the question of texture and fabric, are such +microscopic sort of men that you do not value their opinion one way or +the other. You are triumphant so far as the men are concerned. + +The women will not let you off so easily. Mrs. Judkins will think you +are "very odd"; but how much better to be oddly right than evenly +wrong! Mrs. Jenkins will call it _real mean_, when you are as well +able to dress decently as she is! But you are the very plant and +flower of decency. Mrs. Perkins will hate to see people try to be +different from other folks. Ah! Mrs. Perkins, when the vapor from your +heated face goes down to-morrow meeting the vapor that comes steaming +up from your foaming tub, will you find it any consolation for your +heat and fatigue that you went to church yesterday and are broiling +over your wash-tub to-day "like other folks." Meanwhile you, by your +gingham, have saved ten dollars. Ten dollars! I am lost in amazement +when I think of the good that may be accomplished with ten dollars! +For ten dollars you can hire a washerwoman all summer and +save--absolutely add to your life six hours every Monday for three +months; look at the reading, the writing, the conversation, the +enjoyment that can be crowded into an hour, and then multiply it by +seventy-five, and say whether your gingham dress be not a very robe of +royalty. And besides the good you do yourself, and the good that will +shine from you upon all around you, you will be helping to solve the +great problem of the age: you will be helping to give employment to +the thousands of women who are perishing for lack of something to do, +and dragging society down with them. You will be setting supply and +demand face to face. If you could but induce a few of your neighbors +to join you,--which they will be glad to do when they see how happy +and fresh it makes you,--the employment you would furnish would +comfortably support some destitute unmarried woman, or some childless +widow, and go far towards providing bread and butter, perhaps shoes +and stockings, possibly spelling-books, to a family of children. There +are, possibly, as many women who need to do more than they are doing +as there are who need to do less, and you will be helping to restore +or create the desired equilibrium. Or, if you choose instead, ten +dollars will take your rustic little ones into the city to stock and +startle their minds with ideas from the navy-yard, the museum, the +aquarial gardens, the picture-galleries; or it will take your civic +little ones into the country and set them down in the midst of +orchards and blooms and birds, and all the pure sweet influences of +long summer days. It will give you four or five drives with your +husband and children,--drives that involve fascinating white baskets; +napkins spread out on the grass, hungry mouths, chattering tongues, +and oh! such happy hearts. Or you can go to the beach and hear the +little monkeys scream for joy and terror in the rushing, lapping, +embracing waves, and see them roll over and over in the soft sand, and +gather untold wealth of worthless shells and heaps of shining sand for +back-yard gardens. For ten dollars you can buy picture-books, +long-desired toys, flowers and flower-stands for winter, roots for +bedding in summer, and still have enough left to give an extra lemon +to a score of wounded soldiers in a hospital ward. You can buy +yourself leisure to become acquainted with your children and to make +them acquainted with the brightest phases of yourself. You can put +into their lives such sunny memories as no after bitterness can +efface; such sunny memories as shall wreathe you with a glory in the +coming years when your head is laid low in the grave. O my friend, I +can almost see the light of the celestial city shining through that +ten dollars,--and you talk about a silk cape! + +Mind, I counsel no penuriousness, no mean retrenchment for +accumulation, no domestic pillage, no mere selfish gratification. I +suggest intelligent and high-minded economy for the purpose of liberal +expenditure. I would take in sail where only sensualism and +ostentation blow; but I would spread every rag of canvas to catch the +smallest breath of an enlarged and Christian happiness. I would cease +to pinch the angel, that the beast may wax fat. I would keep the beast +under, that the angel may have room. + +Do you say that the picture is fanciful? Everything is fanciful till +it is put in practice. Fancy is often but the foreshadow of a coming +fact. + +If some such course as this is not possible, if we must inevitably and +perpetually move on in the same rut in which we move now, then, in a +thousand and a thousand cases, life seems to me not worth the living. + + + + +VII. + + +It is not simply that women are chained to a body of death. Men are +equally victims. The world is kept back from its goal. One member +cannot suffer without involving all the members in its suffering. + +Marriage, in its truest type, is love spiritualizing life; the union +of the mightiest and subtlest forces working the noblest results. +Marriage in its commonest manifestations is a clumsy mechanical +contrivance. Marriage is too often mirage,--far off, in books, in +dreams, lovely and divine; approached, it resolves itself into washing +and ironing and cooking and nursing and house-cleaning and making and +mending and long-suffering from New Year to Christmas and from +Christmas on to New Year, to the great majority of all the women I +know anything about. I do not mean simply the dull, uninteresting +women, of whom there are really not many, but the bright and +intellectual, capable of adorning any station, of whom there are more +than you think, because, buried under household ruins, you scarcely +catch a glimpse of what they long to be and what they might be. And +they do not like it. Volumes may be written and spoken, extolling the +tidy kitchens, the trim wives, the snowy table-cloths, and telling us +how beautiful a woman is when doing her house-work; and a few foolish +women will be found to accept it all and work the harder. Hundreds of +years ago, when a person I know was inconceivably young, and found +great delight in hanging about the kitchen during the seed-time and +harvest of pies and preserves, to glean up the remnants of mince-meat +and various mixtures left in the pans, a tiny relative much more acute +than he used to practise upon his approbativeness by soliloquizing to +himself while both their spoons were clattering around the sides of +the tin pan with frantic rapidity, "Now Peggoty isn't going away, and +let me have the rest. Peggoty is going to stay and eat it all up." The +result was that Peggoty used immediately to walk off and leave his +cormorant kinsman to the undivided booty. Just about as astute as the +kinsman, and just about as silly as Peggoty, are the men who prepare +and the women who suck the thin pap of our milk-and-water novels and +newspapers. But the latter are growing fewer and fewer every day. Some +women have a natural taste for cooking. Some women are specially +skilled in sewing. Some women are born with a broom in their hands, +and some find the sick-room their peculiar paradise: but I never saw +or heard of any woman who had a natural fondness for being worked and +worried from morning till night, hurrying from pillar to post, and +conscious all the time that things were left in an unfinished state, +from sheer want of time to complete them properly. Within a week, a +woman, a model housekeeper, devoted to her family,--a woman who never +wrote a word for print, nor ever addressed so much as a female meeting +of any kind, a woman whose husband looks upon strong-mindedness as a +species of leprosy, to be lamented rather than denounced, but at any +cost kept from spreading,--has told me that, if it were not for the +talk it would make, she would shut up her house, take her whole +family, and go to a hotel to board from June to October, so worn and +wearied is she with her household duties. Yet her family consists of +only three members, and her husband is full of loving-kindness and +consideration. Another woman, equally accomplished in all domestic +arts and graces, and equally happy in her conjugal relations, once +told me that she has seen from her window a carriage of friends coming +up the road to her house, and has been forced to wipe away the tears +before she could go to the door to greet them; so utterly disheartened +was she at the prospect of still further weight upon her already +overburdened shoulders. Yet she was no misanthrope, no nun. She loved +society, and was fitted to shine in it; but the inexorable, +unremitting labor of her household was such, that it was impossible +for her to receive from society the solace which it ought to give and +which it has to give. So heavily pressed the yoke, that a party of +friends was no pleasure to look forward to, but only more cake to be +made, more meat to be roasted, more sheets to be washed. + +Women are accounted the weaker sex; but there is no comparison to be +made between the labor of the weaker and the stronger. Of fathers of +families and mothers of families, the real wear and tear of life comes +on the latter. If there is anxiety as to a sufficiency of support, the +mother shares it equally with the father, and feels it none the less +for not being able to contribute directly to the supply of the +deficiency; forced, passive endurance of an evil is quite as difficult +a virtue as unsuccessful struggle against it. If there is no anxiety +in that direction, the occupations of men can scarcely give them any +hint of the peculiar perplexing, depressing, irritating nature of a +woman's ordinary household duties. Pamphleteers exhort women to hush +up the discords, drive away the clouds, and have only smiles and +sunshine for the husband coming home wearied with his day's labor. +They would be employing themselves to much better advantage, if they +would enjoin him to bring home smiles and sunshine for his wife. She +is the one that pre-eminently needs strength and soothing and +consolation. She needs a warm heart to lean on, a strong arm, and a +steady hand to lift her out of the sloughs in which she is ready to +sink, and set her on the high places where birds sing and flowers +bloom and breezes blow. The husband's work may be absorbing and +exhaustive, but a fundamental difference lies in the simple fact, that +a man has constant and certain change of scene, and a woman has not. A +man goes out to his work and comes in to his meals. Two or three times +a day, sometimes all the evening, always at night and on Sunday, he is +away from his business and his place of business. The day may be long +or short, but there is an end to it. A woman is on the spot all the +time, and her cares never cease. She eats and drinks, she goes out and +comes in, she lies down and rises up, tethered to one stone. It does +not seem to amount to much, that a man closes his shop and goes home; +that he unyokes his oxen, ties up his cows, and sits down on the +door-step: but let the merchant, year after year, eat and sleep in his +counting-room, the schoolmaster in his school-room, the shoemaker over +his lapstone, the blacksmith by his anvil, the minister in his study, +the lawyer in his chambers, with only as frequent variations as a +housekeeper's visiting and tea-drinkings give her, and I think he +would presently learn that he needs not to possess powers acute enough +to divide a hair 'twixt north and northwest side, in order to +distinguish the difference. A distance of half a mile, or even a +quarter of a mile, breaks off all the little cords that have been +compressing a man's veins, and lets the blood rush through them with +force and freedom. It is change of scene, change of persons, change of +atmosphere, and a consequent change of a man's own self. He is made +over new. + +But his wife moils on in the same place. Dark care sits behind her at +breakfast and dinner and supper. The walls are festooned with her +cares. The floors are covered with them as thick as the dust in the +Interpreter's house. _He_ shakes off the dust from his feet and goes +home: _her_ home is in the dust. What wonder that it strangles and +suffocates her? + +Moreover, a man's occupation has uniformity, or rather unity. His path +lies in one line; sometimes he has only to walk mechanically along it. +Rather stupid, but not wearing work; for generally if he had been a +man upon whom it would have worn he would have done something else: +always he has power to bring everything to bear on his business. If it +is mental labor, he has the opportunity of solitude, or only such +association as assists. His helpers, and all with whom he is +concerned, are mature, intelligent, trained, and often ambitious and +self-respectful and courteous. He can set his fulcrum close to the +weight, and all he has to do is to bear down on the lever. + +The wife's assistants, if she has any, are unspeakably in the rough, +and little children make all her schemes "gang a-gley." The incautious +slam of a door will shatter the best-laid plans, and the stubbing of a +chubby toe sinks her morning deep into the midday. Children are to a +man amusement, delight, juvenescence, a truthful rendering of the old +myth, that wicked kings were wont to derive a ghoul-like strength by +transfusion of the blood of infants. The father has them for a little +while. He frolics with them. He rejoices over them. They are beautiful +and charming. He is new to them, and they are new to him, and by the +time the novelty is over it is the hour for them to go to bed. He +feels rested and refreshed for his contact with them. They present +strong contrasts to the world he deals with all day. Their +transparency shines sweetly against its opacity. Even their little +wants and vanities and bickerings are to him only interesting +developments of human nature. His power is pleased with their +dependence; his pride flatters itself with their future; his +tenderness softens to their clinging; his earthliness cleaves away +before their innocence, and he thinks his quiver can never be too full +of them. + +This is the poetry, and he reads it with great delight; but there is a +prose department, and that comes to the mother. She has had the +cherubs all day, and she knows that the trail of the serpent is over +them all. She sees the angel, in their souls as well as he, often +better; but she sees too the mark of the beast on their +forehead,--which he seldom discovers. His playthings are her +stumbling-blocks. The constancy of her presence forbids novelty, and +throws her upon her inventive powers for resources. All their +weariness and fretfulness and tumbles and aches are poured into her +lap. She has no division of labor, no concentration of forces; no five +or ten hours devoted to housework, and two or three to her children, +taking them into her heart to do good like a medicine. They patter +through every hour to stay her from doing with her might any of the +many things which her hands find to do. Nothing keeps limits; +everything laps over. God has given her a love so inexhaustible, that, +notwithstanding the washings and watchings, the sewing and dressing +which children necessitate, notwithstanding the care, the check, the +pull-back, the weariness, the heartsickness, which they occasion, the +"little hindering things" are--my pen is not wont to be timid, but it +shrinks from attempting to say what little ones are to a mother. But +divine arrangement does not prevent human drawback; and looking not at +inward solace, but outward business, it remains true that the business +of providing for the wants of a family is not of that smooth, +uncreaking nature to the mother that it is to the father. Let a man +take two or three little children--two or three? Let him take one!--of +one, two, three, or four years of age, to his shop, or stall, or +office, and take care of him all the time for a week, and he will see +what I mean. + +I do not say that a man's work may not be harder for an hour, or five +or ten hours, more exhaustive of mental and vital power, more +exclusive of all diversions than his wife's for the same time. It may +or may not be; quite as often the latter as the former: but I do say +that severe prearranged, intermittent labor wears less upon the +temper, the nerves, and the spirits, that is, upon body and soul, than +lighter, confused, unintermitting labor. Work that enlists the +energies and the enthusiasm will weary, but the weariness itself is +welcome, and brings with it a satisfaction,--the pleasant sense of +something accomplished. The multiplicity of a woman's labors distracts +as well as wearies, and each one is so petty that she has scarcely +anything to look back on. Not one of them is great enough to brace and +stimulate, and all together they form a multitudinous heap, and not a +mountain. It is a round of endless detail; little, insignificant, +provoking items that she gets no credit for doing, but fatal discredit +for leaving undone. Nobody notices that things are as they should be; +but if things are not as they should be, it were better for her that a +millstone were hanged about her neck, &c.! + +In a community, you find the husbands devoted to different pursuits. +Baker, miller, farmer, advocate, clerk,--each one has a peculiar +calling for which he is supposed to have a special taste, fitness, or +motive, perhaps all; but their wives have no room for choice. Whether +they have a gift of it or not, they have the same routine of baking +and brewing and house-cleaning. Suppose the woman does not like it? +The supposition is not an impossible, not even an unnatural one. +Woman's-sphere writers confound distinctions; they seem to think that +woman was not created in the garden in native honor clad like man, but +rather, like the turtle, with her house on her back, and that a modern +American house and its belongings; so that if she dislikes any of the +conclusions which such a house premises, it is as unnatural and +unwomanly as if she should be coarse or cruel. Womanliness, in their +vocabulary, implies fondness of and pleasure in domestic drudgery. +Their ideal woman is enamored of wash-tubs and broom-handles and +frying-pans. But modern housekeeping is no more woman's sphere than +farming is man's sphere, nor so much. If you go back far enough, you +will find that man was directly and divinely ordained to that very +pursuit. The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of +Eden, _to dress it and to keep it_. His sphere was expressly marked +out. He was to be a gardener, a farmer, a tiller of the soil. What of +the woman? "The Lord God said, It is not good _that the man should be +alone_: I will make him an help meet for him." What kind of help was +meant is here implied, but is more clearly discovered further on by +Adam's own interpretation: "The woman whom thou gavest _to be with +me_." She was made for society, to be company for him; to talk and +laugh and cheer and keep him from being lonesome. Not a word about +housekeeping. Adam is concerned to put the very best face on the +matter, and he does not say, "the woman whom thou gavest to train up +the vines, to pare the apples, to stone the raisins, to gather the +currants, to press the grapes, to preserve the peaches," or for any +other purposes of an Eden household. It is simply "thou gavest _to be +with me_." Whatever may have come in afterwards to modify the original +arrangement, came for "the hardness of your hearts." But here, before +the fall, is seen, in all its beauty and simplicity, the original +plan. You have the whole "woman question" in a nutshell. Yet people +who are fond of quoting the Bible manage to skip this. They go back to +the curse, "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over +thee," and there they stop. Their nature is nature accursed, and even +that is silent on the point of menial service: they do not go back to +nature innocent, where it is excluded by implication. But if the Bible +is proof on one side, it is proof on the other. If the husband is made +to be the head of the woman, he is also made to be her serving-man. +Nay, even the silence of the curse is more golden than the speech of +man, for the same allotment of penalty which lays upon her the sorrow +of conception lays upon him the sorrow of toil: so that every man +whose wife is obliged to eat bread in the sweat of her brow is out of +his sphere, and has failed of his "mission." He lays upon the +shoulders of a weak woman his own burden as well as hers. And every +man who is not a farmer is out of his sphere, and should put himself +into it before he casts a single stone at any woman; and he is as much +more guilty as his sphere is more accurately defined. + +So much for the revelation of the word; now for the revelation of +nature. + +Naturally, I suppose women's tastes are not any more likely to be +uniform than men's tastes. The narrow range of their lives has +undoubtedly tended to keep them down towards one standard, but every +new-born child is a new protest of nature,--a new outburst of +individuality against monotony, so that the work is really never done, +and never comes anywhere near being so far done as that all women, or +the majority of women, should choose the life of a housekeeper. As far +as my observation goes, the best women, the brightest women, the +noblest women, are the very ones to whom it is most irksome. I do not +mean housekeeping with well-trained servants, for that is general +enough to admit a "brother near the throne"; but that, alas! is almost +unknown in the world wherein _I_ have lived; and a woman who is +satisfied with the small cares, the small economies, the small +interests, the constant contemplation of small things which many a +household demands, is a very small sort of woman. I make the assertion +both as an inference and an observation. A noble discontent--not a +peevish complaining, but an inward and spiritual protest--is a woman's +safeguard against the deterioration which such a life threatens, and +her proof of capacity and her note of preparation for a higher. Such a +woman does not do her work less well, but she rises ever superior to +her work. I know such women. + +You talk about the mother-instinct. The mother-instinct makes a mother +love her children, but it does not make her love to destroy herself +with unremitting toil for them. It makes her do it, but it does not +make her love to do it. And because, in her great love, she will do it +when the necessity is laid upon her,--a wicked perversion of God's +good gift often lays the necessity upon her when God does not. The +mother-instinct in woman corresponds to the father-instinct in man; +and the wifely love to the husbandly love. Each is strong enough to +bear joyfully all that God lays upon it, and patiently much that he +does not lay and never intended to be laid. But he who counts upon +that strength, for the purpose of abusing it, is guilty of a high +crime against humanity. Each sex has the same uniformity in its loves, +and would undoubtedly have the same variety in its tastes if it were +not hindered. Men do not themselves believe so much as they profess in +this menial gravitation. If they did, they would never lecture women +so much about it. The very frenzy and frequency of their exhortations +are suspicious. They join together what God has not joined. They claim +identity where he has established diversity. Women are continually and +publicly admonished of their household obligations, but who ever heard +an assembly of men admonished of theirs? Yet men are as often derelict +in furnishing provision for their families as women are lax in its +administration. And while the husband may do his part in the way which +seems good in his own eyes, the wife must do hers in only one way, +whether it seem good or bad. The wise woman must tread "the old dull +round of things" as well as the foolish woman, and then she is so +footsore that she cannot enter upon that higher path which is open +only to her, and shut to the foolish woman. The low necessities usurp +the throne of the lofty possibilities. Oh! for this what tender +consideration should she not receive! Confined to the uninteresting +routine of domestic drudgery, while her tastes incline and her powers +fit her for other things, no admiration is too deep, no sympathy too +warm. The gentlest and most thoughtful attention is her smallest due. +Let men fancy for a moment that at marriage they must give up the law, +the pulpit, the machine-shop, the farm, in which they excel, and which +is adequate to purse and pleasure, and turn hod-carrier or +road-mender, and they may have a glimpse of the sacrifice which many a +gifted woman has made. If she made it unwittingly, marrying before she +knew her powers, or the life which marriage involves, a generous pity +and love will smooth her path as much as may be, and press back the +unexpected thorns. If she made it wittingly, choosing, in her strong +love, to lay upon the altar her pleasant things, so much the more will +a generous man constrain her to forget, in the fervor and efficacy of +his love, the fruit which once her soul longed for. If he cannot +prevent the sacrifice, he can cause that it shall not have been made +in vain. + +Again, a man receives immediate and definite results from his work. He +has salary or wages,--so much a day, a year, a job. He is Lord High +Chancellor of the Exchequer and irresponsible. His wife gets no money +for her work. She has no funds under her own control, no resources of +which she is mistress. She must draw supplies from her husband, and +often with much outlay of ingenuity. Some men dole out money to their +wives as if it were a gift, a charity, something to which the latter +have no right, but which they must receive as a favor, and for which +they must be thankful. They act as if their wives were trying to +plunder them. Now a man has no more right to his earnings than his +wife has. They belong to her just as much as to him. There is a +mischievous popular opinion that the husband is the producer and the +wife the consumer. In point of fact, the wife is just as much a +producer as the husband. Her part in the concern is just as important +as his. She earns it as truly, and has just as strong a claim and just +as much a right to it as he; if possible she has more, for she ought +to receive some compensation for the gap that yawns between work and +wages. It is much more satisfactory to receive the latter as a direct +result of the former, than as a kind of alms. Many a woman does as +much to build up her husband's prosperity as he does himself. Many a +woman saves him from failure and disgrace. And, as a general rule, the +fate and fortunes of the family lie in her hands as much as in his. +What absurdity to _pay_ him his _wages_ and to _give_ her money to go +shopping with! + +A woman who went around to make a collection for a small local +charity, told me that she could not help noticing the difference +between the married and the unmarried women. The latter took out their +purses on the spot and gave their mite or mint without hesitation. The +former parleyed and would see about it, gave rather uncertainly, and +must speak to Edward before they could decide. Now it may well be that +a woman who has only her own self to provide for can give more +liberally than one upon whose purse come the innumerable requisitions +of a family. The mother may be forced to make many sacrifices, and yet +be so blessed in the making that there shall be no sacrifice. The +pleasure shall overbalance the pain. But there is no reason why a +married woman should hesitate, or be embarrassed, or consult Edward as +to the expenditure of a dime or a dollar, any more than an unmarried +one. There may be more calls on the purse, but she ought to be +mistress of it. She ought to know her husband's circumstances well +enough to know what she can afford to give away, and she ought to be +as free to use her judgment as he is to use his. In any unusual +emergency, each will wish to consult the other; but he does not think +of asking her as to the disposal of every chance quarter of a dollar, +neither should she think of asking him. If circumstances make it +necessary to sail close to the wind, sail close to the wind; but let +both be in the same boat. + +All this miserable and humiliating halting arises from the miserable +and humiliating notion that the husband is the power and the wife the +weight. It comes out, more convenient in substance, but just as +objectionable in shape, in the wife's "allowance." The husband +_allows_ her so much a year for her expenses. If it means simply that +so much is set aside for that purpose, very well; only it would sound +rather strange to say that she allows him so much to carry on his +business. A woman does not wish to be conversant with the details of +her husband's shop any more than he wishes to understand the details +of her kitchen: but he desires to know enough of that to be sure of +prompt, sufficient, and agreeable meals, and a tidy house, at a cost +within his means. So she should know with sufficient accuracy the +extent and sources of their income to be able to arrange her ordinary +disbursements without constant recurrence to him. He does not take his +dinner as a boon from her. He feels under no obligations for it. He +does not consider himself on his good behavior out of gratitude. It is +a regular institution, a blessing entirely common to both, and excites +no emotion. So should her money be,--as regularly and mechanically +supplied as the dinner, exciting no more comment and needing no more +argument. Whether it is kept in her pocket or his may be of small +moment; but as she does not lock up the dinner in the cupboard, and +then stand at the door and dole it out to him by the plateful, but +sets it on the table for him to help himself: so it is better, more +pacific, that he should deposit the money in an equally neutral and +accessible locality. + +I portray to myself the flutter which such a proposition would raise +in many marital bosoms; would that they might be soothed. It is well +known among farmers that hens will not eat so much if you set a +measure of corn where they can pick whenever they choose, as they will +if you only fling down a handful now and then, and keep them +continually half starved. At the same time they will be in better +condition. So, looking at the matter from the very lowest stand-point, +a woman who has free access to the money will not be half so likely to +lavish it as the woman who is put off with scanty and infrequent sums. +She who knows how much there is to spend will almost invariably keep +within the limits. If she does not know, her imagination will be very +likely to magnify the fountain, and if but meagre supplies are +forthcoming, she will attribute it to niggardliness, and will consider +everything that can be got from her husband as legal plunder; and with +under-ground pipes and above-ground trenches it shall go hard but she +will drain him tolerably dry. Then he will inveigh against her +extravagance, and so not only lose his money, but his temper, his +calmness, and his complacency, all the while blaming her when the +fault is chiefly his own. If he had but frankly acquainted her with +the main facts; if he had but permitted her to look in and see what +was the capacity of the reservoir, instead of leaving her to sit under +the walls, knowing nothing of its resources but what she could learn +from the occasional spouting of a single small pipe, he would have +avoided all the trouble. It is so rarely that a wife will recklessly +transcend her reasonable income, that I do not think it worth while to +suggest any provision against the evil. It is an abnormal and sporadic +case, to be treated physiologically rather than philosophically. The +man has unfortunately allied himself to a mad woman, or he has found +to his regret that there is nothing more fulsome than a she-fool. + +It irks me to say these things. It is almost a profanation to connect +such cold-blooded business matters with a relation which is supposed +to involve, and which should involve, the highest, the purest, the +fairest traits of human life. In true marriage there is indeed no need +of these considerations. A complete and perfect marriage breaks down +all barriers, and fuses each separate interest into one. In such there +is no mine and thine, but unity and identity. For perfect marriages I +do not write; but for the imperfect, and the marriages not yet +contracted. Let us have another standard set up, another +starting-point established, another goal fixed, that we may run +without weariness, and walk without faintness, and be crowned at last +with a laurel worth the wearing. A ten years' wife once said to a +young lady who was spending money rather freely,--money which was, +however, her own, for which she had to depend upon no one,--"You ought +to lay up something for yourself. You should have a little money--if +only five hundred dollars, it will be better than nothing--in the +bank, so that when you are married you will have something of your own +to go to, and not have to depend entirely upon your husband. You will +be a great deal happier to have something that you can do what you +choose with, and not feel that you must account for every cent, and +make it go as far as possible." But it seems to me that this is _felo +de se_. Doubtless, people often find that they have married the wrong +person; but it is supposed to be a mistake, and not a walking into the +ditch with eyes open. If a girl knows, or even suspects, or entertains +the possibility beforehand, that she is going to marry a man from whom +it is necessary to provide for herself a pecuniary refuge, why does +she marry him at all? If she deliberately unites herself to one who +she believes, or even fears, will not receive her as a trust from God, +bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, she forfeits all sympathy and +pity, whatever may befall her. If the husband whom she is to take +threatens to be greedy, or unsympathizing, or selfish, or stolid, her +best defence against him is, not to put money in a bank, but to keep +herself out of his reach. It is impossible to conceive of happiness in +marriage, where the financial wheels do not run--I will not say +smoothly, but evenly. The road may be rough, roundabout, and steep, +without precluding wholesome and hearty happiness; but if one wheel +drags while the other turns, if one goes back while the other goes +forward, if for any reason the two do not move by parallel lines in +the same direction, the whole carriage is bewitched, the whole journey +is embittered, the whole object is baffled. + +It is marvellous to see the insensibility with which men manage these +delicate matters. It is impossible for a man to be too scrupulous, too +chivalrous, too refined, in his bearing towards his wife. Her +dependence should be the strongest appeal to his manhood. The very act +of receiving money from him puts her in a position so equivocal, that +the utmost affection and attention should be brought into play to +reassure her. The velvet touch of love should disguise the iron hand +of business. A sensitive woman is fully enough alive to her relations. +There is need that every gentle and tender courtesy should assure and +convince her that the money which she costs is a pleasure and a +privilege. Her delicacy, her self-respect, her confidence in his +appreciation, are the strongest ties that can bind her to himself. Let +them but be sundered, and he has no longer any hold on happiness, any +safeguard against discord. Let chivalry be forgotten, let +sensitiveness be violated, let money intrude into the domain of love, +and the spell is broken. Your stately silver urn is become an iron +kettle. + +Yet men will deliberately, in the presence of their wives, _to_ their +wives, groan over the cost of living. They do not mean extravagant +purchases of silk and lace and velvet, which might be a wife's fault +or thoughtlessness, and furnish an excuse for rebuke; but the +butcher's bill, and the grocer's bill, and the joiner's bill. Man, +when a woman is married, do you think she loses all personal feeling? +Do you think your glum look over the expenses of housekeeping is a +fulfilment of your promise to love and cherish? Is it calculated to +retain and increase her tenderness for you? Does it bring sunshine and +lighten toil, and bless her with knightly grace? Do you not know that +it is only a way of regretting that you married her? It is a way of +saying that you did not count the cost. You may not present it to +yourself in that light, but in that light you present it to her. And +do you think it is a pleasant thing to her? You go out to your shop, +or sit down to your newspaper, and forget all about it. She sits down +to her sewing, or stands over her cooking-stove, and meditates upon it +with an indescribable pain. I do not say that every kind of uneasiness +regarding expense is or ought to be thus construed. There may be an +uneasiness springing directly from love. A strong and great-hearted +affection frets that it cannot minister the beauty and the comfort +which it longs to do, or defend against the emergencies which a future +may bring. But this uneasiness is rarely if ever mistaken. Love can +usually find a way to soothe the sorrows of love, and a wife's hand +can almost always smooth out the wrinkles from the brow which is +corrugated only for her. The complaint which I mean is of quite +another character. Women know it, if men do not;--the women who have +suffered from it, for it is pleasant to think that there are women to +whose experience every such sensation is entirely foreign. These very +men who complain because it costs so much to live will lose by bad +debts more than their wives spend. They will, by sheer negligence, by +a selfish reluctance to present a bill to a disagreeable person, by a +cowardly fear lest insisting on what is due should alienate a +customer, by culpable mismanagement of business, by indorsing a note, +or lending money, through mere want of courage to say "No," or of +shrewdness to detect dishonesty or incapacity, lose money enough to +foot up half a dozen bills. They will waste money in cigars, in +oyster-suppers, in riding when walking would be better for them, in +keeping a horse which "eats his head off," in buying luxuries which +they would be better off without, in sending packages and luggage by +express, rather than have the trouble of taking them themselves, in +numberless small items of which they make no account, but of which the +bills make great account. If one might judge from the newspapers, +extravagance is a peculiarity of women. So far as my observation goes, +the extravagance of women is not for a moment to be compared with the +extravagance of men.[3] A man is perversely, persistently, and with +malice aforethought, extravagant. He is extravagant in spite of +admonition and remonstrance. Where his personal comfort or interest is +concerned, he scorns a sacrifice. He laughs at the suggestion that +such a little thing makes any difference one way or another. He has +not even the idea of economy. He does not know what the word means. He +does not know the thing when he sees it. Women take to it naturally. A +certain innate sense of harmony keeps them from being wasteful. Their +extravagance is the exception, not the rule. They are willing to incur +self-denial. They do not scorn to take thought and trouble, and be put +to inconvenience, for the sake of saving money. The greater animalism +of man also comes out here in full force. If sacrifice must be, a +woman will sacrifice her comforts before her taste. The man will let +his tastes go, and keep his comforts, and call it good sense. A +woman's extravagance is to some purpose. A man's to none. She buys +many dresses, but she gives her old ones away, or cuts them over for +the children, and works dextrously. A man buys and destroys. Look at +the manner in which men manage the national housekeeping, and see +whether it is men or women who are extravagant. Look at the clerkships +in the departments, look at members of Congress browsing among +government supplies, look at army and navy; walk through a camp: see +the barrels of good food thrown away, see the wood wasted, see the +tools wantonly destroyed. I think the wives of the soldiers could +support themselves comfortably on the fragments of the soldiers' +feasts. Nobody complains. A great nation must not look too closely +after the pennies. A great army always makes great waste, say the +newspapers that exhort women against extravagance, as if it were as +much a law of nature as gravitation. Why not say housekeeping is +always wasteful, and fall back on that as a primal law of nature also? +Because housekeeping is not always wasteful, you say. Precisely. +Housekeeping is nearly always economically conducted, and your +animadversions amount just to this: because women are generally +prudent, they are to be chided for all shortcomings. But men are +always wasteful, therefore they must be let alone. Only be universally +bad, and you shall be as unmolested as if you were good. You say that +it is easier to be economical in a family than in an army. Perhaps so; +but if the soldiers, instead of being men, were women, do you for a +moment imagine that there would be any such waste? Let all other +circumstances be unchanged. Let all the cost come upon the government +just as it does. Let all provisions be furnished in the same abundance +as now, and I do not believe there would be much more waste than there +is in average families. I do not believe you could force women at the +point of the bayonet to such reckless prodigality as men indulge in. +It is against their nature. It hurts them. It violates God's law, +written in their hearts. They would also be too conscientious to do +it. They would not consider the fact that "Uncle Sam foots the bills" +a reason why a saw should be tossed aside on the first symptom of +dulness, and a new one bought. They would not throw away a half loaf +because there were plenty of whole ones, but keep it and steam it. And +not only would there be a great deal less waste, but there would be a +great deal better supply. If women had charge of the commissariat, I +do not believe there would have been one half so much friction as +there has been. Hungry regiments would not get to the end of a long +march and find nothing to eat. Sick soldiers would not be expected to +recover health from salt pork and muddy coffee. Experience or no +experience, red tape or no tape, women would have managed to bring +hungry mouths and hot soups together, and to furnish delicate food for +delicate health. They would not only have supplied the soldiers at +less cost to government, but the less cost would have produced a +larger bill of fare. How did the English army fare till Florence +Nightingale came by and knocked their granary doors open? That my +remarks are not mere theory, or rather that my theory is founded on +truth, is abundantly proved by a statement printed in the North +American Review for January, 1864, long after my words were written. +It is from an article on the Sanitary Commission. + + [3] The discussions which, since this was written, have + arisen concerning expenditure and extravagance, in + connection with the women's pledge against the purchase of + foreign goods, only increase the strength of my position. + But let it be remembered, that I speak not for an emergency, + but for the conduct of life. + +"At this moment, the only region in the loyal States that is +definitely out of the circle is Missouri. The rest of our loyal +territory is all embraced within one ring of method and federality. +This is chiefly due to the wonderful spirit of nationality that beats +in the breasts of American women. They, even more than the men of the +country, from their utter withdrawal from partisan strifes and local +politics, have felt the assault upon the life of the nation in its +true national import. They are infinitely less _State-ish_, and more +national in their pride and in their sympathies. They see the war in +its broad, impersonal outlines; and while their particular and special +affections are keener than men's, their general humanity and tender +sensibility for unseen and distant sufferings is stronger and more +constant. + +"The women of the country, who are the actual creators, by the labor +of their fingers, of the chief supplies and comforts needed by the +soldiers, have been the first to understand, appreciate, and +co-operate with the Sanitary Commission. It is due to the sagacity and +zeal with which they have entered into the work, that the system of +supplies, organized by the extraordinary genius of Mr. Olmstead, has +become so broadly and nationally extended, and that, with Milwaukee, +Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, +New York, Brooklyn, New Haven, Hartford, Providence, Boston, Portland, +and Concord for centres, there should be at least fifteen thousand +Soldiers' Aid Societies, all under the control of women, combined and +united in a common work,--of supplying, through the United States +Sanitary Commission, the wants of the sick and wounded in the great +Federal army. + +"The skill, zeal, business qualities, and patient and persistent +devotion exhibited by those women who manage the truly vast operations +of the several chief centres of supply, at Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, +Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and New York, have unfolded a new page in the +history of the aptitudes and capacities of women. To receive, +acknowledge, sort, arrange, mark, repack, store, hold ready for +shipment, procure transportation for, and send forward at sudden call, +the many thousand boxes of hospital stores which, at the order of the +General Secretary at Washington, have been for the past two years and +a half forwarded at various times by the 'Women's Central' at New +York, the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio, at Cleveland, the +Branches at Cincinnati and at Philadelphia, or the Northwestern Branch +at Chicago, has required business talents of the highest order. A +correspondence demanding infinite tact, promptness, and method has +been carried on with their local tributaries, by the women from these +centres, with a ceaseless ardor, to which the Commission owes a very +large share of its success, and the nation no small part of the +sustained usefulness and generous alacrity of its own patriotic +impulses. + +"To collect funds (for the supply branches have usually raised their +own funds from the immediate communities in which they have been +situated) has often tasked their ingenuity to the utmost. In Chicago, +for instance, the Branch has lately held a fair of colossal +proportions, to which the whole Northwest was invited to send +supplies, and to come in mass! On the 26th of October last, when it +opened, a procession of three miles in length, composed of wagon-loads +of supplies, and of people in various ways interested, paraded through +the streets of Chicago; the stores being closed, and the day given up +to patriotic sympathies. For fourteen days the fair lasted, and every +day brought reinforcements of supplies, and of people and purchasers. +The country people, from hundreds of miles about, sent in upon the +railroads all the various products of their farms, mills, and hands. +Those who had nothing else sent the poultry from their barnyards; the +ox, or bull, or calf, from the stall; the title-deed of a few acres of +land; so many bushels of grain, or potatoes, or onions. Loads of hay, +even, were sent in from ten or a dozen miles out, and sold at once in +the hay-market. On the roads entering the city were seen rickety and +lumbering wagons, made of poles, loaded with mixed freight,--a few +cabbages, a bundle of socks, a coop of tame ducks, a few barrels of +turnips, a pot of butter, and a bag of beans,--with the proud and +humane farmer driving the team, his wife behind in charge of the baby, +while two or three little children contended with the boxes and +barrels and bundles for room to sit or lie. Such were the evidences of +devotion and self-sacrificing zeal the Northwestern farmers gave, as +in their long trains of wagons they trundled into Chicago, from twenty +and thirty miles' distance, and unloaded their contents at the doors +of the Northwestern Fairs, for the benefit of the United States +Sanitary Commission. The mechanics and artisans of the towns and +cities were not behind the farmers. Each manufacturer sent his best +piano, plough, threshing-machine, or sewing-machine. Every form of +agricultural implement, and every product of mechanical skill, was +represented. From the watchmaker's jewelry to horseshoes and harness; +from lace, cloth, cotton and linen, to iron and steel; from wooden and +waxen and earthen ware, to butter and cheese, bacon and beef;--nothing +came amiss, and nothing failed to come, and the ordering of all this +was in the hands of women. They fed in the restaurant, under 'the +Fair,' at fifty cents a meal--fifteen hundred mouths a day, for a +fortnight--from food furnished, cooked, and served by the women of +Chicago; and so orderly and convenient, so practical and wise were the +arrangements, that, day by day, they had just what they had ordered +and what they counted on,--always enough, and never too much. They +divided the houses of the town, and levied on No. 16 A Street, for +five turkeys, on Monday; No. 37 B Street, for twelve apple-pies, on +Tuesday; No. 49 C Street, for forty pounds of roast beef, on +Wednesday; No. 23 D Street was to furnish so much pepper on Thursday; +No. 33 E Street, so much salt on Friday. In short, every preparation +was made in advance, at the least inconvenience possible to the +people, to distribute in the most equal manner the welcome burden of +feeding the visitors, at the fair, at the expense of the good people +of Chicago, but for the pecuniary benefit of the Sanitary Commission. +Hundreds of lovely young girls, in simple uniforms, took their places +as waiters behind the vast array of tables, and everybody was as well +served as at a first-class hotel, at a less expense to himself, and +with a great profit to the fair. Fifty thousand dollars, it is said, +will be the least net return of this gigantic fair to the treasury of +the Branch at Chicago. It is universally conceded that to Mrs. +Livermore and Mrs. Hoge, old and tried friends of the soldier and of +the Sanitary Commission, and its ever active agents, are due the +planning, management, and success of this truly American exploit. What +is the value of the money thus raised, important as it is, when +compared with the worth of the spirit manifested, the loyalty +exhibited, the patriotism stimulated, the example set, the prodigious +tide of national devotion put in motion! How can rebellion hope to +succeed in the face of such demonstrations as the Northwestern Fair? +They are bloodless battles, equal in significance and results to +Vicksburg and Gettysburg, to New Orleans and Newbern." + +Men, have you read this paragraph? Please to read it again! Think of +all your inveighing against female extravagance and incapacity, and +read it yet again. Put on sackcloth and ashes, and read it aloud to +your wife, to your mother, to your daughter, to your sister, to your +grandmother, to your aunt, to your niece, to your mother-in-law, and +all your relatives-in-law, and to every woman who suffers your +presence, and then lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in the +dust, and cry, "Woe is me! for I am undone." Inexperience? Had Mrs. +Hoge and Mrs. Livermore any more experience in feeding fifteen hundred +mouths a day than the quartermaster of a regiment? Have the women of +Chicago generally devoted their lives to trafficking in tame ducks, +loads of hay, threshing-machines, and beef and bacon? Yet you have the +very essence of business tact in "nothing came amiss, and nothing +failed to come"; and the very essence of economy in "always enough, +and never too much"; and the crowning glory--write it on the posts of +thy house, and on thy gates; teach it diligently unto thy children, +and talk of it when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest +by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up; bind it +for a sign upon thine hand, and let it be as a frontlet between thine +eyes--"the ordering of all this was in the hands of women." + +This ascription of female extravagance, whether made publicly in +newspapers or privately in family conclave, is not only false and +fatal, but it is fatal in the very innermost and vital points of life. +What is destroyed is not an adventitious thing, but the spring of all +satisfaction. The relations between a man and his wife decide the weal +of his life. The whole chain of his circumstances can be no stronger +than the link between him and her. He may be ever so rich or renowned, +but he can bear no heavier weight of happiness than that link can +sustain. The newspaper paragraphs do the harm of confirming individual +men in their notions that it is the wife who incurs the unnecessary +expense, and so divert their attention from their own duties, and urge +them on in their evil courses to their own undoing. But a man is just +as powerful for good as he is for evil. By as much as he can alienate +his wife from himself by his petty financiering, by so much can he +draw her to his heart by a gentle chivalry. Invested by the law with +power, he has only to transmute it into love to secure a loyalty +capable of any sacrifice. Let a wife read in her husband's face and +bearing how grateful is her society, how precious her life, how +sweetest of all pleasures to him is the knowledge of her pleasure; let +her feel that she is to him something different from all earthly +interests,--something above and beyond all other joys; let her see +that, with her coming, money ceased to be mere current coin, that +labor acquired a new dignity, and prudence a new charm, because they +all might minister to her convenience or delight; let her see that she +adjusts, harmonizes, and completes his life; that she is the central +sun, about which all minor interests and plans revolve; and--what have +you gained? A good housekeeper? A well-ordered household? More than +this. An empire. Supreme dominion. You have only to be tender and +true, and nothing can sweep away the golden mist through which, +whatever you may be to others, you shall appear to her eyes a knight +without fear and without reproach. + +Wrong opinions concerning the relations between husband and wife are +also occasionally expressed in another and opposite manner. A wife +comes into the possession of property. The husband, determined not to +encroach upon her rights, leaves the disposal of the property to her. +He insists that it shall be invested in her name. He will take no +responsibility as to the mode of investment. This may be done from +honorable motives. The man means to be just and blameless; and if he +is conscious of innate weakness or wickedness, or if the marriage be +an ill-assorted one, he may be pursuing the best course. There may +also be outside, merely business reasons which make it the best +course. But to do it simply from a notion of justice, is as far as +possible from what ought to be. The man shows himself entirely at +fault regarding the range of justice. If life were what it should be, +the law would be right in recognizing for the woman no existence +separate from her husband. Love is but the fulfilling of that law. The +reason why such a law is unjust is, that life is so constant a +violation of the higher spiritual law, that this lower one which +embodies it works mischief. It fits the righteous theory only, not the +wicked facts. But law is for the evil, not for the good. There is no +enactment that a man shall possess his own property. The enactments +are to punish those who attempt to wrest his property from him. There +need be no enactment that a man shall be master of his wife's +possessions; he has but to be to her a true husband, and all that she +has is his. The law should punish him for neglect of duty and +disregard of claims, by a forfeiture of property. If the law this day +completely reversed the position of husband and wife, it would make no +jot or tittle of change in their actual position, where they love each +other as they ought. Women naturally have a distaste to business, and +an indifference to money. Of their own motion, they would leave such +things in the hands of men, if the instinct of self-preservation did +not force them to interference. In addition to this generic negative +willingness, the happy wife has a positive delight in enriching with +every blessing the man she loves. When Aurora gave her love with all +lavishment, and prayed Romney, + + "If now you'd stoop so low to take my love, + And use it roughly, without stint or spare, + As men use common things with more behind, + To any mean and ordinary end,-- + The joy would set me like a star, in heaven, + So high up, I should shine because of height + And not of virtue,"-- + +did she make a mental reservation to herself of the money which her +books had brought her? + +What the law should do, is to step in and guard woman against the +possible disastrous consequences which may spring from the spontaneous +self-abnegation of love. What it should not do, is to guarantee to the +miser, the spendthrift, the tyrant, debauchee, or vampire, the things +which _a man_ would possess of his own inalienable right. What a +husband should do, is to show himself great enough and good enough to +know and feel that, in love, giving and receiving wear the selfsame +grace. What he should not do, is to talk of justice when they twain +should be one flesh. + + + + +VIII. + + +Woman's rank in life depends entirely on what life is. Her importance +is decided when it is decided what service is important. If money is +the one thing needful, and its acquisition the chief end of man, the +wife's position is very inferior to her husband's. The greater part of +the money is earned in his, and often spent in her department. He does +the work that is paid for, and he belongs to the sex that is paid. She +does the work that is not paid for, and she belongs to the sex that is +pillaged. Men go out and gain money: wives stay at home and spend it. +The case is against them--if that is the whole case. But if money is +only means to an end; if happiness, intelligence, integrity, are more +worth than gold; if a life ruled by the law of God, if the development +of the divine in the human, if the education of every faculty, and the +enjoyment of every power, be more lovely and more desirable than bank +stock, then the woman walks not one whit behind the man, but side by +side, with no unequal steps. He furnishes and she fashions the +material from which grace and strength are wrought. Her work is in +point of fact incomparably fairer, finer, more difficult, more +important than his. It is not money-getting alone, or chiefly, but +money-spending, that influences and indicates character. A man may +work up to his knees in swamp-meadows, or breathe all day the foul air +of a court-room; but if, when released, he turns naturally to sunshine +and apple-orchards and womanly grace, swamp-mud and vile air have not +polluted him. He is a clean-souled man through it all. But if a man +find rest from his work in mere eating and drinking, if the money +which he has earned goes to gross amusements and coarse companions, he +shows at once the lowness of his character, however high may be his +occupation. + +Those hands which have the ordering of house and home, have a large +share in the ordering of character. The man who provides the house +does an important part, but she who refines it into a home is the true +artist. To whom is the palm awarded, to the painter who, from ochre +and lead, lays on the rough canvas the lovely landscape, touched with +a beauty borrowed from his own soul, or the huckster who sells him +ochre, lead, and canvas, or even the successful shoddy-contractor who +pays five thousand of his Judas Iscariot dollars, that he may hang it +in a bad light in his dining-room till such day as he shall have the +grace to go and hang himself? It has been said that in the highest +departments women have never produced a masterpiece. Painting has its +old masters, but no old mistresses. Jenny Lind may entrance the world +from her "heaven-kissing hill," but on the mountain-tops Mendelssohn +and Beethoven stand uncompanioned. Sappho plumed her wings, but +plunged quickly from the Leucadian cliff, and Milton soars steadfastly +to the sun alone. We shall see about this one day, but meanwhile life +itself is higher than any of the arts of life, and in living no man +has risen to loftier heights than a woman, and the mass of men are +infinitely lower than the mass of women, and would be lower still if +it were not for female assistance. With all the help which they +receive from women, they are perpetually lapsing into brutality, and +whenever they go off into a community by themselves, they go headlong +downwards, following their natural gravitation. + +It is women that make men fit to live. They often confess it +themselves without meaning anything by it. I take advantage of the +confession; as the malignant Minister in Titan "retained the habit, +when an open-hearted soul showed him its breaches, of marching in upon +it through those breaches, as if he himself had made them." In toasts +and festive speeches none can be more bland than they. With sweet and +smiling, arch and gracious humility, they dwell upon the refining and +elevating influence of "lovely woman," as if it were a pretty thing to +be growling and snappish and stroked into quiescence and acquiescence +by a soft hand,--as if a midsummer-night's dream were a +midwinter-day's truth, and man were content to be Bottom the weaver, +with his ass's head stuck full with musk-roses by fairy Titanias. But +I say it not as a man gallantly towards women, nor as a woman angrily +towards men, but as a simple statement of fact by an unconcerned +spectator, and far more in sorrow than in anger. What is proffered as +compliment I accept and reproduce as truth, and if men will not stand +convicted of false dealing, let them show their faith by their works, +and yield themselves, plastic and unresisting, to the hands that will +mould them to fairest shapes. + +Over against this mistaken notion stands its opponent notion, equally +mistaken, more extensive, circulated by men, adopted by women, and +doing its mischievous work silently and surely. Public opinion, +floating about in novels and periodicals, lays upon the shoulders of +women burdens which they are not able to bear, which they were never +intended to bear, and which ought never to be laid upon them. Before +marriage, society agrees to make men grasp the laboring oar. They must +choose and woo and win; while the woman's strength is to sit still. +But after marriage the scene suddenly shifts. The wife must take the +wooing and winning into her hands. She must make home pleasant. She +must rear the children. She must manage society. She must incur the +responsibility of the welfare and happiness of the family. The husband +is on the one side a wild animal who must be managed but not +controlled; on the other, a piece of rare china, which must be +carefully handled and kept from all rough contact. + +"It is the wife who makes the home, and the home makes the man," says +the country newspaper, in its domestic column. + +"If a wife would make the husband delighted with home, she must first +make home delightful. She must first woo him there by all the arts of +affection,--by cheerfulness, tidiness, orderliness without excess: by +a clean-swept hearth, a bright fire, flowers upon the mantel, a +well-set table and well-cooked food. She must be careful of imposing +restraints upon his tastes, inclinations, movements, and render him +free of every suspicion of domestic imprisonment. If his masculine +tastes, as they will, draw him from home at times, to the club, to the +lodge, or the political meeting, or elsewhere, let her second them +with that ready cheerfulness which will prove one of the strong cords +to draw him back to home as the centre of his earthly joys," says its +virtuous neighbor. + +"I have heard women speak of their rights. If they had made the men of +the world what God intended they should make of them, there would have +been no need of this complaining," says the orthodox heroine in the +orthodox novel. + +"What makes a man feel at home in the house?... Is it to leave him +absolute master of his rightful position, the large liberty to go and +come, trusting for her part religiously in the virtue and the +sovereign power of her love,--knowing, as if she had read it out of +Holy Writ, for her own heart has told her" (_her_ being the heroine +aforementioned, now become the hero's wife) "that, if she shall ever +cease to hold the love and trust which she has won, the fault, as the +loss, is hers?" + +"She" (_she_ being the aforesaid orthodox heroine and orthodox +submissive wife, now become the orthodox devoted mother),--"She had +the consciousness that it was hers to make of this child what she +would!" + +I have spoken before of the comparative work of the husband and wife, +considered merely as labor. I refer now to the comparative moral +weight belonging to their respective positions. + +All masculine and all orthodox feminine tractates on female education, +all male lectures on female duties, all anniversary orators to female +schools, ring the changes on the importance of educating girls to be +good wives and mothers, with the persistency of the old song which +shuttled back and forth some twenty times or more to tell us that +"John Brown had a little Indian." But were the graduating class of a +college ever exhorted to be good husbands and fathers? Are fathers +ever admonished to teach their sons domestic virtues, to make them +fond and faithful and good providers for the wives they may one day +possess? But I should like to know if girls have any stronger tendency +to become wives and mothers, than the boys have to become husbands and +fathers? Are they any more likely to be bad wives and mothers, than +boys are to be bad husbands and fathers? Is the number of incompetent +wives obviously greater than the number of incompetent husbands? Is +the number of injudicious mothers obviously greater than the number of +injudicious fathers? And where the wife and mother is incompetent and +injudicious, does it generally seem to be owing to too great strength +of mind and culture of intellect, and too little domestic education, +or is it owing to weakness of character? It is not a remote, but it +seems to be an entirely unobserved truth, that for every wife there is +a husband, and for every mother there is a father; and so far as my +observation extends, domestic mismanagement and unhappiness, in an +overwhelming majority of cases, are owing to the shortcomings of the +husband, and not of the wife, or to the wife in an inferior and +resultant measure. "There is blame on both sides," say the observers, +oracularly, and this most superficial of all superficial generalizations +is supposed to be an impartial and exhaustive summary. It is just as +much a summary as the statement that two and two make four. Two and +two do make four, but it is nothing to the purpose here. To say that +there is blame on both sides, is simply saying that neither a man nor +a woman is perfect, which nobody ever maintained. So long as humanity +is humanity, it is not probable that one person will be entirely +sinless and another entirely sinful; but there are, and will continue +to be, many cases in which the blame on one side is much more heavy +and condemning than the blame on the other. The man's blame is most +often one of aggression, of the first provocation, of unprincipled and +heartless behavior, of cruel disappointing and thwarting, of a giant's +strength used giantly. The woman's is a blame of imprudence, of +weakness, of disappointment, unwisely met and impatiently or otherwise +ill-borne; of an inability to manage with sagacity, and so to master +by superior moral power the wild beast that has clutched her,--a blame +that is negative rather than positive, passive rather than active, and +not to be compared with the other in point of heinousness. Why, then, +do you bear down so hard on the woman's duty and leave the man to go +his way unadmonished? If you do not enforce on college-boys the duty +of providing for their future families, why do you enforce on +seminary-girls the duty of directing their future families? If you do +not educate young men to make good husbands, why should you educate +young women to make good wives? If you do not exhort young men so to +live and learn as to make their wives happy and train their children +aright, why should you exhort young women to study to make their +husbands happy and train their children aright? Because, you say, in +the words already quoted, "It is the wife that makes the home, and the +home makes the man." It is nothing of the sort. It is the wife and the +husband together that make the home, and the man was already made. The +most that wife and home in conjunction can do is to modify the man. If +a husband be intemperate, or given over to money-getting, or +money-saving, or money-spending,--if he be ill-tempered, indelicate, +ignorant, obstinate, arrogant,--no wife, be she ever so prudent, wise, +affectionate, can make the home what it ought to be. At best she can +only mend it. Her energies are wasted. The ingenuity, the love, the +care, that should be expended in making it happy are sacrificed in the +attempt to make it as little unhappy as possible. With the best of +husbands and the best of wives there are always evils enough lying in +wait. Danger, disease, sin, are ever ready to spring upon the happy +home, even when both the keepers stand guard at the portals; how, +then, can you expect the wife to ward off even her own part of these, +when you lay upon her the husband's part, and he himself is the +greatest evil of all? + +And what right have men to depend upon home and wife to "make" them? +What is a man doing all the twenty or thirty years before he is +married, that he has not made himself? And on what grounds does he +come to her for completion? How came she to be any more finished than +he? or any more capable of putting the finishing touches to another? +Are wives generally mature and experienced, while husbands are young +and inexperienced? Have wives generally more knowledge of the world, +and more opportunities to become self-possessed and firmly and evenly +balanced than husbands? Or is the masculine material naturally and +permanently more plastic than the feminine? Let us know the pretext +upon which a full-grown man charges a delicate woman, who has had +little if anything to do with him until he became a full-grown man, +with the cure of his soul? If there is anything to be done in the way +of education and reformation, one would naturally suppose that it is +the stronger sex which should educate and reform the weaker. It would +seem as if the sex that is looked up to and sets itself up as +sovereign should mould the sex which looks up and recognizes it as +sovereign. Where, in the Bible, does a man find any warrant for laying +himself to the account of his wife? When God calls every man to +judgment, will he be able to pass over his shortcomings to his wife? +The first man tried it, but with very small success. "The woman whom +thou gavest to be with me," whimpered Adam; but it was a sorry refuge +of lies, and did not avail to stay the curse from descending heavily +upon his head. The plea that did not avail the first man is not likely +to avail the last, nor any man between. "If thou art wise, thou art +wise for thyself, but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it." As +a matter of fact, neither the wife makes the husband nor the husband +the wife, but they both influence each other. She softens him and he +strengthens her; or if, as not unfrequently happens, her nature is the +stronger, she communicates to him of its strength. In a true marriage, +delicacy is imparted on the one side and vigor on the other, to +whichever side they originally belonged. Where the union is founded +upon truth, there is always a tendency to equilibrium, woman supplying +the spiritual, man the material element. She raises a mortal to the +skies; he draws an angel down. + +And no more than it belongs to the wife to make the home and the +husband, does it belong to the mother to train up the children in the +way they should go. The family is a joint-stock concern, so +established both by nature and revelation. Where, in the Bible, do we +find that the mother can make of her child what she will, or that God +gave the making of the men of the world into her hand? In Holy Writ, +the father's duties loom up as largely as the mother's, and if there +is any difference it is not one that discriminates in his favor or in +favor of his release from duty. Fathers and mothers in the Bible +receive equal honor and equal deference, but the instruction and +guidance of the children are much more definitely and repeatedly +attributed to and inculcated upon and implied as belonging to the +father than the mother. He is recognized as the head. At his door lies +the responsibility. Ahaziah walked in the ways of his mother, but of +his father also when he did evil in the sight of the Lord. It is the +sins of the fathers, not of the mothers, that are visited upon the +children. It was the fathers, not the mothers, who were to make known +to the children the truth of Jehovah. It was the instruction of his +father that Solomon commanded his son to hear, and the law of his +mother which he commanded him not to forsake,--an arrangement which +modern opinions seem inclined to reverse. It is the fathers who are +pronounced to be the glory of children, not the mothers; and glory +implies action. A father may die, and his dying prayer and his +conscientious life, both commending his family to God, may descend +upon them in ever-renewing blessing. Such is the promise of the Lord. +A father may neglect his children, and the mother's care and love be +so blessed of Heaven that they shall be burning and shining lights in +the temple of the Most High. But this is God's uncovenanted mercy, and +the father has no right to expect it. Yet one not seldom hears or sees +anecdotes which imply that such neglect of children is not a crime,--a +crime against children, against mothers, against society, against God. +In times of financial disaster I have more than once heard of men's +consoling themselves for the ruin of their business by playfully +declaring that they should now go home and get acquainted with their +children. But the non-acquaintance with children, of which many +fathers are guilty, is not a theme to be lightly spoken of. Is it a +small thing to give life to a soul that can never die; that, through +unending ages, in happiness or in misery, clothed with glory or with +shame, beautiful, strong, upright, or disfigured and deformed, must +live on and on and on, forever and forever? Is it a small thing to +give life to a sentient being, that must know even the experience of +this world? That may be bowed down with guilt, remorse, wretchedness, +bringing other souls with it to the dust, or may be upborne through a +pure, happy, and beneficent career, bearing other souls with it to the +skies? How dare a man look upon these helpless, hapless souls, and +know that to him they owe their being, with all its dread +possibilities; that upon him may fall the curse of their ruined lives, +and--neglect them? How dare he leave them to another? To no other do +they belong. His duty he cannot delegate. After country, which +includes all things, his first duty is to his family. He is a father, +and at no price can he sell his fatherhood. + +I see notices of Female Prayer-Meetings. The mothers of a regiment +assemble to pray for their sons who have gone to the war. There are +Mothers' Guides and Mothers' Assistants and Mothers' Hymn-Books. But +where are the Fathers' Hymn-Books? Where are the Paternal +Prayer-Meetings? When do the Fathers of Regiments assemble to pray for +their soldier-sons? If boys need their mothers' prayers, they need +also their fathers' prayers. Does the fervent, effectual prayer of +righteous women avail so much that righteous men can feel they have +nothing to do but give themselves up to their farms and their +merchandise, to buy and to sell and to get gain? Can men wait upon the +Lord by proxy? Shall we bring political economy into religion, and +arrange a wise division of labor by which the wife shall serve God, +and the husband shall serve Mammon,--the wife do the praying and the +husband see to the marketing,--he make sure of this world and she look +out for the next? It is a nice little arrangement, but--He that +sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have it in +derision. + +But fathers must attend to their business. They must earn money to +support the family. They must provide wherewith to keep the pot +boiling. Certainly they must; but it requires no more time, or +attention, or ingenuity, or vitality, or strength, or spirits, or +endurance, no more expenditure of any of the forces of life, to go out +and earn something to put into the pot, than it does to stay at home +and boil it. If the mother, with her harassing cares, the never-ending +details of her never-ending work, can find time for studying her +maternal relations and responsibilities, and comparing her experience +with that of others for purposes of improvement and the highest +efficiency, and for joining in social prayer for the blessing of God +on her efforts, the father can find time for similar study, effort, +and prayer. If she can leave her baby, he can leave his books. If she +can leave her kitchen, he can leave his counting-room. His bench, his +desk, his fields, his office, are no more exacting than her nursery, +her laundry, her work-basket. Women will go to the mothers' meeting +who have to sit up till one o'clock in the morning to darn the little +frock, and patch the old coat that must be worn that day; and +sometimes they do it from stern necessity, without having the +consolation of any mothers' meeting to go to. Let men but be as +earnest in their purpose, as sincere in their belief, let them feel +that the souls of their children are in their hands as keenly as +mothers feel their responsibility, and business would straightway +relax its claims and withdraw into the background, where it belongs. +If a great general is come to town, if a famous regiment is to have a +reception, if a long-looked-for statue has safely crossed the sea and +is to be set up, if a foreign fleet lies in the harbor and is to send +its officers on shore, if a young Prince is to pass through the city +on his way home, men rush together in masses so dense as to endanger +limb and life. Business is the last thing that interposes any obstacle +to seeing and hearing that which a man determines to see and hear. + +Business? What is man's business? Is it to take care of that which is +temporary or that which is permanent; that which belongs to matter, or +that which belongs to mind; that which he shares in common with the +beasts, or that which allies him to the angels,--nay, more, which +constitutes in him the image and likeness of God? A man's business is +to support his family. Certainly. He that provideth not for his own +household hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. I agree +to that with all my heart. But what is he to provide? Food, raiment, +shelter? These first, for without these is nothing; but these not +last, for he who stops here and turns his powers into another channel +is guilty of high crime. If his children were calves, lambs, chickens, +he would do so much for them; because they are human beings, he must +do somewhat more. But how many of the fathers who make business their +plea for not watching over their children, who are away from home from +seven in the morning till seven at night, who from year's end to +year's end, except on Sunday and perhaps two or three festive days, +see their children only at hurried meals, and snatch a kiss, perhaps, +after they are in bed and asleep, who know no more about the inward +and hourly life of their own than of their neighbor's children,--how +many of these fathers are spending their time and talents in the sole +business of getting food, clothes, and shelter, or even books and +educational opportunities for their families? How many of these men +earn just that and no more? It is not the support of families, it is +not business, it is not necessity alone, on which they lavish +themselves. It is their own pride or luxury or inclination. They wish +to extend their business, to acquire wealth, or a competence, to be +known as enterprising, public-spirited men, to be chosen on committees +and sent to the legislature, all right, if rightly come by, but +terribly wrong, worthless, perishable with the using, and of no +important use, if children are to be given in barter for them. + +"This is all very well to talk about," you say; "but a man cannot do +anything in this world without money, and he cannot make money unless +he sticks to his business." Ah, my friend! so far as the best things +of this world are concerned, you cannot do anything with money, and +you cannot make good men and women unless you stick to your children. +Will money give you back the little baby-soul whose tender unfolding +had such sweetness and healing for you, but which you lost because you +would not stop long enough to look at it in your mad world-ways? Will +money give you the saving influence over your boy which might have +kept him from vicious companions and vicious habits,--an influence +which your constant interest, intercourse, and example in his boyish +days might have established, but which seemed to you too trivial a +thing to win you from your darling pursuit of gains? Will money make +you the friend and confidant of your daughter, the joy of her heart, +and the standard of her judgment, so that her ripening youth shall +give you intimacy, interchange of thought and sentiment, and you shall +give to her a measure to estimate the men around her, and a steady +light that shall keep her from being beguiled by the lights that only +lead astray? Will it give you back the children who have rushed out +wildly or strayed indifferently from the house which you have never +taken pains to make a home, but have been content to turn into a +hotel, with only less of liberty? Will money make you the heart as +well as the head of your family,--honored, revered, beloved? + +If your firm transacts business on a capital of a hundred thousand +instead of half a million dollars, what is it but a little less paper, +fewer clerks, and narrower rooms? Though your farm have but fifty +instead of two hundred acres, there is just as much land on the earth. +Suppose you argue before a jury only two cases to-day instead of +three, there are a dozen young advocates who will be glad of the +crumbs that fall from your table, and Fate will mete out her sure, +rough-handed justice. With half the business you are doing now, could +not you and your family be comfortably and decently fed, clothed, and +sheltered? House, dress, and furniture might not be so fine, but +something of more worth than they would be finer. A family's support +does not necessarily involve sumptuous fare, purple and fine linen, +damask and rosewood. If the choice lies between Turkey carpets, or +even three-ply, under a child's feet, and a father's hand clasping his +to guide his steps, what man who believes--I will not say in +immortality, but in virtue,--what father who is not utterly unworthy +to bear the sacred name, can for one moment waver? + +Every man, and especially every father, should aim to have a character +that shall alone have weight both with his fellow-citizens and his +children. His integrity should be so unimpeachable that his motives +shall be unquestioned. So far as his reputation is truthful, it should +be firmly grounded on moral virtues and moral graces, so that his word +shall have a force quite independent of his surroundings. He should be +strong enough to be able to live in a plain house, and wear plain +clothes, and deny himself, not only luxuries, but comforts and +beauties, for the sake of his children's society and improvement, +without forfeiting the respect and esteem of his neighbors or +inflicting any pain of mortification upon his children. You cannot do +anything in this world without money, if money is your sole or your +chief claim to consideration; but, in the face of ten thousand +denials, I would still maintain that it is possible to attain a +character and a standing that shall set money at defiance. He who +refuses to believe this, and acts upon a contrary belief, shows not +only a want of real inward dignity, but of a knowledge of history and +of life. A picture of Raphael, fitly framed and hung, is a treasure to +be prized beyond words; but with no frame at all, and hung in the +dreary parlor of a village inn, it is worth more, and would be more +widely sought and more highly prized than a palaceful of commonplace +paintings. Let all the accessories be as beautiful as you can command; +but at all events make sure of the picture. He is not a wise man who +expends all his energies on the frame, and trusts to luck for the +painting. + +Nor is it any excuse to say that you must lay up provision against the +future. No one has any right to sacrifice the present to the future. +You do not know that you will have any future. "The present, the +present, is all thou hast for thy sure possessing." You may forego +present luxuries for future needs or for future luxuries, but you may +not forego present needs for future possibilities. If besides +performing the duty of today you can also lay up money for to-morrow, +it is well; but to slight a certain to-day for an uncertain to-morrow, +is all ill. Provide, if you can, means to send your boy to college, to +educate your daughter, to shelter your old age; yet, remember, before +those means can be used, the boy, the girl, the man, may lie each in +his silent grave; but though there may never be a college student, a +ripening maiden, a gray-haired man, there is now a little boy, a +little girl, who stand in need of their father; and a father is of +more worth to his son than a college, of more worth to his daughter +than many tutors. Train them in the way they should go, going yourself +before them with a steady step, and trust God for that future against +which you are unable to provide. + +And this remember: the very best provision against the future is +investments in heart and muscle and brain. Money without them is +worthless. They without money are still inestimable riches. If your +son at twenty-one is alienated from his father, dissipated, +headstrong, weak, a source of anxiety and trouble to his family, he +will pierce your heart through with many sorrows, though you have +hundreds of thousands of dollars laid up for him in the bank. If your +daughter is a frivolous, woman, the silks with which your wealth +enables you to adorn her, the society with which it may perhaps enable +you to surround her, will only set her folly in a stronger light. But +if your children stand on the threshold of their manhood and their +womanhood, strong, self-poised, mailed for defence and armed for +warfare, glad and grateful for the love that has forged each weapon +and taught its skilful handling, no king on his throne is so blessed +as you. They have all that they need to conquer the world. Your money +may be a snare to your child, your wisdom never. If you lose your +money, it is gone forever. The child whom your love is enriching with +youthful health and promise may go before you suddenly out of the +world, but your labor and your love are not lost. Somewhere, under a +warmer sun than this, his earthly promise bursts into the full blossom +and the mellow fruit of performance more beautiful than eye can see or +heart conceive. + +The adequate care and guidance of the family which he has founded is a +man's business in life. Farming, preaching, and shopkeeping are +secondary matters, to be regulated according to the needs of the +family. The family is not to be regulated by their requirements. And a +family's needs are not gay clothing and rich food, but a husband and +father. It is the great duty of his life to be acquainted with his +children, to know their character, their tastes, their tendencies, to +know who are their associates, and what are their associations, what +books they read, and what books they like to read, to gratify their +innocent desires, to lop off their excrescences and bring out their +excellences, to know them as a good farmer knows his soil, draining +the bogs into fertile meadows and turning the watercourses into +channels of beauty and life. He may furnish his children opportunities +without number, but the one thing beyond all others which he owes them +is himself. He may provide tutors and schools; but to no tutor and no +school can he pass over his relationship and its responsibilities. If +he is a stranger to his children, if they are strangers to him, he +shall be found wanting when he is weighed in the balance. + +Niebuhr, we are told by his biographer, "considered the training of +his children, especially of his son, as the most imperative duty of +his life, to which all other considerations, except that of very +evident and important service to his country, ought to be +subordinated. In ordinary times he placed private duties above public +ones." Before the child was born his fatherly fondness was planning +schemes for the future. "In case it should be a boy, I am already +preparing myself to educate him. I should try to familiarize him very +early with the ancient languages, by making him repeat sentences after +me, and relating stories to him in them, in order that he might not +have too much to learn afterwards, nor yet read too much at too early +an age; but receive his education after the fashion of the ancients. I +think I should know how to educate a boy, but not a girl; I should be +in danger of making her too learned.... I would relate innumerable +stories to the boy, as my father did to me; but by degrees mix up more +and more of Greek and Latin in them, so that he would be forced to +learn those languages in order to understand the stories." By and by, +when the child is eight months old, we find him curtailing his +literary investigations because he is "moreover, just now, too much +occupied with Marcuccio." When "Marcuccio" is five years old his +father writes: "We have daily proofs of Marcus's noble nature; still I +am well aware that this affords us no guaranty, unless it be guided +with the most watchful care.... I succeed with teaching as well as I +could have ventured to hope.... I am reading with him Hygin's +Mythologicum,--a book which, perhaps, it is not easy to use for this +purpose, and which, yet, is more suited to it than any other, from the +absence of formal periods, and the interest of the narrative. For +German, I write fragments of the Greek mythology for him.... I give +everything in a very free and picturesque style, so that it is as +exciting as poetry to him; and, in fact, he reads it with such delight +that we are often interrupted by his cries of joy. The child is quite +devoted to me; but this educating costs me a great deal of time. +However, I have had my share of life, and I shall consider it as a +reward for my labors if this young life be as fully and richly +developed as lies within my power." + +If Niebuhr, one of the most learned men of his time, ambassador of +Prussia to Rome, with all the business to transact, not only of +Prussia, but of all the petty German powers that had no minister of +their own, engaged in minute and abstruse historical investigation +bearing upon a work with which he was occupied and which may be said +to have revolutionized Roman history,--if his time was not too +valuable to bestow upon the amusement, the affection, and the +education of a baby, where shall we find, in America, a man whose +valuable time shall be a sufficient reason for the neglect of his +children? It may not be necessary or desirable to copy Niebuhr's +course with exactness. His residence in Rome devolved upon him a +larger part of the mental education of the boy than would have been +necessary at home. I am also inclined to think that he was too careful +and troubled, and did not have faith enough in Nature and God. But the +point which I wish to show is, that, in the midst of his numerous and +important duties, he found time for his child; and if he could do so +much, surely those who have not one tenth part of his duties and +responsibilities, either in number or weight, can find time to do the +far less service which devolves upon them. If they cannot, there is +but one resource. If a man is not able to be both statesman and +father, both merchant and father, or lawyer and father, or farmer and +father, he ought to elect which he will be, and confine himself to his +choice. If he is too much absorbed in scientific pursuits, or if he is +not a sufficiently dextrous workman to be able to secure from his +bench time enough to attend to other interests, he ought not to create +other interests. No man has any right to assume the charge of two +positions when he has the ability to perform the duties of but one. If +he alone bore the evil consequences of his shortcomings, he would be +less blameworthy, but the chief burden falls upon his children and +upon the state. Reckless of moral obligation, mindful only of his own +selfish impulses, the fruits of his recklessness and selfishness +are,--not houses that tumble down upon their builders, machinery that +cannot bear its own strain, garments that perish with the first +using,--these are bad enough, but these are harmlessness itself +compared with the evils which he causes. The harvest of his headlong +wickedness is living beings who must bear their life forever. He bids +into the world, tender little innocent souls, knowing that he cannot +or will not stand guard over them to ward off the fierce, wild devils +that lie in wait to rend them. Plastic to his touch, they may be +moulded to vessels of honor or vessels of dishonor, for the promise of +God is absolute, yea, and amen. Yet he turns aside to fritter away his +time over newspapers, to talk politics, to buy and sell and get +unnecessary gain, and leaves them to other hands, to chance comers, to +all manner of warping and hardening influences, so that their +after-lives must be one long and bitter struggle against early +acquired deformity, or a fatal yielding and a fatal torpor whose end +is deadly dismay. + +But in popular opinion and by common usage all is thrown upon the +mother. By all tradition she is the centre, the heart, the mainspring, +of the household. From what newspaper, what book, what lecture, would +you learn that fathers have anything to do at home but to go into +their slippers and dressing-gowns, and be luxuriously fed and softly +soothed into repose? The care and management of the children fall upon +the mother. Who does all the fine things in the pretty nursery rhymes? +"My mother." It is her sphere, divinely circled. All the fitnesses of +her life point in that one direction. All men's hands are so many +finger-posts saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." + +It is the mother's sphere to take motherly care of her children. It is +the father's sphere to take fatherly care. Neither can leave his +duties to the other without danger. The family system is a combination +of the solar and the binary systems. All the little bodies whirl +around a common centre, but that centre is no solitary orb. It is two +suns, self-luminous, revolving around each other, and neither able to +throw upon its mate the burden of its shining. + +Many fathers seem to think that they have nothing to do with their +children except to caress them and frolic with them an hour or two in +the evening, until they are old enough to be assistants in work. But +just as soon as there is the fatherly relation, there is the fatherly +duty. A baby in a house is a well-spring of pleasure; but it is also a +well-spring of care and anxiety immeasurable, of whose waters there is +no reason why the father should not drink as deeply as the mother. The +glory, the honor, the immortality, will shed a full light upon him, +and he also + + "With heart of thankfulness should bear + Of the great common burden his full share." + +I have seen a great deal of pleasantry played off against the +doctrines of woman's rights in newspapers, pictorial and otherwise; +the wife is represented as being immersed in public employments, while +the meek, sad husband stays at home and minds the baby. I do not know +that any important ends would be answered by an indiscriminate +female-haranguing in the market-place; but I do know that it would be +a great deal better for all concerned if fathers would pay more +attention to the little ones. Womanly gentleness and tenderness, and +long-suffering to-baby-ward reads sweetly in books, rounds graceful +periods from melodious lips, and is the loveliest of all modes of +levying black mail. But when you come down to matters of fact, a +fractious child is just as likely to be quieted by its father's +lullaby as by its mother's, if you pin the father down to lullabies. +Men who are inclined to take care of their children never find any +hinderance in their manhood. Male nurses for children are no less +efficient than female nurses. It is not his sex, but his selfishness, +that makes man's unfitness. He will not endure the tedium of soothing +and tending his child. He knows the mother will, and he lets her do +it. Her fitness is a good excuse for his self-indulgence. But if he is +disposed to take the trouble, he can do it often as well as she; often +better, for the mother's weaker and wearier nerves and greater +sensitiveness act on the little one and increase its irritability, +while the father's strength and calmness are a sort of soporific. +Somebody says that a mother's arm is the strongest thing in the world. +It upbears the child as she walks back and forth through the long +night-hours soothing its restlessness and pain, and never tires. +Vastly well spoken. Suppose, O smooth-tongued Seignior, you take a +turn with the baby yourself, and see whether your arm tires. If it +does, do not for one moment indulge in the pleasing illusion that hers +does not. It is made of flesh and blood and bones just like yours, and +like causes produce like effects. But what _is_ true is, that her +unselfish mother-love is so strong that she keeps on, notwithstanding +the ache. Go and do thou likewise. I do not say that fathers will not. +Many do, and what man has done man may do. Leave female endurance to +poetry, and remember that in actual life the laws of bone and muscle +are as fixed as any other laws of natural philosophy, and that action +is surely followed by fatigue. Walk you the floor with the baby in +your arms, if he must be carried, at least two hours to her one, +because your arms were stronger to begin with, and because hers have +an added weakness from the advent of this little round-limbed Prince. +Do not, above all things, betake yourself to a remote and silent part +of the house and dream your pleasant dreams, while the mother loses +her sleep and her rest by the ailing and fretful baby. But a man's +rest must not be broken. Why not as well as a woman's? He must have a +clear head and a firm hand to transact the next day's business. But +what is she going to do? The cases are so innumerous as to form a very +insignificant proportion wherein the American mother is not also cook, +laundress, seamstress, housekeeper, and chambermaid, with sometimes +one awkward, ignorant, inefficient Irish servant, rarely two, and not +rarely none at all. As a matter of moral economy the care of a baby is +enough to occupy any woman's time, and is all the care she ought to +have. As I have before said, even under the curse, this is the +arrangement that was made for her. Her motherhood frees her from toil; +but man's care is heavier than God's curse, and she too often bears on +her own head both her punishment and his. If he makes such provision +for her that she has absolutely no other than her maternal duties, she +can afford, perhaps, to lose her rest at night, since she can make it +up in the daytime; and unquestionably nature has fitted babies to +mothers more closely than to fathers; but to lay upon her, besides the +care of her children, all manner of other cares, and then leave her +with aching nerves and weakened frame and failing heart to worry it +out as she may, is a culpable cruelty for which no amount of pretty +sentiment is the smallest atonement.[4] + + [4] I like sometimes to take my views out on an airing, + before making a final disposition of them, just to see how + they are received. On one such occasion, an excellent man, + in comfortable circumstances, expressed his very hearty + dissent from my opinions about woman's work. He thought + women had a pretty easy time of it, and appealed to his + wife, just then entering the room, to say what had been her + own experience. I wish type could convey the clear, ringing + decisiveness and incisiveness of the tone with which she + instantaneously responded "HARASSED TO DEATH!" + +There are so many ways where there is a will! There are so many +opportunities for usefulness, if a man would only improve them. How +many times does the merchant, the lawyer, the busy business man, stop +at the street-corners, or in his own haunts, to chat with friends? How +many hours there are in the twenty-four when a man might run down from +his study, come in earlier from his shop, take a recess from his +fields, and rest himself and his wife by giving the little one a ride +in the basket-wagon, or the elegant carriage, or amusing it on the +carpet, while tired mamma lies down for a much-needed nap, or turns +off a greater amount of belated mending or cooking than she could do +in four hours with baby. And what benefit would not the man himself +receive, what gradual diminution of his selfishness in thus waiting +upon the helplessness of this little creature. Under what bonds for +the future and for virtue does it not lay him? Let him look down upon +his baby with earnest eyes, and inwardly resolve to be himself a man +pure and honorable as he wishes this boy to be; let him remember to +bear himself toward all women as he would have all men bear themselves +to the tiny woman in his arms. + +There are men who assume and act on the assumption that their days +must be kept free from childish interlopers. They are aggrieved, their +personal rights are infringed upon, they have a most heavy and +undeserved yoke to bear if the children are not hustled out of their +way,--as if children were a kind of luxury and plaything of women in +which they may be indulged, if they will be careful to confine them to +their own department, nor ever let them encroach on the peculiar +domains of the lord of the manor. There are women weak enough to give +in to this assumption, and make it a rule that the children are not to +disturb their father. Before he comes into the house the crying baby +must be hushed at any cost, or removed beyond his hearing. The little +ones are not allowed to enter his study, they must not play in the +hall near it, nor in the garden under his window, because the noise +disturbs him. When the mood takes him, he takes them. He goes into the +nursery and has a merry romp with them, and when he is tired of it or +they begin to take too many liberties, he goes out again and thinks +his children are very charming. Or possibly he never goes into the +nursery at all,--a lack of interest which would be very unwomanly in a +woman, but is not the the least unmanly nor absolutely unknown in a +man. It is a great affliction to the mother, if, in consequence of a +temporary neglect of picket-duty, he puts his head into the kitchen or +sewing-room, to say with heroic self-control, "Carrie, the children +are so in and out that it is impossible for me to do anything." An +impatient upward look from his newspaper causes her a shiver of dread. +Small table-skirmishes are put to an untimely end by mamma's hurrying +the unlucky belligerents out of sight and sound of their outraged +sire, and the one Medo-Persic law of the family is at all risks to +rescue the father from every inconvenience and annoyance from the +children. The kind, devoted woman shuts them carefully up within her +own precincts. They may overrun her without stint. They may climb her +chair, pull her work about, upset her basket, scratch the bureau, cut +the sofa, run to her for healing in every little heart-ache; but no +matter. They are kept from disturbing papa. I am amazed at the folly +of women! Kept from disturbing papa? Rather hound them on, if there +must be any intervention! Put the crying baby in his arms the moment +he enters the house, and be sure to run away at once beyond his reach, +or with true masculine ingenuity he will be sure at the end of five +minutes to find some pretext for delivering the young orator back into +your care. So far from carefully withholding the children from the +paternal vicinage, at the first symptoms of exclusiveness, put a paper +of candy and a set of drums at his door to toll the children thither. +But this only in extreme cases. If he is ordinarily reasonable, the +right course is to do neither, but let things take their own way. +Except in case of illness or some unusual and pressing emergency, the +little ones ought not to be kept from either of their lawful owners. +The serenity of one is no more sacred than the serenity of the other. +The father must simply take the natural consequences of his children. +If they drift into his current, he must bear them on. He ought to +experience their obviousness, their inconvenience, their distraction. +It is no worse for a chubby hand to upset the inkstand on his papers, +than for it to upset the molasses-pitcher upon the table-cloth. It is +no worse for his experiments, his study, his reading, to be +interrupted, than it is for his wife's sewing. He can write his +letters, or stand behind the counter, or make shoes, with a baby in +his arms, just as well as she can make bread and set the table with a +baby in her arms. Let him come into actual close contact with his +children and see what they are and what they do, and he will have far +more just ideas of the whole subject than if he stands far off and, +from old theories on the one side and ten minutes of clean apron and +bright faces on the other, pronounces his euphonious generalizations. +His children will elicit as much love and admiration and interest as +now, together with a great deal more knowledge and a great deal less +silly, mannish sentimentalism. + + + + +IX. + + +But whatever may be the opportunities and capabilities of infantine +gymnastics, there is always one way in which fathers may indirectly, +but very powerfully, influence their children, and that is through the +mother. When her little children are around her, she needs above all +earthly things the strength, support, society, and sympathy of her +husband. It is wellnigh impossible to conceive the demand which a +little child makes upon its mother's vitality. In Nature's plan, I +believe, the supply is always equal to the demand. The new, fresh life +gives back through a thousand channels all the life it draws. But if +the mother is left alone, in such a solitude as is never found outside +of marriage, but often and often within it; if she is left to seek in +her baby her chief solace, unhappy is her fate. The little one +exhausts her physical strength, and the inattentive and +abstracted--alas! that one may not seldom say, the unkind and +overbearing husband fails to supply her with moral strength, and her +weary feet go on with ever-diminishing joy. All this is unnecessary. +All this is contrary to the Divine economy. Every child ought to be a +new spring of life, an El Dorado, fountain of immortal youth. Whether +it shall be or not lies, if you look at it from one point, wholly with +the husband, or if you look at it from another, wholly with the wife. +On the one hand, each is all-powerful. On the other, each is +powerless. But the husband has always the advantage of strength, +out-door activities, and continual commerce with the world, and +consequent variety. The wife, surrounded by her children, is in danger +of giving herself up to them entirely. She will incessantly dispense +her life without being careful to furnish herself for such demands by +opening her soul to new accessions. Here is where her husband should +stand by her continually to encourage and stimulate. If she is not +strong enough to go out into the world, let him bring the world home +to her. He should by all means see to it that her heart and soul do +not contract. Every child, every added experience, should have the +effect of expanding her horizon, deepening and enlarging her +sympathies, and enabling her to gather the whole earth into her +motherly love. Her little world ought to be a type of the great world. +The wisdom which she gathers in the one, she ought to turn to the good +of the other,--a good that will surely come back again in other shapes +to her family world. So, every family should be both a missionary +centre and the medium through which, in never-ending flow, all good +and gracious influences shall pour. Every family should rise and fall +with the pulse of humanity, and not be a mere knob of organic matter, +without dependencies or connections. But the father should see to +this. He should gently lure the mother out of her nursery into such +broad fresh air as she needs for healthy growth. What that shall be is +a question of character and culture. A lyceum lecture, a +sewing-society, an evening party, a concert, a county fair, may be +elevation, amusement, improvement to her. Or he may do her most good +by helping her to be interested in reading, either in the current or +in classic literature. Or, best of all, he may charm her with his own +companionship, beguile her with pleasant drives, or walks and talks, +keeping her heart open on the husband side, and so continually alive, +while maintaining also the oneness which marriage in theory creates. +It is this respect in which husbands are perhaps most generally +deficient. They do not talk with their wives. If a neighbor is +married, they tell of it. If a battle is fought, or a village burnt +down, they communicate the fact; but for any interchange of thought or +sentiment or emotion, for any conversation that is invigorating, +inspiring, that causes a thrill or leaves a glow, how often does such +a thing occur between husband and wife? What intellectual meeting is +there,--what shock of electricities? When a definite domestic question +is to be decided, the wife's judgment may be sought, and that is +better than a solitary stumbling on, regardless of her views or +feelings; but this sort of bread-and-butter discussion of ways and +means is not the gentle, animated play of conversation, not that +pleasant sparkle which enlivens the hours, that trustful confidence +which lightens the heart, that wielding of weapons which strengthens +the arm, that sweet, instinctive half unveiling which increases +respect and deepens love and fills the heart with inexpressible +tenderness. Yet there is nobody in the world with whom it is so +important for a man to be intimately acquainted as his own wife, while +such intimate acquaintance is the exception rather than the rule. Ever +one sees them going on each in his own path, each with his own inner +world of opinions and hopes and memories, one in name, miserably two +in all else. + +Men often have too much confidence in their measuring-lines. They +fancy they have fathomed a soul's depths when they have but sounded +its shallows. They think they have circumnavigated the globe when they +have only paddled in a cove. They trim their sails for other seas, +leaving the priceless gems of their own undiscovered. To many a man no +voyage of exploration would bring such rich returns as a persevering +and affectionate search into the resources of the heart which he calls +his own. Many and many a man would be amazed at learning that in the +tame household drudge, in the meek, timid, apologetic recipient of his +caprices, in the worn and fretful invalid, in the commonplace, insipid +domestic weakling he scorns an angel unawares. Many a wife is wearied +and neglected into moral shabbiness, who, rightly entreated, would +have walked sister and wife of the gods. Human nature in certain +directions is as infinite as the Divine nature, and when a man turns +away from his wife, under the impression that he has exhausted her +capabilities, and must seek elsewhere the sympathy and companionship +he craves or go without it altogether, let him reflect that the +chances are at least even that he has but exhausted himself, and that +the soil which seems to him fallow might in other hands or with a +wiser culture yield most plenteous harvests. + +There is another point which should be kept in solemn consideration. +The deportment of children to their parents is very largely influenced +by the deportment of parents to each other. It is of small service +that a child be taught to repeat the formula, "Honor thy father and +thy mother," if, by his bearing, the father continually dishonors the +mother. The Monday courtesy has more effect than the Sunday +commandment. Every conjugal impoliteness is a lesson in filial +disrespect. If a son sees that his father is regardless of his +mother's taste, does not respect her opinions, or heed her +sensitiveness or care for her happiness; or if, on the other hand, he +sees that she is held in ever-watchful love, he will be very likely to +follow in the same path. There are of course exceptions. A gross and +brutal abuse may work an opposite effect by the law of contrarieties, +but in ordinary cases this is the ordinary course of events. In common +Christian families a boy will appraise his mother at his father's +valuation. If the husband takes the liberty of speaking to her +sharply, the son when irritated will not think it worth while to +repress his inclination to do the same. If the husband is not careful +to pay her outward respect, let it not be supposed that his son will +set him the example. But if the husband cherishes her with delight, if +his behavior always assumes that the best is to be reserved for her, +the best will be her incense from the whole family, and no son will +any more allow himself to indulge any evil propensity in her presence +than he would pluck out his right eye. And in the delicacy, the +refinement, the gentleness and warmth and consecration of her presence +all this courtesy and consideration will come back to them a +hundred-fold in constant dews of blessing. + +As with habits so with principles. The mother's influence is strong, +but the stories told of its strength are often hurtful in their +tendency. It is not the strength of the mother's, but of the father's +influence, that needs to be held up to prominence. By Divine +sufferance, mothers can do much to abrogate the evil consequences of +paternal misdoing,--but paternal misdoing is not for that any the less +evil. If the husband laughs at his wife's temperance notions, and +thinks wine-sipping to be elegant and harmless, his boy will sip wine +elegantly and fancy his mother old-fashioned; and with his father's +appetite, but without his father's strength, and with more than his +father's temptations,--in the great city, homeless, bewildered, and +dazzled,--he will rush on to a bitter end. If the husband thinks +religion a thing beautiful and becoming to woman, but unnecessary to +manly character, his son will not long go to church and to Sunday +school when he feels in his veins the thrill of approaching manhood. I +know a community where not a man can be found to superintend the Sabbath +school, and a woman, noble and whole-souled, takes its charge upon +herself. The fathers do not disbelieve in Sunday schools, or they +would not suffer their wives and children to go. They do not believe in +them, or they would go themselves. They are simply indifferent,--and +indifferent in a matter so important, that indifference is guilt. Will +the young men of that community be likely to fear God and keep his +commandments? Will they be likely to acknowledge the claims of a +religion which their fathers despise? If they grow up hardened, +selfish, headstrong, unfortified against assault, will it be the fault +of the mothers who are struggling against wind and tide, or of the +fathers who are lazily lounging at oar and rudder? + +People in general are not half married. Half? If one would +mathematically approximate the truth, he must multiply his denominator +far beyond reach of the digits; and, what is still worse the fraction +that is married is, in a vast majority of cases, not only the least, +but the lowest. It is not the intellect, the spirit, the immortality, +that is married, but that alone which is of the earth, earthy. + +Xenophon, in his _Memorabilia Socratis_, presents to us Ischomacus, an +Athenian of great riches and reputation, repairing to Socrates for +help in extricating him from domestic entanglements. In laying the +case before the philosopher, Ischomacus informs him that he told his +wife that his main object in marrying her was to have a person in +whose discretion he could confide, who would take proper care of his +servants, and expend his money with economy,--which was certainly very +frank. + +But that was twenty-three hundred years ago, and people have grown +less material and more spiritual since then. No man now would hold out +to a woman such inducement to marriage. Certainly not. Men now wait +till the Rubicon is passed, and then lay down their pleasant little +programmes in the newspapers,--general principles for private +consumption. The popular voice, speaking in your everywhere +circulating newspaper, says: "A man gets a wife to look after his +affairs, and to assist him in his journey through life; to educate and +prepare their children for a proper station in life, and not to +dissipate his property. The husband's interest should be the wife's +care, and her greatest ambition to carry her no farther than his +welfare or happiness, together with that of her children. This should +be her sole aim, and the theatre of her exploits in the bosom of her +family, where she may do as much toward making a fortune as he can in +the counting-room or the workshop." + +Is this very much more commanding than the attitude of Ischomacus? +Does Anno Domini loom with immeasurable grandeur above Anno Mundi? +Ischomacus wanted his wife to manage his fortune. Young America wants +his to help make one. Is it a very great stride in advance, +considering we have been twenty-three centuries about it? This extract +I take from a religious newspaper, and it is pagan to the heart's +core; yes, and in these matters the Church is as pagan as the World. +Because a man is folded in the Church, one has no more expectation of +finding in him spiritual views concerning marriage than if he belonged +to the World. Unmitigated selfishness, worldliness, greed, and +evil-seeking are the roots and fruits of such a "religious" paragraph. +Church and World are both gone aside and altogether become filthy. The +holy sacrament is profaned alike by churchman and worldling. It is +tossed on the spear-point of levity, it is clutched under the +muck-rake of materialism, it is degraded and defiled till its pristine +purity is wellnigh lost, and only a marred and defaced image rears its +foul features from the mire. That it does not always cause disgust, is +because the goddess is so chiefly hidden that women do not recognize +the lineaments of the demon which has usurped her place. Miasma has +polluted the atmosphere so long that people do not know the feeling of +untainted air. O, it is good to speak your mind, be it only once in a +lifetime! Now I wish I had walked softly all my days, that, with all +the force of a rare indignation, I might just this once crush down +that hateful, that debasing, that vile and leprous thing which flaunts +the name of marriage, but does not even put on the white garments of +its sanctity to hide its own shame. Leer and laugh, coarse jest, +advice, insinuation, interpretation, and conjecture beslime the +surface of our social life and work abomination. Nature and +unconsciousness become impossible, and one is swallowed up in stagnant +depths, or borne above them only with an inward, raging tempest of +irrepressible loathing. A blessing rest upon this pen-point that +stamps black and heavy into receptive paper the wrath which it is not +lawful otherwise to express. Sentiments the most repulsive, the most +insulting to womanhood and to a woman, may be coolly, carelessly, +unconsciously tossed at you by and in society, and you must smile and +parry with equal nonchalance. Thank Heaven for Gutenberg and Dr. +Faustus, that whatsoever has been spoken in darkness may be heard to +its shame in the light, and that which has been spoken in the ear may +be proclaimed upon the house-tops with the detestation it deserves! + + + + +X. + + +Stay for a moment the pressure with which--though, perhaps, all +unknown to themselves--you force women under the yoke of marriage, and +let us look without passion at a few palpable, commonplace facts. +Women must marry because they need a protector. They are weak, and +cannot safely go down life's pathway without a strong arm to lean on. +What kind of protection do wives actually find? I once looked into an +old-fashioned house and I saw a woman, the mother of seven sons, +heating her oven with the boughs of trees, which she could manage only +by resting the branching ends on the backs of chairs while the trunk +ends were burning in the oven, and as they broke into coals the boughs +were pushed in, till the whole was consumed. When her dinner was +preparing, she would also take her pails and go through the hot summer +morning a quarter of a mile to the spring for water. Was this +"protection, freedom, tender-liking, ease." This was not in a brutal +and quarrelsome, but in a united and Christian family; father and +mother members of an Orthodox church in good and regular standing, +owners of broad lands and plenty of money, the sons rather famous for +their filial love and duty. It was not an unnatural thing, and excited +no comment. The seven sons, all their lives, held their mother in +affectionate remembrance, but it never occurred to them to leave the +hay-fields in order to cut wood or fetch water. + +This was sixty or seventy years ago, before any of you, my young +readers, were born. + +Once a rich man built a barn, and of course he had "a raising." To the +raising came the men and women from all the country-side, as was their +wont. For the men was a supper provided with lavish abundance. Before +they came in, thirty women sat down to supper. Of course, when came +the men's turn to be served, these women gave assistance at the +tables, but all the previous cooking and arrangement had been done by +the women of the family, without outside help. Besides the hot meat +supper, the men were furnished with unlimited drink; cider, rum, and +brandy were carried out to them by the pailful. An experienced +carpenter from an adjoining village declared that he would take the +timber in the woods, hew it and frame it, and raise it for what the +mere festivities of raising cost. To perform one little piece of work, +the men laid upon the shoulders of women a burden ten times heavier +than their own, and incurred an expense which, if put upon their +large, square, bare dwelling-house, would have given it beauties and +conveniences, whose absence was a continual and severe drawback to the +women's comfort. They turned the woman's work into hard labor, that +they might turn their own into a frolic. Were those women protected? +That was only one instance, but that was the common machinery used in +raising barns. That, too, was long ago. + +Once there existed a village containing four schools, which were in +session three months in the summer and three months in the winter. At +the beginning and end of the terms, the "committee," of whom there +were two in each "district," used to visit the schools attended by the +greater part of the adult male population of the district. At the +conclusion of this visit, one of the district committee at the +beginning of the term, and one at the end, was always expected to +invite the other seven committee-men and all the visiting neighbors to +his house to dinner. The hard-working farmer's wife, or the butcher's, +or the shoemaker's wife, with her four, five, seven, little children +around her, and no servant, prepared her three roast turkeys, her +three plum-puddings, and all the attendant dishes; and the ten, +twenty, thirty stalwart farmers, butchers, shoemakers, booted and +burly, filed into her best room, swallowed her roast turkeys and her +plum-puddings, with no assistance from her except the most valued +service of flitting around the table to keep their plates supplied, +and then filed away to visit another school and swarm into another +best room, leaving her to the bones, and the dishes, and the six +little children. And this is man's protection. But this was the old +times, you say. Yes, and you look back upon it with a sigh, and call +it the "_good_ old times." + +Well, the times have changed. They are no longer old, but new. Have we +changed with them? In a town I wot of, the doctors have a periodical +meeting. They assemble in the evening by themselves in a parlor, +discussing no one knows what, among themselves, till ten or eleven +o'clock, when they emerge into the dining-room and have a grand set-to +upon lobster salads, stewed oysters, ices, and all manner of frothy +fanfaronade. A minister is going to be ordained in a country village, +and the village families round about heap up their tables and bid in +all comers to feasts of fat things. A conference of churches is held +in the meeting-house, and the same newspaper paragraph that notes the +logical sermon and the gratifying reports of revivals, notes also the +good things which the hospitable citizens provided, and the urgency +with which strangers were pressed to partake. One would suppose that +the reasoning of the fastidious old Jews was suspected to have +descended to our own day and race, and that the sons of men must +always come eating and drinking, or people will say they have a devil. + +Every advance in science or skill seems to be attended by a +corresponding advance in the claims of the cooking-range. The palate +keeps pace with the brain. The one presents a claim for every victory +of the other. The left hand reaches out to clutch what the right hand +is stretched out to offer to humanity. + +Now you all think this is very strange,--a most remarkable way of +looking at things, a most inhospitable and cold-blooded view to take +of society. What! begrudge a little pains to give one's friends a +pleasant reception! and that only once a year, or a month! It is such +a thing as was never heard of. You have always looked upon the affair +as one of pleasure. The houses which, you have entered opened wide to +you their doors. You met on all sides smiles, welcome, and good cheer. +You never for a moment dreamed or heard of such a thing as that you +were considered a trouble, a visitation. Perhaps you were not. Very +likely you were held in honor; but these customs are burdensome for +all that. You must remember that by far the greater part of American +housewives are already overborne by their ordinary domestic cares. +This makes the whole thing wear a very different aspect from what it +otherwise would. If a cup is half full, you can pour in a great deal +more, and only increase the cup's worth, for to such end was it +created; but if it is already brimmed, you cannot add even a +teaspoonful without mischief, and if you suddenly dash in another +cupful, you will make a sad mess of it. Now when these various +convocations occur, the note of preparation is sounded long +beforehand, and the wail of weariness echoes long afterwards. This is +simply a statement of fact. I am not responsible for the fact. I did +not create it, and I wish it were otherwise; but so long as it is a +fact, it is much better that it should be known. The woman who +welcomed you so warmly, entreated you so tenderly, entertained you so +agreeably, had no sooner shut the door behind you, when you had +started for the church, than the sunshine which radiated from your +presence went suddenly behind a cloud of odorous steam that rose up +from stew-pan and gridiron. While you were listening to the eloquent +address, she was flying about to have the dishes washed and the next +meal ready. When, after your hour's pleasant talk in the evening over +the day's doings, you were sleeping soundly in her airy chambers, she, +as noiselessly as possible, till eleven and twelve o'clock at night, +was sweeping her carpets and dusting her furniture in the only time +which she could rescue from the duties of hospitality for that +purpose. I maintain that, however agreeable are these social +conventions, they are bought too dearly at such a price. A great many +women who suffer from such causes never think of complaining. They are +hospitable from the bottom of their hearts; but however sincere their +welcome, pies do not bake themselves. Never a cow went in at one end +of an oven to come out at the other a nicely-browned sirloin of beef. +Never a barrel of flour and a bowl of yeast rushed spontaneously +together and evoked a batch of bread, nor did the hen-fever at its +hottest height ever produce bantam or Shanghai that could lay eggs +which would leap lightly ceiling-ward to come down an omelet. All these +things require time and pains, and generally the time and pains of +people who, by reason of the stern necessities of their position, have +none of either to spare. It is not just to say that these emergencies +come only once in a great while, and are therefore too insignificant +to be reckoned. The same injudiciousness which crops out in a +conference of churches this week will reappear in a town-meeting next +week, and in a mass-meeting the week after, and a teachers'-meeting +the week after that. The same marital ignorance and inconsiderateness +that brings on one thing will bring on another thing, and, except in +the few cases where money and other ample resources enable one to +secure adequate service, the wrong side, the prose side, the hard side +of these pleasant "occasions" comes on the wife; who, whether she meet +it gladly, or only acquiescently, or reluctantly, is surely worn away +by the attrition. However welcome society may be to her, she cannot +encounter these odds with impunity, and in a majority of cases the +odds are so heavy that she has neither time nor spirits to enjoy the +society. All this wear and tear is unnecessary. The doctors would be +better off to go home without their hot suppers. There is seldom, in +cities, any necessity for feeding masses of people, because +professional feeding-houses are always at hand, and people seldom +congregate in the country except in summer, when each man might, with +the smallest trouble, carry his own sandwich, and eat it on the grass, +surrounded by his kinsfolk and acquaintance, with just as much +hilarity as if he were sitting in a hard-cushioned high chair in a +country-house parlor. Enjoyment would not be curtailed on the one +side, and would be greatly promoted on the other. + +The Essex Institute has its Field-meetings,--its pleasant bi-weekly +summer visits into the country, and is everywhere welcome. During the +morning it roams over the fields, laying its inquisitive hands on +every green and blossoming and creeping thing. The insects in the air, +the fishes in the brook, the spiders in their webs, the butterfly on +its stalk, feel instinctively that their hour is come, and converge +spontaneously into their little tin sarcophagi. At noonday hosts of +heavy baskets unlade their toothsome freight, and a merry feast is +seasoned with Attic salt. In the afternoon, the farm-wagons come +driving up, and the farm-horses lash their contented sides under the +friendly trees, while city and country join in the grave or sparkling +or instructive talk which fixes the wisdom caught in the morning +rambles. At night, young men and maidens, old men and children, go +their several ways homeward, just as happy as if they had left behind +them a dozen family-mothers wearied into fretfulness and illness by +much serving. They depend upon no one for entertainment and owe no +tiresome formalities. Go, all manner of convocations, and do likewise. + +Note, if you please, that it is not feasting which is objectionable. +Truly or falsely, eating has always been held to be the promoter and +attendant of conviviality, the mouth opening the way at the same time +to the palate and the brain. If men can provide feasts without laying +burdens upon their wives, let them do it and welcome; but if the +material part of the feast cannot be accomplished without so serious +an increase of a wife's labor as to destroy or diminish her capacity +for enjoying the mental part, it ought not to be attempted. + +You may say that women are as much to blame in this thing as men; that +the great profusion, variety, and elaborateness of their meals are as +much of their own motion as of men's; that they are indeed proud of +and delight in showing their culinary resources; that they gather +sewing-circles of their own sex without any hint, help, or wish from +the other, and make just as great table-displays on such occasions as +on any others that I have mentioned,--all of which may be very true. +So the Doctor Southsides for many years maintained that slavery must +be a good thing, because the slaves were content in it. So the +Austrian despots point to peasants dancing on the greensward as the +justification of their paternal government, their absolute tyranny; as +if degradation is any less disastrous when its victims are sunk so low +as to be unconscious of their situation,--as if, indeed, that were not +the lowest pit of all. How came women, made as truly as man in the +image and likeness of God, to be reduced to the level of sacrificing +time, ease, intellectual and social good, to the low pride of sensual +display? Is it not the fault of those whose walk and conversation have +made the care of eating and drinking the one thing needful in a +woman's education, the chief end of her life; who have not hesitated +to degrade the high prerogatives of an immortal soul to the +gratification of their own fleshly lusts; who have manoeuvred so +adroitly that the tickling of their own palates has become a more +important and a more influential thing than the building up of the +temple of the Holy Ghost? Profusion and variety and elaborateness are +of the wife's own motion; but the more profuse, varied, and elaborate +her display, the more you praise her. The more ingenuity her feast +displays, the more ingeniously you combine words and exhaust your +rhetoric to express approbation and delight. Your continued and +conjoint praise is a far stronger incentive than the clubs and thongs +with which husbands have been sometimes wont to urge their wives to +action, and which you recognize as force. You do not compel her, but, +directly and indirectly, with an almost irresistible potency, for +years and years you have enjoined it upon her, till your moral +pressure has become as powerful as any display of physical strength +could be. And having, in French fashion, set up a cook on the shrine +of your worship, is it an extenuation of your offence, that women now +vie with each other in striving to merit and attain such an +apotheosis? Having caused your female children to pass through the +kitchen-fire to the Moloch of your adoration, are you so illogical as +to suppose that they will come out without any smell of fire upon +their garments? + +You are not to blame for the thistle-field. You did not make the +thistles grow. No; but you planted the seed, you watered the soil, you +supplied all the conditions of growth; and when the Lord of the +vineyard cometh seeking fruit, and findeth only thistles, what shall +he do but miserably destroy those wicked men and give the vineyard +unto others? + +These are only the difficult hills over which you urge women to climb +when you urge them on to marriage. Of the levels between, of the +plains over which lies the every-day path of the great majority of +married women, I have spoken with sufficient distinctness in another +connection. Whether they are the wives of inefficient or of +enterprising men makes small difference. The overwhelming probability +is, that your blooming bride will encounter a fate similar to that of +the prince in the fairy-tale, who, enchanted by an ugly old witch, was +compelled to spend his life sitting inside a great iron stove; only, +instead of sitting comfortably inside, she will be kept in perpetual +motion outside. Poverty or wealth, ignorance or education, in the +husband, may affect the quality, but scarcely the quantity, of the +wife's work. Hard, grinding, depressing toil is not the peculiar lot +of the poor housewife. It is the "protection," the "cherishing," which +men "well to do in the world" award their wives,--the thriving +farmers, the butchers, the blacksmiths, who "get a good living," and +perhaps have "money at interest." What advantageth it a woman to be +the wife of a "rising man"? He rises by reading, by reasoning, by +attention to his business, by intercourse with intelligent people, by +journeys, by constant growth, and constant contact with stimulating +circumstances; but she is tied down by the endless details of +housekeeping and the nursery. Growth, intelligence, and rising in the +world are not for her. His increasing business and fair political +prospects only bring more cares to her, and bring them long before any +permanent increase of income justifies, or can command, anything +approximating to adequate assistance in the home department. And his +increase of business, his widening circle of acquaintance, are sure to +take him more away from home, to absorb more of his time and his +thoughts, and so not only create heavier burdens, but call to other +tasks the strength that ought to bear them. The selfsame circumstances +which raise the man depress the woman. If he does not make especial +effort to upbear her with himself, the result will presently be, that, +while he rides on the crest of the wave, she is engulfed in the trough +of the sea. There is small reason to suppose he will make the effort. +It is the men in "comfortable circumstances," shrewd, with an eye to +the main chance, who often sin most deeply in this respect. Their main +chance does not include husbandly love, wifely repose. It is a part of +their "business talent" to turn their wives to account just as they +turn everything else. She is a partner in the concern. She is a part +of the stock in trade. She is one of the stepping-stones to eminence +or competence. All that she can earn or save, all the labor or +supervision that can be wrested from her, is so, much added to the +working capital; and so long as she does not lose her health, so long +as she remains in good working order, they never suspect that anything +is wrong. If she were not doing the house-work or taking care of the +children, she would not be doing anything that would bring in money, +or nearly so much money, as her economy and foresight save. Even if +she does lose her health, her husband scarcely so much as thinks of +laying the sin at his own door. It was not hard work or low spirits, +it was rheumatism or slow fever, that brought her down. If her life +lapses away, and she descends into the grave before she has lived out +half her days, her sorrowing husband lays it to the account of a +mysterious Providence, and--"the world is all before him where to +choose." + +Have I drawn a cold, harsh picture? The coldness and harshness are not +alone in the drawing. It spreads before you every day and all around +you: a picture whose figures throb with hidden life,--a very _tableau +vivant_. What else can be expected from our social principles? What +kind of husbands do you look for in men who have set their affections +on fortune or fame? What kind of husbands can a society turn out that +publicly and shamelessly avows the preservation and increase of +property to be the object of marriage? A people's practice is +sometimes, but very rarely, better than its principles. If wealth or +position be the chief goal of a man's ambition, he only acts +consistently in harnessing his wife along with all his other powers +and possessions to his chariot. Looking at it dispassionately, freed +from the glamour which popular opinion throws upon our eyes, it would +seem to be better for a woman to marry the Grand Turk, since a +friendly bowstring might put a period to her trouble, or she might +hope to be tied up in a sack and safely and quietly deposited in the +Bosphorus; while in America there is no such possibility. You must +live on to the end, come it never so tardily. + +And how far extends even so much protection as this,--the protection +which consists in appropriating a woman's time and strength, and +deteriorating both her mind and body by incessant, chiefly menial, and +not unfrequently repulsive toil, and giving her in return--food, +clothing, and shelter, which, if female labor were justly paid, she +could earn by one fourth of the effort, and which is often bestowed +with more or less reluctance and unpleasant conditioning, as a favor +rather than a right? Look around upon all the people whose +circumstances you know, and see if the number of families is small +whose support depends partly upon the mother? Do you know any families +which depend chiefly or entirely upon the mother? Do you know any, +where the husbands are invalids, and have laid by nothing for a rainy +day? any, where the husbands are lazy and inefficient, and perhaps +intemperate, and neglect to provide for their families? any, where +they have been unfortunate and lost all, and only the mother's courage +and energy supply deficiency? any, where the husband has died +insolvent, and the survivor struggles single-handed against the tide? +any, where the husband's death was the lifting of an incubus, which +removed, the family seemed at once to be prosperous and happy? Do you +ever see a woman, with a family of children and a husband, taking the +entire care of her household, and, besides this, earning a little +money at knitting or sewing or washing? Judging from my own +observation, setting aside inability from disease, where you find one +woman who is a dead-weight upon her energetic husband, you will find +seven men who are a dead-weight upon their energetic wives. + +But all this is "protection." All this is the superior sex cherishing +the inferior; the chivalrous sex defending the helpless; the strong +caring for the delicate; the able providing for the dependent. To all +this you urge women when you goad them on to marriage. And you do well +to apply your goad. You are wise in your generation, when you create +such an overwhelming outside pressure; without it, women would not go +down quick into the pit. Left to their own unprejudiced reason, to +their own clear eyes and rapid and just conclusions, they would not +choose, the greatest of all evils,--a living death. In vain is the net +spread in the sight of any bird. If you cannot help this state of +things, where is your logic? If you can help it, where is your +conscience? + + + + +XI. + + +You will say that I have left the main element out of the calculation; +that I have looked at marriage only in respect of its material +combinations, in which light it appears but as a body without the +soul; whereas, in its real wholeness it is penetrated by love which +transforms all common scenes, persons, and duties "into something rich +and strange." But will truth permit one to view it otherwise? Is +marriage, as we see it practically carried out, penetrated with this +vivifying and spiritualizing element? Love, indeed, calls nothing +common or unclean; but, as a matter of homely fact, is there love +enough in ordinary housekeeping to keep it sweet? The first year or +two runs well, but how much living love survives the first olympiad? +How much outlasts a decade? In marriages openly mercenary, we do not +count on finding affection; where they are entered into honestly, are +they followed by different results? If a woman marries for money, or +station, or respectability, she may compass her ends, but if she +marries for love, are not the odds against her? Motive affects her +character, but scarcely her fate. Her love will be wasted on a +thankless heart; she may consider herself fortunate if it be not +trampled under a brutal, or perhaps only a heedless foot. Love in +marriage! Marriage is the grave of love. Look at best for association, +habit, support, tranquillity, freedom from outside compassion, in +marriage, but do not look for love. + +On such a topic as this the truth must be felt rather than proved, yet +authority is not wanting. So eminent and trustworthy a man as Paley, +in his Moral and Political Philosophy, having spoken of the necessity +that a man and wife should make mutual concession, adds: "A man and +woman in love with each other do this insensibly; but love is neither +general nor durable; and where that is wanting, no lessons of duty, no +delicacy of sentiment, will go half so far with the generality of +mankind as this one intelligible reflection, that they must each make +the best of their bargain." + +This work was published in 1785. We have all studied it at school, +under the guidance of men and women, married and single. Its positions +have been variously, frequently, and sometimes successfully assailed. +But I have never heard a whisper breathed or seen a line written +impugning his statement, that love is neither general nor durable. +This statement is not made under the influence of passion, or to +compass any purpose, but is simply the basis of an argument,--a +general truth, as if he should say that man is endowed with a +conscience. + +In that most fascinating of biographies, the "Memoirs of Frederic +Perthes," written by his son, and published in Edinburgh, we have a +very charming picture of home life. Perthes, a man known throughout +Germany, the intimate friend of her most distinguished scholars and +statesmen, is the husband of Caroline, a woman whose character, +indirectly but minutely and impressively portrayed in her husband's +memoirs, seems to be without flaw. Fresh, simple, truthful, sensible, +sympathetic, affectionate, educated, and accomplished, the qualities +of her head and heart alike command something deeper than respect. As +daughter, wife, mother, and woman she is equally admirable. Her +letters to her husband and her children are as full of wisdom as of +love. Everywhere she shines white and clear and pure as the moon, yet +warm, beneficent, and bountiful as the sun. It is only as the wife of +Perthes that we know her; but, magnificent as Perthes unquestionably +was, he pales before the most beautiful, most gracious, most womanly +woman whom he won to his heart and home. No suspicion of her own +exceeding excellence ever seems to have dawned upon her own mind. Her +Perthes was the object of her deep respect and her lasting love. This +fact of itself shows that he must have been a man of extraordinary +conjugal merit. His relations to her must have been of a very rare +delicacy. He must have bestowed an attention and been capable of an +appreciation far beyond the ordinary measure, or such a woman as his +wife could not have written after several years of marriage, "The old +song is every morning new, that, if possible, I love Perthes still +better than the day before." If one may not find satisfaction in the +contemplation of a marriage passed under circumstances so favoring, +where shall he look for satisfaction? Nevertheless, listen to a story +lightly told by her son, the biographer, the learned law-professor of +the world-renowned Bonn,--told as the old prophets are supposed to +have frequently uttered their prophecies, with but the most vague and +imperfect comprehension of what it was that they were saying. + +"With her lively fancy, and a heart ever seeking sympathy, she felt it +to be hard that Perthes, laden with cares, business, and interests of +all kinds, could devote so little time to her and the children. 'My +hope becomes every day less that Perthes will be able to make any such +arrangement of his time as will leave a few quiet hours for me and the +children. There is nothing that I can do but to love him, and to bear +him ever in my heart, till it shall please God to bring us together to +some region where we shall no longer need house or housekeeping, and +where there are neither bills to be paid nor books to be kept. Perthes +feels it a heavy trial, but he keeps up his spirits, and for this I +thank God.' To these and kindred feelings which she had long cherished +in her heart Caroline now gave expression in letters which she wrote +to Perthes during his absence. After eighteen years of trial and +vicissitude, her affection for her husband had retained all its +youthful freshness; life and love had not become merely habitual, they +remained fresh and spontaneous as in the bride. She always gave free +utterance to her feelings, in a manner at once unrestrained and +characteristic, and felt deeply when Perthes, as a husband, addressed +her otherwise than he had done as a bridegroom. During Perthes's +detention for some weeks in Leipsic, this state of feeling found +expression on both sides, half in jest and half in earnest. 'You +indeed renounced all sensibility for this year, because of your many +occupations,' wrote Caroline a few days after her husband's departure; +'but I, for my part, when I write to you, cannot do so without deep +feeling; for the thought of you excites all the sensibility of which +my heart is capable. Not a line have I yet received. Tell me, is it +not rather hard that you did not write me from Brunswick? At least I +thought so, and felt very much that your companion G. should have +written to his newly-married wife, and you not to me. It is the first +time you have ever gone on a journey without writing to me from your +first resting-place. I have been reading over your earlier letter to +find satisfaction to myself, in some measure at least, but it has been +a mixed pleasure. Last year, at Blankenese, you promised me many happy +hours of mutual companionship. I have not yet had them; and yet you +owe many such to me,--yes, you do indeed.' Perthes answered: 'You +write, telling me that I have renounced all sensibility for this year. +This is not true, my dearest heart; it is quite otherwise. I think +that, after so many years of mutual interchange of feeling and of +thought, and when people understand each other thoroughly, there is an +end of all those little tendernesses of expression, which represent a +relationship that is still piquant because new. Be content with me, +dear child, we understand each other. I did not write to you from +Brunswick, because we passed through quickly. Moreover, it is not fair +to compare me with my companion, the bridegroom; youth has its +features, and so also has middle age. It would be absurd, indeed, were +I now to be looking by moonlight under the trees and among the clouds +for young maidens, as I did twenty years ago, or were to imagine young +ladies to be angels. Nor would it become _you_ any better if you were +to be dancing a gallopade, or clambering up trees in fits of love +enthusiasm. We should not find fault with our having grown older; only +be satisfied, give God the praise, and exercise patience and +forbearance with me.'" + +Can anything be more natural than Caroline's gentle remonstrance? Can +anything be more hopeless than Perthes's shuffling reply? Lonely wife, +languishing for a draught of the olden tenderness, and with nothing to +medicine her weariness but the information that it had all come to an +end; reaching out for a little of the love that was her life, and met +by the assertion that climbing trees was not becoming to a woman of +her age! It is good to know that she replied with spirit, though still +with no diminution of her immeasurable love. "Your last letter is +indeed a strange one. I must again say, that my affection knows +neither youth nor age, and is eternal. I can detect no change, except +that I now _know_ what formerly I only hoped and believed. I never +took you for an angel, nor do I now take you for the reverse; neither +did I ever beguile you by assuming an angel's form or angelic manners. +I never danced the gallopade, or climbed trees, and am now exactly +what I was then, only rather older; and you must take me as I am, my +Perthes;--in one word, love me, and tell me so sometimes, and that is +all I want." + +Men, you to whose keeping a woman's heart is intrusted, can you hear +that simple prayer,--"Love me, and tell me so sometimes, and that is +all I want"? + +Perthes, shamed out of his worldliness into at least an attempt at +sympathy, replies: "Your answer was just what it ought to have been; +only don't forget that my inward love for you is as eternal as yours +is for me; but I have so many things to think of." + +Undoubtedly, after all his evasion, the truth came out at last,--"I +have so many things to think of." It was the best excuse he could +offer, and it is a great pity he had not brought it forward in the +beginning. He had suffered the cares of this world and the +deceitfulness of business to choke his love; but it would have been +far more honorable to himself and far more comfortable to his wife to +confess it frankly, than to affirm his indifference and neglect to be +the natural course of events. A love overgrown with weeds may be +revived, but for a love lost by natural decay there is no +resurrection. "I did not write to you from Brunswick, because we +passed through quickly." Did he pass through any more quickly than his +companion G., who found time to write to his newly-married wife? "We +understand each other thoroughly, and therefore there is an end of all +those little tendernesses of expression"; but there was no end of them +on Caroline's part. Her understanding was not less thorough than his, +yet her love craved expression. "My inward love for you is as eternal +as yours for me"; yet just before he had been pleading his increasing +years as an excuse for his diminishing tenderness, while Caroline's +stanch heart declared, "My affection knows neither youth nor age, and +is eternal. I can detect no change, except that I now _know_ what +formerly I only hoped and believed." Shortly afterwards, while +spending a summer at Wandsbeck for her health, almost daily letters +were exchanged between herself and her husband. "While those of +Perthes were devoted to warnings and entreaties to take care of her +health, (a cheap substitute for affection which Perthes was not alone +in employing,) the few lines in which Caroline was wont to reply were +full of expressions of love, and of sorrow on account of their +necessary separation. 'I am seated in the garden,' she writes, 'and +all my merry little birds are around me. I let the sun shine upon me, +to make me well if he can. God grant it! if it only be so far as to +enable me to discharge my duties to my family.'--'I hope, my dear +Perthes, that you will again have pleasure in me; the waters seem +really to do me good. Come to-morrow, only not too late. My very soul +longs for you.'--'You shall be thanked for the delightful hours that I +enjoyed with you yesterday,' she writes, after a short visit to +Hamburg, 'and for the sight of your dear, kind face, as I got out of +the carriage.'--'I only live where you are with me. Send Matthias to +me, if it does not interfere with his lessons: if I cannot have the +father, I must put up with the son.'--'The children enjoy their +freedom, and are my joy and delight.... But you, dear old father! you, +too, are my joy and delight. Let me have a little letter; I cannot +help longing for one, and will read it, when I get it, ten times +over.'--'It is eighteen years to-day since I wrote you the last letter +before our marriage, and sent you my first request about the little +black cross. I have asked for many things in the eighteen years that +have passed since then, dear Perthes, and what shall I ask to-day? You +can tell, for you know me well, and know that I have never said an +untrue word to you. Only you cannot quite know my indescribable +affection, for it is infinite. Perthes, my heart is full of joy and +sadness,--would that you were here! This day eighteen years ago I did +not long for you more fervently or more ardently than now. I thank God +continually for everything. I am and remain yours in time, and, though +I know not how, for eternity, too! Be in a very good humor, when you +come to-morrow. Affection is certainly the greatest wonder in heaven +or on earth, and the only thing that I can represent to myself as +insatiable throughout eternity.'" + +Do these extracts indicate that many years of mutual interchange of +feeling and thought had put an end to little tendernesses of +expression? Does his love seem as eternal as hers? It is true that he +falls back upon "inward" love; but we only know saints in their +bodies. Inward love that denies outward manifestation may satisfy men, +but it will never pass current with women. Little children, who have +been idle during their study-hour, will often excuse their failures by +declaring that they "know, but cannot think." No teacher, however, is +imposed on. A scholar that does not know his lesson well enough to +recite it, does not know it at all. A love that does not, in one way +or another, express itself sufficiently to satisfy the object of its +love, is not love. To satisfy the _object_ of its love, I say, for +love can never satisfy itself. It was not love that Perthes's letter +contained, but an apology for its absence. + +What men love is the comforts of the married state, not the person who +provides them,--wifely duties rather than the wife. A man enjoys his +home. He likes the cheery fireside, the dressing-gown and slippers, +the bright tea-urn and the brighter eyes behind it. He likes to see +boys and girls growing up around him, bearing his name and inheriting +his qualities. He likes to have his clothes laid ready to his hand, +stockings in their integrity, buttons firm in their places, meals +pleasant, prompt, yet frugal. He likes a servant such as money cannot +hire;--attentive, affectionate, spontaneous, devoted, and trustworthy. +He likes very much the greatest comfort for the smallest outlay, and +certainly he likes to be loved. His love runs in the current of his +likings, and is speedily indistinguishable from them; but does he love +the woman who is his wife? Would he say to her, as poor Tom sadly +pleaded in "A Half-Life and Half a Life,"--"But I love you true and if +you can only fancy me, I'll work so hard that you'll be able to keep a +hired girl and have all your time for reading and going about the +woods, as you like to do"? Would he say, as Von Fink said to +Lenore,--"You will have no need to make my shirts, and if you don't +like account-keeping, why let it alone"? Listen, for it is good to +know that a man has lived and written who did not look for his +domestic happiness entirely in a bread-pan and a work-basket. "Just as +you are, Lenore,--resolute, bold, a little passionate devil,--just so +will I have you remain. We have been companions in arms, and so we +shall continue to be.... Were you not my heart's desire, were you a +man, I should like to have you for my life's companion; so, Lenore, +you will be to me not only a beloved wife, but a courageous friend, +the confidante of all my plans, my best and truest comrade." + +Lenore shook her head; "I ought to be your housewife," sighed she (the +new love not yet having quite purged out the old leaven). + +Fink--(but no matter what Fink did. We are concerned now only with +what he said.) "Be content, sweetheart," said he, tenderly, "and make +up your mind to it. We have been together in a fire strong enough to +bring love to maturity, and we know each other thoroughly. Between +ourselves, we shall have many a storm in our house. I am no easy-going +companion, at least for a woman, and you will very soon find that will +of yours again, the loss of which you are now lamenting. Be at rest, +darling, you shall be as headstrong as of yore; you need not distress +yourself on that account; so you may prepare for a few storms, but for +hearty love and merry life as well." Would your latter-day lover sign +such articles of agreement on his marriage-day? + +Of course he would not. The shirts and the account-keeping are what he +marries for, and it would be a manifest absurdity to annul the +conclusion of the whole matter. It is not a question what women _like_ +to do; they must bake and brew and make and mend, whether they like it +or not. Men do not marry for the purpose of making women happy, but to +make themselves happy. A girl looks forward in her marriage to what +she will do for her husband's happiness. A man, to what he will enjoy +through his wife's ministrations. "He needs a wife," say the good +women who were born and bred in these opinions and do not suspect +their grossness. + +"It is a grand good match; I don't know anybody that needs a wife more +than he," said one of these at a little gathering, speaking of a +recent marriage. + +"Why?" innocently questioned another woman, who was supposed to have +somewhat peculiar views concerning these things. + +"O, you never want anybody to marry!" burst out a chorus of +voices,--which was surely a very broad inference from one narrow +monosyllable. + +"But why does he need a wife?" persisted the questioner. + +"For sympathy and companionship," triumphantly replied the first +woman, knowing that to such motives her interlocutor could take no +exception. But a third woman, not knowing that anything lay behind +these questions and answers, and feeling that the original position +was but feebly maintained by such unsubstantial things as sympathy and +companionship, being also a near neighbor of the person in question, +and acquainted with the facts, proceeded to strengthen the case by +adding, "Well, he was all alone, and he wa'n't very well, and he was +taken sick one night and couldn't get anybody to take care of him." + +"But why not hire a nurse?" + +"Well he did, and she was very good; but she wouldn't do his washing." + +Only wait long enough, and you are tolerably sure to get the truth at +last. It was not sympathy and companionship, after all, that the man +wanted: it was his washing! + +You see a most unconscious, but irrefragable testimony concerning the +relations which are deemed proper between a man and his wife in the +very common use of the phrase, "kind husband." It is often employed in +praise of the living and in eulogy of the dead. Compared with a cruel +husband, I suppose a kind husband is the more tolerable; but compared +with a true husband, there is no such thing as a kind husband. You are +kind to animals, to beggars, to the beetle that you step out of your +path to avoid treading on. One may be kind to people who have no +claims upon him, but he is not kind to his wife. He does not stand +towards her in any relation that makes kindness possible. He can no +more be kind to his wife than he can be to himself. His wife is not +his inferior, to be condescended to, but his treasure to be cherished, +his friend to be loved, his adviser to be deferred to. It is an insult +to a woman for her husband to assume, or for his biographer to assume +for him, that he _could_ be kind to her. Did you ever hear a woman +praised for being kind to her husband? Did you ever hear an obituary +declare a woman to be a dutiful daughter, a kind wife, a faithful +mother? You may be sure the phrase is never used by any one who has a +just idea of what marriage ought to be. + +If love cannot outlast a few years of life, it is idle to lament that +it is so surely quenched by death. Absence cannot be blamed for +dissipating a love that has been already conquered by presence. +Nevertheless, in the alacrity with which one is off with the old love +and on with the new may be read the shallowness, the flimsiness, the +earthliness, of that which passes for the deepest, the most lasting, +and the most divine. Weary feet, aching brow, and disappointed heart +are at rest; or a vigorous young life is smitten before its heyday was +clouded; or the ripened sheaf is garnered at the harvest-time; but no +proprieties, no shock of premature loss, nor the "late remorse of +love," avails to make the impression indelible. The dead past may bury +its dead out of sight; the resurrection may adjust its own +perplexities; but in this world there must be good cheer. The funeral +baked meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-table. _La Reine +est morte: Vive la Reine!_ And when the loving wife is gone away from +the heart that entertained its angel unawares, people will tell you +with a sober face how "beautifully he bears it!" "perfectly resigned!" +"Christian calmness!" "kiss the rod!" It were to be wished he did not +bear it quite so beautifully. When a wife is prematurely torn from her +home, the only proper attitude for her husband is to sit in sackcloth +and ashes. It is fit that he should be stricken to the dust. It is not +becoming for him to indulge in pious reflections. Ill-timed +resignation is a breach of morals. He is not to be supposed capable of +a lasting fidelity, but he may be expected to be temporarily stunned +by the blow. It would be more decorous for him to follow the example +of the powerful and wealthy king in the fairy-tale, who, having lost +his wife, was so inconsolable that he shut himself up for eight entire +days in a little room, where he spent his time chiefly in knocking his +head against the wall! + +It is pitiful to see a strong man tottering into a wrong path from +sheer lack of strength to walk in the right one, which yet he does not +lack clear vision to see. But the spectacle may be profitable for +doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in +righteousness. Perhaps no more faithful and graphic presentation of +the diplomacy that is employed in compassing a second marriage can be +given than is found in the proceedings of Perthes. When, after +twenty-four years of married life, his wife, the mother of his ten +children, left him, he repaired to Gotha and lived three years in the +family of a married daughter. In an early stage of his bereavement he +writes of his loneliness, and mentions, but almost with repugnance, +certainly with no apparent intention of entering it, or any intimation +of a possibility of receiving joy from it, "a new wedlock." +Nevertheless, the thought is there. His daughter's sister-in-law, a +widow of thirty years, and mother of four children, lives next door. +Presently comes down his mother-in-law to pay a visit. "She was much +concerned about Perthes's situation, and one day, while they were +walking in the orangery, expressed herself openly to him. She told him +that he was no more a master of his own house, that soon his younger +children would be leaving him, and that his strong health gave promise +of a long life yet to come; that for him solitude was not good, that +he could not bear it, and consequently that he ought not to put off +choosing a companion for the remainder of his life." All of which of +course came to him with the freshness of entire novelty. But +immediately we find that at these words "the thought of Charlotte shot +like lightning through his soul." So it seems that he had already +outstripped his mother-in-law. She dealt, only in generals, but he had +advanced to particulars. However, "he made no reply, but he had a hard +battle to fight with himself from that time forth. In September he +communicated to his mother-in-law the _pros_ and _cons_ which agitated +him so much, but without giving her to understand that it was no +longer the subject of marriage in general, but of one marriage in +particular, which now disquieted him. After stating the outward and +inward circumstances, which made a second marriage advisable in his +case, he goes on to say: 'I am quite certain that Caroline foresaw, +from her knowledge of my character and temperament, a second marriage +for me, and I am equally certain that no new union could ever disturb +my spirit's abiding union with her. [It is to be hoped that Charlotte +was duly made acquainted with this fact.] My inner life is filled with +her memory, and will be so till my latest day; but I must own that +this is possible only while I incorporate in thought her happy soul, +and think of her as a human being, still sharing my earthly existence, +still taking interest in all I do; and I cannot disguise from myself, +while viewing her under this aspect, that my dear Caroline would +prefer my living on alone, satisfied with her memory. Again, there can +be no doubt that Holy Scripture, although permitting a second +marriage, does so on account of the hardness of our hearts. The civil +law contains no prohibition either, and yet there has always existed a +social prejudice against such a marriage, and youth, whose ideal is +always fresh and fair, and women who are always young in soul, look +with secret disgust upon it. I know, too, that my remaining alone +would be, not only with reference to others, but in itself, the +worthier course; but, on the other hand, I know it would be so in +reality only if this worthiness were not assumed for the purpose of +appearing in a false light to myself, to other men, and perhaps even +before God, or for the purpose of cloaking selfishness under the guise +of fidelity to the departed.' It was not, however, by answering this +question, nor by reflecting upon the lawfulness of second marriages in +general, that Perthes's irresolution was subdued, but by an increasing +attachment to the lady whose character had attracted him." + +Very honorable appears Perthes here, in that he argues the case +against himself with fulness and frankness, revealing to himself +without disguise the weakness under which he finally falls, and +conscious all the while that it is a weakness. He does not attempt to +hide the fact that Caroline would have preferred to live alone in his +memory, and he falls back on his only defensible ground,--the hardness +of his heart. Confession is forgiveness. Let him pass on to the new +bride, and the second family of eleven children that will spring up +around them. + +But there are men, and women too,--there are always women enough to +echo men's opinions,--who assume that the spirit of the departed will +be delighted in her heavenly abode to know that the husband decides +not to spend his life in solitude. Some women indeed show the last +infirmity of noble minds by _recommending_ their husbands to take a +second wife, although it seems a pity to waste one's last breath in +bestowing advice which is so entirely superfluous. If a man will +marry, let him marry, but let no patient Griselda "gin the hous to +dight" for the "newe lady." If a man will marry, let him marry, but +let him not offer the world an apology for the act. The apology is +itself an accusation; a dishonor to both wives instead of one. He +knows his own motives and emotions. If they are upright and +sufficient, it is no matter what people say about him; he and the +other person immediately concerned should be so self-satisfied as to +be indifferent to outside comment. If they are not upright and +sufficient, attempting to make them appear so is an additional +offence. + +I have said on this subject more than I intended. I meant only to +state a fact clearly enough to use it. The rest "whistled itself." +Practically, I do not know that I have any quarrel with any marriage +that is real, whether it come after the first or fiftieth attempt. +Judging from general observation, I should suppose that most people +might marry half a dozen times, and not be completely married then. + +If, as Perthes seems to have thought, all this is the natural course +of events, why do you make all womanly honor and happiness converge in +the one focus of marriage, unless like a Mussulman you believe that on +such condition alone can women aspire to immortality? But even then it +would be a hard bargain. Immortality is dearly bought at the price of +immorality. When all other arguments fail, and you would mount to your +sublimest heights of moral elevation, you assure a woman that, no +matter how lofty her life may be, nor how deep her satisfaction may +seem, if she fails of marriage she fails of the highest development, +the deepest experience, the greatest benefit. You tell her that she +misses somewhat which Heaven itself cannot supply. But, on the other +hand, you have previously shown that marriage is but a temporary +arrangement, an entirely mundane affair. Love belongs as completely to +this world as houses and barns,--is in fact rather supplementary to +them,--especially to the house. It is of the body, and not of the +spirit; for the spirit lives forever, but when the body dies, love +dies also. There are no claims beyond the grave. Nay, it does not +reach to the grave. The delight, the spontaneity, the satisfaction, +the keenness, all die out before the person dies. The pulp shrivels, +and only a wrinkled skin of habit remains. But a woman is immortal. +Can a mortal love satisfy an immortal heart? Is it possible that an +undying soul must find its strongest development in a dying love? Does +a creature of the skies incur an irreparable loss, miss an +irreclaimable jewel, suffer an incurable wound, when it loses, or +misses, or suffers _anything_ which is but of the earth earthy? Can +anything finite be indispensable to an infinite life? + +Again, if this accession of toil, and this diminution and decay of +perceptible love, and this falling back on inward love, is the natural +course of events, why not say so in the beginning? If inward love be +satisfactory at one time, why not at another, as well before marriage +as after? Why, when a man has once made and received affidavit of +love, should he not be content, and neither proffer nor demand +manifestations? Let men be satisfied with inward love during +courtship, and the honeymoon, if inward love is so all-sufficient. Not +in the least. Men are not one tenth part so capable of inward love as +women,--I mean of an inward love without outward expression. Their +inward love becomes outward love almost as soon as it becomes love at +all. They are ten times more tumultuous, more demonstrative, more +_phenomenal_, than women. They are as impatient as children, and more +unreasonable. They cannot, or they will not, brook delay, suspense, +refusal. Women accept all these drawbacks as a part of the programme, +and with "the endurance that outwearies wrong," while men fiercely, if +vainly, kick against the pricks and talk about _inward love_! + +And if the true object of marriage be to help accumulate or frugally +to manage a fortune, to cook dinners, and act as a sewing-machine, +"warranted not to ravel," say that frankly also in the beginning. Tell +women plainly what you want of them. Do not lure them into your +service under false pretences. Do not wait till they are irrevocably +fastened to you, and then lay on them the burdens of labor and take +away the supports of love, and lecture them into acquiescence through +the newspapers. While there is yet left to them a freedom of choice, +make them fully acquainted with the circumstances of the case, that +they may be able to choose intelligently. When one does not expect +much, one is not disappointed at receiving little. One is not chilled +at heart by snow in winter. It is walking over sunny Southern lands, +and finding frosts when you looked for flowers, that freezes the +fountains of life. If you do not overwhelm a woman with your +protestations, if you do not lure her to your heart by presenting +yourself to her and praying her to be to you friend, comrade, and +lover, when what you really want is cook, laundress, and housekeeper, +she will at least know what is before her. But do not swear to her +eternal fidelity, knowing that, as soon as you thoroughly understand +each other, there will be an end of all little tendernesses of +expression. Do not span her with a rainbow, and spread diamond-dust +beneath her feet, knowing all the while that a very little time will +bring for the one but a cold, penetrating rain, and will change the +other into coarse, sharp pebbles that shall bruise her tender feet. +Change the formula of your marriage vows, and instead of promising to +love, honor, and cherish till death you do part, promise to do it only +till you understand her thoroughly, and then to make the best of the +bargain! + +If we were forced to believe that these right-hand fallings-off and +left-hand defections were indeed the legitimate workings of the human +heart, the natural history of mankind, then should we be forced to +believe that this world is a stupendous failure, and the sooner it is +burned up the better. We should be forced to believe in the thorough +degradation and destructibility of both mind and matter. For the +essence of value is durability. A soap-bubble is as beautiful as a +pearl and as brilliant as a diamond; for what is called practical +service, for warmth, or shelter, or sustenance, one is quite as good +as another. What makes their different worth is, that the soap-bubble +yields up its lovely life to the first molecule that sails through the +air to solicit it, while the gems outlast a thousand years. But if +life is a soap-bubble, and not a pearl, shall a woman sell all that +she has and buy it? What advantageth the possession of a happiness +which melts in the grasp,--which is satisfactory only for the short +time that it is novel? Who would care to enter a path of roses, +knowing that a few steps will take him into a vast and barren desert, +whence escape is impossible? If this is real life, let us rather pitch +our tents in fairy-land; for then, when the Prince is at last restored +to his true manly form and his rightful throne, and united to the +beautiful, constant Princess, we invariably find, not only that their +happiness was quite inexpressible, but it lasted to the end of their +lives. + +If we are to believe such propositions, we might as well call +ourselves infidels, and have done with it. To deny the existence of +love takes away no more hope from humanity than to deny the +immortality of love. It is no worse to take away life from the soul +than to give it a life which is but a protracted death. To make a +distinction between earthly and heavenly love hardly affects the case. +The direction of love is not love. All love is heavenly,--"bright +effluence of bright essence increate." If a man gives himself to the +pursuit of unworthy objects, or to the indulgence of unhallowed +pleasures, a pure name need not be dragged down into the mire that his +error may have a seemly christening. If that is love which fades out +long before its object; if, when its object disappears behind the veil +love rightly returns to earth, then are we of all creatures most +miserable; for we abnegate a future. We thought it had been he which +should have redeemed Israel; but thou shalt return unto the ground, +for out of it wast thou taken. Dust art thou, O love, and unto dust +shalt thou return. + +Nay, let us have falsehood rather than truth, if this be truth. But +this cannot be truth. Love sets up his ladder on the earth, but the +top of it reaches unto heaven, and if the eye be clear and the heart +pure, the angels of God shall be seen ascending and descending on it. +The fashion of this world passeth away, + + "But love strikes one hour,--LOVE." + +Hear a woman's voice mingling now with angels' voices,--the voice of a +woman whose pathway to the skies was a line of light shining still +more and more unto the perfect day. + + "I classed, appraising once, + Earth's lamentable sounds: the welladay, + The jarring yea and nay, + The fall of kisses on unanswering clay, + The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller + But all did leaven the air + With a less bitter leaven of sure despair + Than these words,--'I loved ONCE.' + + "And who saith, 'I loved ONCE'? + Not angels, whose clear eyes love, love foresee, + Love through eternity, + Who by To Love do apprehend To Be. + Not God, called LOVE, his noble crown-name, casting + A light too broad for blasting! + The great God, changing not from everlasting, + Saith never, 'I loved ONCE.' + + "Nor ever the 'Loved ONCE' + Dost THOU say, Victim-Christ, misprised friend! + The cross and curse may rend; + But, having loved, Thou lovest to the end! + It is man's saying,--man's. Too weak to move + One sphered star above, + Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love + With his No More and Once. + + * * * * * + + "Say never, ye loved ONCE! + God is too near above, the grave below, + And all our moments go + Too quickly past our souls, for saying so. + The mysteries of life and death avenge + Affections light of range: + There comes no change to justify that change, + Whatever comes,--loved ONCE!" + + + + +XII. + + +Men, by reason of their hardness of heart, gravitate towards the +material theory, and women, by reason of their softness of heart, +lower to the same level. Men defy heaven and earth to compass +self-indulgence, and women defy the divine law written in their hearts +rather than thwart men. Instead of setting their faces like a flint +against this tendency, they accept it, excuse it, try to think it +inevitable, a matter of organization, and make the best of it. They +will counsel young girls not to reckon upon receiving as much love as +they give! Fatal advice! Disastrous generalization! Yet neither +unnatural nor unkind, for it is the fruit of a sad and wide +experience. They would gladly spare fresh souls the apples of Sodom, +whose fair seeming bewrayed themselves; but they should teach them to +avoid disappointment, not by counting upon bitterness, but by +rejecting apples of Sodom altogether, and receiving only such fruit as +cheers the heart of God as well as man. Why shall not women receive +as much love as they give? Is man less capable of loving than woman? +Where in nature or in revelation is the warrant for such an +hypothesis? When He commands, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with +all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with +all thy strength," is he not speaking to men as well as women? and are +a man's heart, soul, mind, and strength less than a woman's? Are not +husbands commanded to love their wives even as Christ loved the +Church? and did he love the Church less than the Church loved him? Is +not every man commanded in particular to love his wife even as +himself,--to love his wife as his own body? and is a man's love to +himself, his love to his own body, a feeble and untrustworthy +sentiment? You find in the Bible no letting a man off from his duties +of love; no letting him down. Old-fashioned as it is, written for a +state of society far different from ours, often brought forward to +prop up old wrongs and bluff off newly-found rights, the Bible is +still the very storehouse of reforms. It contains the germs not only +of spiritual life, but of spiritual living. Glows on its pages the +morning-red which has scarcely yet gilded the world. + +Women must not expect to receive as much love as they give! It is +inviting men to esteem lightly what should be a priceless possession. +It is not waiting for them to drag down the banner to the dust; it is +making haste to trail it for them with malice aforethought. Men now +are not too constant, too devoted to the higher aims of life; but let +constancy and devotion not be expected of them, and in what +seven-league boots will they stride down the broad road! It is doing +them but left-handed service thus to throw the door open to weakness +and wavering concerning higher interests, and a blind devotion to the +god of this world. To assume that their tone may be low, is to lower +their tone. Men are less good than they would be if goodness were +demanded of them. The current is turbid and unwholesome, because it is +not strictly required to be pure and clear. The way for women to be +truly serviceable to men, is to be themselves exacting. + +"Exacting"? What word is that? An exacting woman? An exacting wife? +"Hail! Horrors, hail!" The unlovely being has existed, and within the +memory of men still living, but it has always been looked upon as a +monster, + + "Whom none could love, whom none could thank, + Creation's blot, creation's blank!" + +We have fallen on evil times indeed if such a being is to be held up +for approval and imitation. + +But the character of exaction depends somewhat on the nature of the +thing exacted. To exact from a man that to which you have a right, and +which it is his own truest interest to bestow, is neither unchristian +nor unamiable. One may and should grant large room for the play of +tastes; for differences of organization, opinion, habit, education; +but a catholicity which admits to its presence anything that defileth +is no fruit of that tree whose leaves are for the healing of the +nations. The gardener who is tolerant of weeds and not untender +towards misshapen, or dwarfed, or otherwise imperfect flowers will +have but a sorry show for the eyes of the master. Such latitude is a +source of deterioration. It is the kindness which kills. Each sex +should be to the other an incitement to lofty aims. Each should stand +on its own mountain-height and call to the other through clear, bright +air; but such sufferance only draws both down into the damp, +unwholesome valley-lands where lurk fever and pestilence. A woman +cannot with impunity open her doors to unworthy guests. There may be +bowing and smiling, and never-ending smooth speech, but in the end, +and long before the end, they shall draw their swords against the +beauty of her wisdom and shall defile her brightness. A man may go all +lengths in pursuit of his own selfish comfort, but he does not the +less respect those who hold themselves above it, and if women, who +should be pure and purifying, mar the spotlessness of a divine +sanctity and lessen the claims of an imperial dignity, thinking +thereby to be meeter for profane approach, they work a work whose evil +strikes its roots into the inmost life of society. From mistaken +kindness woman may weave a narrow garland, but there is lost a glory +from the hand that bears and the brow that wears it. If the queen is +content to spend her life in the kitchen over bread and honey, and if +she is satisfied that the king spend his in the parlor counting out +his money, neither king nor queen will receive that homage or command +that allegiance which is the rightful royal prerogative. + +There is a foolish subservience, an ostentatious and superficial +chivalry, an undignified and slavish deference to whims which silly +women demand and sillier men grant. Yet even this is not so much the +fault of the weak women as of the strong men, who surround women with +the atmosphere which naturally creates such weakness. But women have a +right, and it is their duty to expect, to claim, to exact if you +please, a constancy, spirituality, devotion, as great as their own. +Where God makes no distinction of sex in his demands upon mankind, His +creatures should not make distinctions. "Men are different from +women," is the conclusion of the whole matter at female +debating-societies, and the all-sufficient excuse for every +short-coming or over-coming; but the Apostles and Prophets find +therein no warrant for a violation of moral law, no guaranty for +immunity from punishment, no escape from the obligations to unselfish +and righteous living. Nowhere does the Saviour of the world proclaim +to men a liberty in selfishness or sin. His kingdom will never come, +nor his will be done on earth as it is done in heaven, so long as men +are permitted to take out indulgences. If they do it ignorantly, not +knowing the true character and claims of womanhood, nor consequently +of manhood, they should be taught. If they think a wife's chief duty +is to economize her husband's fortunes, or to minister to his physical +comforts, they should be speedily freed from the illusion. If they +suppose knowledge to be ill-adapted to the female constitution, and +harmless only when administered homoeopathically, they should be +quietly undeceived. If they have been so trained that marriage is to +them but unholy ground whereon is found no place for modesty, +chastity, delicacy, reverence, how shall they ever unlearn the bad +lesson but through pure womanly teaching? + +But women fear to take this attitude. There are many indeed who have +become so demoralized that they do not know there is any such attitude +to take; but there are others who do see it, and shrink from assuming +it. Women whose courage and fortitude are indescribable, who will +brave pain and fatigue and all definite physical obstacles in their +path, will bow down their heads like a bulrush with fear of that +indefinable thing which may be called social disapprobation. Through +cowardice, they are traitors to their own sex, and impediments to the +other. One cannot find it in his heart to blame them harshly. The +weakness has so many palliations, it is so natural a growth of their +wickedly arranged circumstances, as to disarm rebuke and move scarcely +more than pity; but it is none the less a fact, lamentable and +disastrous. Women who know and lament the erroneous notions and the +guilty actions of men concerning woman, and the culpable relations of +men to women, will endeavor to hold back the opinions of a woman when +they go against the current. They will admit the force of all her +objections, the justice of every remonstrance, but will assure her +that opposition will be of no avail. She will accomplish nothing, +but--and here lies the real bugbear--but she will make men almost +afraid of her! + +I would that men were not only almost, but altogether afraid of every +woman! I would that men should hold woman in such knightly fear that +they should never dare to approach her, matron or maid, save with +clean hands and a pure heart; never dare to lift up their souls to +vanity nor swear deceitfully; never dare to insult her presence with +words of flattery, insincerity, coarseness, sensuality, mercenary +self-seeking, or any other form of dishonor. I would that woman were +herself so noble and wise, her approbation so unquestionably the +reward of merit, that a man should not dare to think ignobly lest his +ignoble thought flower into word or act before her eyes; should not +wish to think ignobly, since it removed him to such a distance from +her, and wrought in him so sad an unlikeness to her; should not be +able to think ignobly, being interpenetrated with the celestial +fragrance which is her native air. I would have the heathen +cloud-divinity which inwraps her with a factitious light, only to hide +her real features from mortal gaze, torn utterly away, that men may +see in her the fullest presentation possible to earth of the god-like +in humanity. So powerfully does the Most High stand ready to work in +her to will and to do of his good pleasure, that she may be to man a +living revelation, Emanuel, God with us. + +We ought to stand in awe of one another. We do not sufficiently +respect personality. Every soul comes fresh from the creative hand and +bears its own divine stamp. We should not go thoughtlessly into its +presence. We should not wantonly violate its holiness. Even the body +is fearfully and wonderfully made, and well may be, for it is the +temple of the Holy Ghost; but if the temple is sacred, how much more +that holy thing which the temple enshrines,--the unseen, +incomprehensible, infinite soul, the essential spirit, the holy ghost. +Who that cherishes the divine visitant in his own heart but must be +amazed at the reckless irreverence with which we assail each other. It +is not the smile, the chance word, the pleasant or even the hostile +rencounter in the outer courts; it is that we do not respect each +other's silences. We do not scruple to pry into the arcana. The +hermit's sanctuary may lie in the huntsman's track, but he will have +his pleasure though hermit and sanctuary were in the third heaven. We +do not accept what is given with gladness and singleness of heart; we +stretch out wanton hands to pull aside the curtain and reveal to the +garish day what should be suffered to repose in the twilight of inner +chambers. + +When the prudent adviser, the practical man or woman, counsels, "Do +not demand so much from your friends,--they won't stand it,"--am I to +infer that friendship is a mercenary matter, a thing of compromise and +barter? Shall I fence in my acts, words, thoughts, that I may secure +something whose sole value, whose sole existence, indeed, lies in its +spontaneity? Shall I haggle for incense? Am I loved for what I do, +what I say, what I think, and not for what I am? Why, this is not +love. I am myself, first of all, not Launcelot nor another. He who +loves me can but wish me to be this in fullest measure. I will live my +life. I will go whithersoever the spirit leads. He who loves me will +rejoice in this and give me all furtherance. I demand all things--in +you. I demand nothing--from you. "Will not stand it"? If you can hate +me, hate me. If you can refrain from loving, love not. I can dispense +with your regard, but there is something indispensable. You shall love +me because you cannot help it, or you shall love me not at all. If I +cannot compel affection in the teeth of all conflicting opinion, I +renounce it altogether. If the aroma of character is not strong enough +to overpower with its sweetness all unfragrant exhalations of opinion, +it is a matter of but small account. + +If two people should design simply to club together, to take their +meals at the same table and dwell under the same roof, it would be a +thing to be carefully considered; but when the question is, not of +association alone, but of absolute oneness, not of similarity of +tastes or habits, but of an inmost and all-prevailing sympathy, it +becomes us to be wary. Mere mechanical junction is easy of +accomplishment, but a chemical combination demands fine analysis and +the most careful adjustment. It needs not that a globe of fire should +come raging through the skies to set our world ablaze; a very slight +change in the atmosphere which embraces it, a little less of one +ingredient, a little more of another, and the earth and the works that +are therein shall be burned up. Yet the delicacy of matter is but a +faint type of the delicacy of mind. He who would pass within the veil +to commune with the soul between the cherubim must assume holy +garments. If the trouble seem to him too great, let him be content to +tarry without. Uzzah put forth an incautious hand and touched the ark +of God unbidden, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, +and there he died by the ark of God. Now, as then, if any man defile +the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is +holy, which temple ye are. + +Yet the general opinion seems to be that human beings are made by +machinery like Waltham watches, and will fit perfectly when brought +together at random, as the different parts taken indiscriminately from +a heap of similar parts will fit and form a watch. Juxtaposition is +the only necessary preliminary to harmony. On the contrary, it is true +not only of prodigies, but of every member of the race that nature +made him and then broke the mould. Every person is a prodigy. So +great, so radical, so out-spreading, are the differences between +individuals, that the wonder is, not that they quarrel so much, but +that they are ever peaceful when brought together. The wonder is that +so many fierce antagonisms can be soothed even into an outward quiet. +Looking at it as mechanism, seeing how diverse, aggressive, and +impatient are the qualities of man, and how peculiarly are his +circumstances adapted to foster his peculiarities, one would say that +the only security was in solitude. Indeed, young people are very apt +to think so. They combine in an ideal all the charms which attract, +and exclude from it all the disagreeable traits which repel them, and +see reality fall so far short of their imaginary standard that they +fully believe they shall never find the true Prince. And they never +would, but for an inward, inexplicable suffusion of the Divine +essence, whose source and action lie beyond knowledge or control, +which works without instigation, but is all-powerful to create or +annihilate. This, however, which is the sole explanation of the +phenomenon, which is the sole conciliator between opposing forces, is +generally left out of view. People scarcely seem to be conscious that +there is any phenomenon. They philosophize sagaciously upon the +singular skill which swings unnumbered worlds in space, and spins them +on in never-ending cycle, yet marks out their paths so wisely that +world sweeps clear of world and never a collision crushes one to ruin. +But full as the universe is of stars, the nearest are hundreds of +thousands of miles apart; while the intellectual, nervous worlds that +are set going on the surface of our earth are close together. Half a +dozen of them are placed as it were shoulder to shoulder. Their zigzag +orbits intersect each other a hundred times a day. Is it any wonder +that there is hard abrasion, that surfaces are seamed and furrowed, +and that sometimes a crash startles us? Is not the wonder rather that +crashes are not the order of the day, that the seams are seams and not +cracks through the whole crust, and that the largest result of +abrasion is smoothness and evenness and polish? + +Yet, utterly unmindful of the fitness of things, people will wonder +why a man and a woman who are thrown occasionally together do +not--what? Attack each other in an outburst of impatience at stupidity +and cross-purposes? Not at all, but "strike up a match." That is, put +themselves into relations which shall turn an association whose +redeeming feature is that it is casual and under control into an +association that is constant and irrevocable! Masculine backwardness +is not perhaps considered remarkable, as indeed there is very little +of it to be remarked, but the utmost surprise is expressed on those +rare occasions in which women are supposed to have declined a +"desirable offer." That a woman should not avail herself of an +opportunity to become the wife of a man who is well-educated, +well-mannered, "well-off," seems to be an inexplicable fact. He is her +equal in fortune, position, character. Commentators "cannot see any +reason why she should not marry him." But is there any reason why she +should marry him? The burden of proof lies upon motion, not rest; upon +him who changes, not upon him who retains a position. All these things +which are called inducements are no more than so many sticks and +stones; you might just as well repeat the a b c, and call that +inducement. The matters which bear on such conclusions are of an +entirely different nature. Your "inducements" may come in by and by, +when the main point is settled, to modify outward acts, but till the +Divine Spirit moves, they are without form and void. + +Nor are well-wishers always so careful as to take the man himself into +the account. If surroundings are favorable, if to a by-stander there +seems to be a sort of house-and-barn adaptation, it is enough. House +and barn should at once join roof and become one edifice. It is of no +importance that this holds stalls for horned oxen, and that +entertainment for angels; that the one is informed with spiritual life +and the other filled with hay: hay and heaven are all one to many +eyes. "Why does she not marry him?" Why? Simply because there is not +enough of him, or what there is is not of the right stuff. If he were +twenty instead of one, she might dare promise to honor him, might dare +hope to respect him. If he had just twenty times as much of _being_, +or if his amplitude could be converted into fineness, he might meet +her on equal ground; but being only one and such a one, she is in an +overwhelming majority, and it is not republican that majorities should +yield to minorities. He may be, as you say, "just as good as she," but +not good for her. + +These views appear in the (perhaps apocryphal) stories occasionally +told of renowned personages. A poor man or an obscure man proposes to +a young woman whose father is rich, and he is refused. The poor and +obscure man becomes presently a great banker, a governor, president of +a college, or recovers lost counties, or dukedoms in Europe. I have +even heard the story repeated of the Emperor of the French and a New +York young woman. Moral: Is not the woman sorry now that she did not +marry the poor man? Probably not. Certainly not if she belongs to the +true type. What have all these changes to do with the matter? Is he +any more comfortable to live with because he is a governor? Is he any +more adapted to her because he is a duke? It is barely possible that +she was mistaken; but if she were, she is probably ignorant of it +herself. His present state does not indicate a mistake. Only a close +companionship would be likely to discover it. The qualities which make +domestic content are not usually revealed by ever so brilliant public +success. If they originally existed, they are little likely to have +been developed. As business affairs are usually conducted, they are +more likely to drown out home happiness than to create it. But all +this is irrelevant. Nothing is really meant to which this is an +answer. It is only the manifestation of a blindness to what +constitutes attraction. The man has discovered outside advantages, and +it is assumed that that is enough. She of course refused him because +she had not sagacity enough to discern the shadow of his coming +greatness. It does not seem to be suspected that she could have +refused him because he did not suit her! What difference does it make +whether a man is a clown or a king, if you do not like him? Is a great +judge necessarily an agreeable person to think of? Is a world-renowned +financier necessarily the person who will have most power to draw out +what is good and gracious in a woman? Girls naturally give their +loyalty to men, not to crowns, or ermine. The lovely Florina was as +fond of King Charming, when he came to her in the shape of a Bluebird, +as when he appeared at court in royal majesty. Wicked outside opinion, +it is true, warps their judgment in a very great degree, and destroys +their freedom; but of their own nature, in their inmost hearts, they +are true; and when they have independence enough to manifest their +truth in these palpable acts, they may be safely set down as true. +They acted from sincerity and dignity, not from mercenary +short-sightedness. They acted from the most simple and natural causes, +and what have they to regret? It is much better to be the wife of an +honest and respectable American citizen than to be Empress of the +French,--even looking at it in a solely worldly point of view. When we +add to this that one loves the American citizen, and does not love the +French Emperor, the case may as well be ruled out of court at once. +There is no ground for any further proceedings. + +Men and women act upon these views too much, as well in regulating as +in establishing a home. They recognize and make liberal allowance for +palpable, outspoken wants, yet are unmindful or contemptuous of others +equally important, but less on the surface, and less sharply defined. +A man who would incur self-reproach and the contempt of his neighbors +by allowing his wife to suffer from lack of bread in his house, will +not suspect so much as a slight dereliction of duty in allowing her to +suffer from lack of beauty there. A woman who is never weary of +meeting the demands upon her husband's palate, who will have the joint +cooked exactly to his liking, and the dinner prompt to his +convenience, would scout the thought of leaving her morning's +occupation to give him her company in a two hours' drive. People will +devote their lives uncomplainingly to meeting each other's wants, but +will neutralize all their efforts and sacrifice happiness hand over +hand by neglecting or disregarding each other's tastes. They will +spend all their money in thatching the roof, but will do just nothing +at all to keep the fire alive on the hearth. There are very few indeed +who are not able to do both. Of course if people lavish their whole +strength on gross matters, they have none left for the finer; but it +is not often that gross matters _need_ the whole strength. A careful +observation and just views would be able, as a general thing without +detriment, to wrest many an hour from vain, vulgar, useless, or +harmful pursuits, to bestow it upon adornments and amenities that do +not perish with the using. And if a man or a woman is so deteriorated +as to prefer the indulgence of a coarse or frivolous appetite, or the +inordinate indulgence of a merely natural appetite, to the +gratification and cultivation of refined and elevated tastes,--the +more's the pity! + + + + +XIII. + + +I marvel that men who lay so little stress on the heart, by reason of +the great stress they lay upon the intellect, should use their +intellects to so little purpose in matters so important, and which +come so closely home to their business and bosoms as those we have +been discussing. I marvel that, while they see facts so distinctly, +they have so little skill to trace out causes. Many instances have +been given to show how far more unreasonable, intense, malignant, +vulgar, and venomous is the hatred of their country shown and felt by +Southern women than that evinced by Southern men. It is very commonly +said that they have done more than the men to keep alive the +rebellion. The coarseness and impropriety of their behavior have been +relatively far greater than that of the men. Has any one ever +suggested that the narrowness, the utter insufficiency of their +education, the state of almost absolute pupilage bedizened over with a +gaudy tinsel of tilt and tournament chivalry in which they have been +kept, absolutely incapacitating them for broad views, rational +thinking, or even a refined self-possession in emergencies, had +anything to do with it? In a newspaper published under the auspices of +one of our Sanitary Fairs, a contributor says: "I never saw a nurse +from any hospital, but I asked her the question if the ladies there +worked without jealousy or unkind feeling toward each other? _and I +have not found the first one who could answer 'yes' to that +question_.... I know a gentleman (a noble one, too) who urged his +daughter _not_ to go to the hospitals, 'because,' said he, 'you will +surely get into a muss: it cannot be helped; women cannot be together +without it." Is it indeed an arrangement of Divine Providence, that +women cannot act together without so much bickering, jealousy, petty +domineering, small envies, and venomous quarrels, as to make it +undesirable that they should act together at all? Is magnanimity +impossible to women? Are they incapable of exercising it towards each +other? Or may it not be that their lives have generally so little +breadth, they are so universally absorbed in limited interests, their +"sphere" has been so rigidly circumscribed to their own families, that +when they are set in wider circles, they are like spoiled children? In +the troubles that arise in female conventions and combinations, I do +not see any inherent deficiency of female organization, but every sign +of very serious deficiencies in female education. + +Men make merry over the unwillingness of women to acknowledge their +increasing years; over the artifices to which they resort for the +purpose of hiding the encroachments of time; but the reluctance and +the deception are the direct harvest of men's own sowing. It is men, +and nobody else, who are chiefly to blame for the weakness and the +meanness. They have decreed what shall be coin and what counters, and +women do but acknowledge their image and superscription. Exceptions +are not innumerous, but I think every one will confess, upon a +moment's reflection, that in the general apportionment the heroines of +literature are the lovely and delightful young women, and the hatred, +envy, malice, and all uncharitableness are allotted to the old. Hetty +Sorrels are not very common, nor Mrs. Bennetts very uncommon. Why +should not women dread to be thought old, when age is tainted and +taunted? Why should they not fight off its approaches, when it is +indissolubly connected with repulsive traits? Women see themselves +prized and petted, not chiefly for those qualities which age improves, +but for those which it destroys or impairs. And as women are made by +nature to set a high value upon the good opinions of men, and are +warped by a vicious education into setting almost the sole value of +life upon them, they logically cling with the utmost tenacity to that +youth which is their main security for regard. "Youth and beauty" are +the twin deities of song and story. "Youth and beauty" are supposed to +unlock the doors of fate. It is no matter that in real life fact may +not comport with the statements of fiction. No matter that in real +life the strongest power carries the day, whether it be youthful or +aged, fair or frightful. The events of real life have but small radii, +but the ripples of romance circle out over the whole sea of +civilization, and wave succeeds wave till the impression becomes +wellnigh continuous. + +(One can hardly suppress a smile, by the way, at the absurdity which +this coupling sometimes presupposes. A man will think to swell your +horror of rebel barbarities by asserting that they spared neither +youth nor beauty, as if you like to be shot any better because you are +old and ugly!) + +So with tight-lacing and the new attachment of a _chiropodist_ to +fashionable families. Most men, it is true, harangue against the +former; but if masculine sentiment were really set against +tight-lacing and its results, do you think girls would long make their +dressing-maids sit up waiting their return from balls, lest an +unpractised hand should not unloose the lacings by those short and +easy stages which are necessary to prevent the shock of nature's too +sudden rebound? Or if you plead "not guilty" to this count, do you +believe that girls who have been liberally educated, taught to turn +their eyes to large prospects, large duties, and large hopes, could be +induced so to put themselves to the torture? Was a right-minded and +right-hearted loving and beloved wife, an intelligent and judicious +Christian mother, a wise and kindly woman, ever known voluntarily to +assume a strait-waistcoat? If girls were trained as every living soul +should be trained, would it be necessary to have a "professor" go the +rounds of fine houses in the morning to undo the injuries inflicted by +tight shoes on the previous evening? If a girl were sagaciously +managed, would she not have too much discrimination to suppose that, +when a poet sings of + + "Her feet beneath her petticoat + Like little mice," + +she is expected to reduce her feet to the dimensions of mice, or that, +when he announces + + "That which her slender waist confined + Shall now my joyful temples bind," + +she is thinking of a slenderness produced by lashing herself to the +bedpost? Be sure a woman will never cramp her body in that way, until +society has cramped her soul and mind to still more unnatural +distortion. Lay the axe unto the root of the tree, if you wish to +accomplish anything; do not merely stand off and throw pebbles at the +fruit. + +Society is unsparing in its censure of the girl who boasts of her +"offers." There are few things which men will not sooner forgive than +the revelation of their own rejected proposals. Bayard Taylor makes +Hannah Thurston recoil in disgust at Seth Wattles's hesitating +suggestion: "You,--you won't say anything about this?" "What do you +take me for?" exclaims immaculate womanhood. Why then is a girl's life +made to consist in the abundance of her suitors? It is stamped a shame +for a woman not to receive an offer, and then it is stamped a shame +for her to take away her reproach by revealing that she has received +one. Surely, she is in evil case! + +I do not profess any overweening admiration for those qualities of +character which induce the exultant publication of such personal +items; but I do say that men have no right to complain. The natural +results of their own course would not be any more than accomplished, +if "offers" were published in the newspapers along with the deaths and +marriages. + +If you really wish women to be magnanimous, catholic, you must grant +to them the conditions of becoming so. Just so long as their souls are +cabined, cribbed, and confined, whether in a palace or in a hovel, +with only such fresh air as a narrow crevice or casement may afford, +they will have but a stunted and unsymmetrical development. You cannot +systematically and deliberately dwarf or repress nine faculties, and +wickedly stimulate one, and that a subordinate one, and then have as +the result a perfect woman. You may force Nature, but she will have +her revenges. He that offendeth in one point, is guilty of all. The +blow that you aim at the head, not only makes the whole head sick, but +the whole heart faint. When you have brought women to the point of +writing such babble as, + + "We poor women, feeble-natured, + Large of heart, in wisdom small, + Who the world's incessant battle + Cannot understand at all," &c., &c, &c., + +do you think you have laid the foundation for solid character? Lay +aside your alternate weakness and severity, your silly coddling and +your equally silly cautioning, and permit a woman to be a human being. +Let the free winds have free access to her, bringing the fragrance of +June and the frostiness of December. Fling wide open all the portals, +that the sacred soul may go in and out as God decreed. Let every power +which God has bestowed have free course to run and be glorified, and +you shall truly find before long that the pleasure of the Lord shall +prosper in the hands of women. + +If the weakness and ignorance and frivolity of which I have spoken be +natural, as it is insisted, if the heaven-born instincts of women do, +as you in effect asseverate, lead women to devote themselves +exclusively to all manner of materialism and pettinesses, and to be +content with what sustenance they can find in the crumbs of love that +fall from their husbands' tables; if it is unnatural and unwomanly, as +you say it is, to have other inclinations and aspirations, and to +experience any personal or social discontent,--why do you say so much +to urge them to such devotion and content? People are not largely +given to doing unnatural things. They do not need incentives, +strenuous persuasion, labored and reiterated arguments, to induce them +to do what their hearts by creation incline them to do; nor do they +need to be held back by main force from that to which they have no +natural leaning. Nobody builds a dam to make water run down hill. No +tunnelling nor blasting of rocks is necessary to lure rivers to the +ocean. No urging and coaxing must be resorted to before the +parent-robins build a nest and gather food for their young. But the +instincts of women are as strong, the nature of women is as marked, as +those of birds, and there is no need of your counselling them to walk +in the paths which God has appointed for their feet. No. You do not +really believe what you are saying. You feel, if you do not know,--you +have a dim, instinctive sense that the life which you appoint to women +is not their natural life. It crushes and deforms their nature +continually, and continually Nature bursts out in violent resistance, +and continually with shriek and din and clamor you strive to frighten +her back into her narrow torture-house, with a success all too great. + +There seems to lurk in the masculine breast an unmanly fear lest the +development of the female mind should be fatal to the superiority of +the male mind. But a superiority which must prolong its existence by +the enforcement of ignorance is of a very ignoble sort. If, to +preserve his relative position, man must, by persuasion or by law, +forbid to women opportunities for education and a field for action, +together with moral support in obtaining the one and contesting in the +other, he pays to the female mind a greater compliment, and heaps upon +his own character a greater reproach, than the highest female +attainments could do. He shows that he dares not risk a fair trial. If +she cannot rival him, the sooner she makes the attempt, and incurs the +failure, the sooner will she revert to her old position, and the +sooner will peace be restored. The very discouragement by which man +surrounds her shows that he does not believe in the original and +inherent necessity of her present position. If this counsel be of +women merely, it will come to naught of itself. You need not bring up +so much rhetoric against it. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow +it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. + +There is another fear, equally honest, but more honorable, or rather +less dishonorable. There is a belief, apparently, that the womanly +character somehow needs the restraints of existing customs. It is +feared that a sudden rush of science to the female brain would produce +asphyxia in the female heart. It is feared that the study of +philosophy, the higher mathematics, and the ancient languages would +unsex women,--would destroy the gentleness, the tenderness, the +softness, the yieldingness, the sweet and endearing qualities which +traditionally belong to them. They would lose all the graces of their +sex, and become, say men, as one of us. + +From such a fate, good Lord! deliver us. I agree most heartily with +men in the opinion, that no calamity could be more fatal to woman than +a growing likeness to men; but no cloud so big as the smallest baby's +smallest finger-nail portends it. Healthy development never can +produce unhealthy results. Nature is never at war with herself. The +good and wise and all-powerful Creator never created a faculty to be +destroyed, a faculty whose utmost cultivation, if harmonious and not +discordant, should be injurious. He made all things beautiful and +beneficial in their proper places. It is only arbitrary contraction +and expansion that produce mischief. It is the neglect of one thing +and the undue prominence given to another that destroys symmetry and +causes disaster. + +There has been so little experiment made in female education, that we +must reason somewhat abstractly; yet we are not left, even in this +early stage, without witnesses. + +On the 26th of May, 1863, died Mrs. O. W. Hitchcock, wife of one of +the Presidents of Amherst College. A writer, who professes to have +known her well, gives the following account of her:-- + +"Born in Amherst, March 8th, 1796, fitted for college and accomplished +alike in the fine arts and the exact sciences in an age when the +standard of female education was comparatively low, associated with +Dr. Hitchcock, then unknown to the public, in the instruction of +Deerfield Academy, and there the instrument of her future husband's +conversion, _filling_ to the full the office of a pastor's wife for +five years, in Conway, Massachusetts, and for the rest of her long +life sharing all her husband's labors, sorrows, joys, and honors, +while at the same time she was the centre of every private, social, +charitable, and public movement of which it was suitable for a lady to +be the centre, she passed away from us by a death as serenely +beautiful as the evening on which she died, May 26, 1863, at the age +of sixty-seven, leaving a vacancy not only in the home and the hearts +of her bereaved husband and afflicted children, but in the community +and the wide circle of her acquaintance, which can be filled by none +but Him who comforted the mourning family at Bethany. If strangers +would form some idea of what Mrs. Hitchcock was, especially as a _help +meet_ for her honored husband, and if friends would refresh their +memory of a truly 'virtuous woman,' let them read, as it were over her +still open grave, the dedication, by Dr. Hitchcock, of his 'Religion +and Geology' to his 'beloved wife.' Never did husband pay to wife a +higher or _juster_ tribute of respect and affection. + +"The following is the dedication referred to. It was written in +1851:-- + + "'_To my beloved Wife._ Both gratitude and affection prompt me + to dedicate these Lectures to you. To your kindness and + self-denying labors I have been mainly indebted for the + ability and leisure to give any successful attention to + scientific pursuits. Early should I have sunk under the + pressure of feeble health, nervous despondency, poverty, and + blighted hopes, had not your sympathies and cheering counsels + sustained me. And during the last thirty years of professional + labors, how little could I have done in the cause of science, + had you not, in a great measure, relieved me of the cares of a + numerous family! Furthermore, while I have described + scientific facts with the pen only, how much more vividly have + they been portrayed by your pencil! And it is peculiarly + appropriate that your name should be associated with mine in + any literary effort where the theme is geology; since your + artistic skill has done more than my voice to render that + science attractive to the young men whom I have instructed. I + love especially to connect your name with an effort to defend + and illustrate that religion which I am sure is dearer to you + than everything else. I know that you would forbid this public + allusion to your labors and sacrifices, did I not send it + forth to the world before it meets your eye. But I am + unwilling to lose this opportunity of bearing a testimony + which both justice and affection urge me to give. In a world + where much is said of female deception and inconstancy, I + desire to testify that one man at least has placed implicit + confidence in woman, and has not been disappointed. Through + many checkered scenes have we passed together, both on the + land and the sea, at home and in foreign countries; and now + the voyage of life is almost ended. The ties of earthly + affection, which have so long united us in uninterrupted + harmony and happiness, will soon be sundered. But there are + ties which death cannot break; and we indulge the hope that by + them we shall be linked together and to the throne of God + through eternal ages. In life and in death I abide + + "'Your affectionate husband, + "'EDWARD HITCHCOCK.'" + +Note here everything, but specially two things + +1. Mrs. Hitchcock was fitted for college, accomplished in the fine +arts and the exact sciences, sympathized in her husband's tastes and +understood his pursuits so thoroughly as to be able to render him +essential assistance in his professional duties. + +2. Note the use and connections of the word _kindness_. She relieved +him of the cares of a numerous family, and so gave him leisure for his +scientific researches. Does that invalidate what I have before said +regarding paternal duties? On the contrary, it strengthens my words. +Dr. Hitchcock, in the fulness of his beautiful fame, in the ripeness +of his years, confirms the truth of my principles. He knew--the +great-hearted gentleman, the beloved disciple--that these cares +belonged to him by right, and that it was of grace and not of law that +his wife assumed them. So impressed is he with her kindness, so filled +with gratitude is his magnanimous heart, that he even ventures to run +the risk of wounding her delicacy by offering thanks in this public +manner; shielding her, however, from every breath of offence by +skilfully declaring her freedom from all participation in the +publicity. _He_ uses the word kindness properly. It was a kindness, +indeed, for her to step out of her own sphere and assume the burdens +of his; but her husband's love was her impelling motive, and his +gratitude her exceeding great reward. Not strictly her duty, it became +undoubtedly her delight. For love is lavish. Love counts no sacrifice, +knows of none. For a husband who loved and recognized her, a wife +would bear Atlas on her shoulders. Only when it is coldly reckoned +upon as a right, coldly received as a due, does service become +servitude. + +Read now the dedication of that royal book "On Liberty," by John +Stuart Mill, "one of the most powerful and original thinkers of the +nineteenth century," a man of culture so thorough that his has been +said to be the most cultivated mind of the age:-- + +"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and +in part the author, of all that is best in my writings,--the friend +and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest +incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward,--I dedicate +this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs +as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very +insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision; some +of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful +re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I +but capable of interpreting to the world one half the great thoughts +and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the +medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from +anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but +unrivalled wisdom." + +Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we are told by encyclopedists, was +educated in a masculine range of studies, and with a masculine +strictness of intellectual discipline. The poets and philosophers of +Greece were the companions of her mind. In imaginative power and +originality of intellectual construction she is said to be entitled to +the very first place among the later English poets. She had considered +carefully, and was capable of treating wisely, the deepest social +problems which have engaged the attention of the most sagacious and +practical minds. Society in the aggregate, and the self-consciousness +of the solitary individual, were held in her grasp with equal ease, +and observed with equal accuracy. She had a statesman's comprehension +of the social and political problems which perplex the well-wishers of +Italy, and discussed them with the spirit of a statesman. This is not +my pronunciamento nor my language, but those of Hon. George S. +Hillard. + +With a word fitly spoken this eminently strong-minded woman drew to +her side a poet of poets, and he in turn drew her to his heart. + +When ten years of marriage had made him so well acquainted with his +wife as to give weight to his testimony, he wrote, at the close of a +volume of poems called "Men and Women," "One word more,"--surely the +seemliest word that ever poet uttered. He sang of the one sonnet that +Rafael wrote, of the one picture that Dante painted,-- + + "Once, and only once, and for one only, + (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language + Fit and fair and simple and sufficient,"-- + +and somewhat sadly adds:-- + + "I shall never, in the years remaining, + Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, + Make you music that should all-express me; + So it seems: I stand on my attainment. + This of verse alone, one life allows me; + Other heights in other lives, God willing-- + All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love. + + "Yet a semblance of resource avails us-- + Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. + Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, + Lines I write the first time and the last time. + + * * * * * + + He who writes may write for once, as I do. + + "Love, you saw me gather men and women, + Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy. + + * * * * * + + I am mine and yours,--the rest be all men's. + + Let me speak this once in my true person, + + Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence,-- + Pray you, look on these my men and women, + Take and keep my fifty poems finished; + Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! + Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things. + + "Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! + Here in London, yonder late in Florence. + Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. + + * * * * * + + What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? + Nay--for if that moon could love a mortal, + Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) + All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos) + She would turn a new side to her mortal, + Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,-- + Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, + Blind to Galileo on his turret, + Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even! + + * * * * * + + God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures + Boasts two soul-sides,--one to face the world with, + One to show a woman when he loves her. + + "This I say of me, but think of you, Love! + This to you,--yourself my moon of poets! + Ah, but that's the world's side,--there's the wonder,-- + Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you. + There, in turn I stand with them and praise you, + Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it, + But the best is when I glide from out them, + Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, + Come out on the other side, the novel + Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, + When I hush and bless myself with silence. + + "O, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, + O, their Dante of the dread Inferno, + Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it, + Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!" + +Have you read it a hundred times before? Are you not grateful to me +for giving you an excuse to begin on the second hundred? + +O women, since the heavens have been opened to reveal these points of +light, and you can infer somewhat the radiance which may wrap you +about with ineffable glory, will you be satisfied again with the +beggarly elements of a sordid world? Seeing on what heights a woman +may stand, will you lower to the level graded by generations of silly, +selfish, sensual male minds? Is it really worth while? If it is not a +good bargain to lose your own soul that you may gain the whole world, +what must it be to lose your soul and gain only a few stereotyped +phrases? If every other man that ever lived preached a crusade for +"stocking-mending, love, and cookery," and only these three whom I +have mentioned bore a different banner, would it not still be better +to shape your course by theirs? Is it not better to be worthy of the +respect and reverence of thinkers, than to receive the serenade of +sounding brass? Is it not better to heed the one true voice crying in +the wilderness, than to join in the uproar of the idolatrous mob that +shouts, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" When I lose faith in human +destiny, and am almost ready to say, "Who shall show us any good?" I +remember these utterances,--so lofty that one may say, not as the +fulsome courtiers of old time cried, but reverently and duly, "It is +the voice of God, and not of men,"--I recall these utterances, the +first so heartsome and overflowing that there is no thought for +niceties of phrase, but only one eager desire to pay an undemanded +tribute, only a warm, imperative urgency of expression; the second +inexpressibly mournful, but with such calm majesty of pain as an +ancient sculptor might have wrought into passionless marble, or a +Roman Senator folded beneath his mantle;--in the first, a man looking +from his happy earthly home, forward and upward to a happier home in +heaven; in the second, one gazing hopelessly from his waste places +down into darkness and the grave;--the first believing, "Because I +live ye shall live also"; the second sadly querying, "Man goeth to the +grave, and where is he?"--the first become as a little child through +faith; the second only as a pagan sage by reason;--the third heaping +up with ever unwearied and ever more delighted hand the brightest gems +of learning and fancy to adorn a beloved brow;--all turning at the +summit of their renown, at the point of their grandest achievement, to +do honor to a woman, the first two vindicating the intellect of +wifeliness, the last the wifeliness of intellect; all breathing a +magnanimity in whose presence no smallness can be so much as +named;--and I say there is more strength and courage to be gained, +more hope for the future and more faith in humanity to be gathered, +from such a glimpse than from the contemplation of five--what? +hundred? thousand? millions?--of ordinary marriages. + +But to return to the question at issue,--Are these exceptional cases? +It is man's own work if they are. Just as the elevation of one negro +from slavery to supremacy, from stupidity to intelligence, is an +indisputable proof that the elevation of the whole race is possible, +so the case of one such woman as those I have mentioned settles the +question for the whole sex. All may not attain the same heights, but +this shows that intellectuality is open to them without destroying +spirituality. Education, it seems, can do just as much for woman as +for men. As careful mental training makes a man large-minded, it makes +a woman large-minded. If it does not make a man narrow-souled and +shallow-hearted, it will not make a woman so. If it does not unfit a +man for manly duties, it will not unfit a woman for womanly duties. If +ignorance and petty interests and limited views make a man trivial, +obstinate, prejudiced, why is it not the same things which make a +woman so? It is not necessary to determine whether there is an +essential difference between the masculine and feminine brain or +nature. All the difference, both in quantity and quality, which any +one demands, may be granted without affecting this question of mental +culture. No matter whether it be strong or weak, large or small, +educate what mind there is to its highest capacity. If there is no +difference, it is so much gained. If there is a difference, each mind +will select from the material furnished that which is suitable for its +own sustenance. Violet and apple-tree grow side by side. If the soil +is poor they are both meagre; if the soil is rich, they both flourish. +From the same tract one gathers his golden and mellow fruit, the other +her glowing purple richness. You may put a covering over the violet +and stunt it into a pale, puny, sickly thing, or you may cultivate it +to an imperial beauty. But it will be a violet still. The utmost +cultivation will not turn it into an apple-tree. Every plant may have +a different taste and a different need from every other plant, but +they all want the earth. The tiny draughts of the slender anemone are +not to be compared with the rivers of sap that bear to the royal oak +its centuries; but oak and anemone each demands all the juice it can +quaff, and earth and sea and sky are alike laid under tribute to fill +the fairy drinking-cup of the one, as well as the huge wassail-bowl of +the other. + +So with mind. The philosopher, the poet, the theologian, the chemist, +quarry in the same mine, and each brings up thence the treasure that +his soul loves. The same cloud sweeps over the farmer to refresh his +thirsty lands, over the philosopher to confirm his theories, over the +painter to tempt his pencil. The principle of selection that obtains +in the lower ranks of Nature will not fail us in her higher walks. + +It is because law, logic, science, philosophy, have been so almost +exclusively in the hands of men, that they have accomplished such +puerile results. With all their beauty and power, they have left our +common life so poor, and vapid, and vicious, because only half their +lesson has been learned. But they bear a message from the Most High, +and when woman shall be permitted to lend her listening ear and bring +to the interpretation her finer sense, we shall have good tidings of +great joy which shall be to all people. + +But what is to become of masculine domination and feminine submission? +O faithless and perverse generation! Do you indeed believe that it is +"natural" for woman to trust and for man to be trusted,--for man to +guide and woman to be guided,--for man to rule and woman to be ruled? +In whose hand, then, lies the power to change Nature? Is she so weak +that a little more or less of this or that, administered by one of her +creatures, can alter all her arrangements? The granite of this round +world lies underneath, and the alluvium settles on the surface. Do you +suppose that anything and everything you can do in the way of +cultivation will have power to upheave the granite from its hidden +depths and send down the alluvium to discharge its underground duties? +What bands hold in their place the oxygen and nitrogen? Who says to +the silex and the phosphorus, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no +farther"? And do you think that, if you cannot change the quantities +of these simple elements, whose processes are patent to the eye, you +can change the qualities of the most complex thing in the whole world, +which works behind an impenetrable veil? If you cannot add one cubit +to a woman's stature, nor make one hair of her head white or black, do +you think you can add or subtract one feature from her mind? Cease +with high-sounding praise to extol the womanly nature, while +practically you deny that there is any. Bring your deeds up to your +words. Believe that God did not give to bird and brake and flower a +stability of character which he denied to half the human race. Believe +that a woman may be a woman still, though careful culture make the +wilderness blossom like the rose,--and not only a woman, but as much +more and better a woman as the garden is more and better than the +wilderness. The distinctions of sex are innate and eternal. They +create their own barriers, which cannot be overleaped. + +Do you think that, in the examples which I have given,--and perhaps in +others which your own observation may have furnished you,--there was +any unusual lack of harmony or adjustment? Do you judge, from the +testimony of their husbands, that Mrs. Hitchcock, or Mrs. Mill, or +Mrs. Browning were any more overbearing, any more greedy of authority, +any more ambitious of outside power, any more unlovely and +unattractive, than the silliest Mrs. Maplesap, who never knew any +"sterner duty than to give caresses"? He must have used his eyes to +little purpose who has failed to see that, in a symmetrical womanhood, +every member keeps pace with every other. If one member suffers, all +the members suffer. Power is not local, but all-embracing. Weakness +does not coexist with strength. A silly, shallow woman cannot love +deeply, cannot live commandingly. I believe that a woman of +intellectual strength has a corresponding affectional strength. An +evil education may have so warped her that she seems to be a power for +evil rather than for good; but, all other things being equal, the +sounder the judgment the deeper the love. The clear head and the +strong heart go together. A woman who can assist her husband in +geology, or revise his metaphysics, or criticise his poetry, is much +more likely to hold him in wifely love and honor, is much more likely +to enliven his joy and medicine his weariness, than she who can only +clutch at the hem of his robe. Her love is intelligent, comprehensive, +firmly founded, and not to be lightly disturbed. Weakness may possess +itself of the outworks, but is easily dislodged. Strength goes within +and takes possession. + +All the unloveliness and unwisdom which may have characterized the +"woman's movement," and of which men seem to stand in perpetual dread, +are but the natural consequence of their own misdoing. It was a +reaction against their wrong. Did women demand ungracefully? It was +because their entreaty had been scorned and their grace slighted. +Never,--I would risk my life on the assertion,--never did any number +of women leave a home to clamor in public for social rights unless +impelled by the sting of social wrongs, either in their own person or +in the persons of those dear to them. Every unwomanliness had its rise +in a previous unmanliness. + +In a vile, nameless book to which I have before referred, I find +quoted the story of a rajah who was in the habit of asking, "Who is +she?" whenever a calamity was related to him, however severe or +however trivial. His attendants reported to him one morning that a +laborer had fallen from a ladder when working at his palace, and had +broken his neck. "Who is she?" demanded the rajah. "A man, no woman, +great prince," was the reply. "Who is she?" repeated the rajah, with +increased anger. In vain did the attendants assert the manhood of the +laborer. "Bring me instant intelligence what woman caused this +accident, or woe upon your heads!" exclaimed the prince. In an hour +the active attendants returned, and, prostrating themselves, cried +out, "O wise and powerful prince, as the ill-fated laborer was working +on the scaffold, he was attracted by the beauty of one of your +highness's damsels, and, gazing on her, lost his balance and fell to +the ground." "You hear now," said the prince, "no accident can happen +without a woman being, _in some way_, an instrument." + +One might, perhaps, be pardoned for asking whether entire reliance can +be placed on testimony which is dictated beforehand on penalty of +losing one's head; but the anecdote indicates about the usual quantity +of sense and sagacity which is popularly brought to bear on the "woman +question," and we will let it pass. I have quoted the story because, +by changing the feminine for the masculine noun and pronoun, it so +admirably expresses my own views. As I look around upon the world, and +see the sin, the sorrow, the suffering, it seems to me that, so far as +it can be traced to human agency, man is at the bottom of every evil +under the sun. As the husband is, the wife is. The nursery rhyme gives +the whole history of man and woman in a nutshell:-- + + "Jack and Gill + Went up the hill + To draw a pail of water; + Jack fell down + And broke his crown, + And Gill came tumbling after." + +Men have a way of falling back on Eve's transgression, as if that were +a sufficient excuse for all short- or wrong-coming. Milton glosses +over Adam's part in the transgression, and even gives his sin a rather +magnanimous air,--which is very different from that which Adam's +character wears in Genesis,--while all the blame is laid on "the woman +whom thou gavest to be with me." But before pronouncing judgment, I +should like to hear Eve's version of the story. Moses has given his, +and Milton his,--the first doubtless conveying as much truth as he was +able to be the medium of, the second expressing all the paganism of +his sex and his generation, mingled with the gall of his own private +bitterness; but we have never a word from Eve. That is, we have man's +side represented. But Eve will awake one day, and then, and not till +then, we shall know the whole. Meanwhile, it is well for men to go +back to the beginning of creation to find woman the guilty party. If +they stop anywhere short of it, they will be forced to shift the +burden to their own shoulders. A woman may have been originally one +step in advance of man in evil-doing, but he very soon caught up with +her, and has never since suffered himself to labor under a similar +disadvantage. I cannot think of a single folly, weakness, or vice in +women which men have not either planted or fostered; and generally +they have done both. But they do not see the link between cause and +effect, and they fail to direct their denunciation to the proper +quarter. + +It only needs to trust nature! Learn that women crave to pay homage as +strongly as men crave to receive it. The higher women rise the more +eagerly will they turn to somewhat higher. It cannot be sweeter for a +man to be looked up to than it is for a woman to look up to him. Never +can you raise women to such an altitude that they will find their +pride and pleasure in looking down. Women want men to be masters quite +as much as men themselves wish it; but they want them first to be +worthy of it. Women never rebel against the authority of goodness, of +superiority, but against the tyranny of obstinacy, ignorance, +heartlessness. The supremacy which a husband holds by virtue of his +character is a wife's boon and blessing, and she suns herself in it +and is filled with an unspeakable content. It is the supremacy of mere +position, the supremacy of inferiority, that galls and irritates; that +breaks out in conventions and resolutions and remonstrances, in +suicide and insanity and crime. "The women now-a-days are playing the +devil all round," I heard a man say not long ago, in speaking of a +woman hitherto respectable, who had left husband and children and +eloped with some unknown adventurer. And I said in my heart, "I am +glad of it. Men have been playing the devil single-handed long enough, +I am glad women are taking it up. _Similia similibus curantur_." +Things must, to be sure, be in a very dreadful condition to require +such "heroic treatment," but things are in a very dreadful condition, +and if men will not amend them out of love of justice and right and +purity, I do not see any other way than that they must be forced to do +it out of a selfish regard to their own household comfort. Let my +people go, that they may serve me, was the word of the Lord to +Pharaoh, but Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people +go. Not until there was no longer in Egypt a house in which there was +not one dead did the required emancipation come. Then with a great cry +of horror and dread were the children of Israel sent out as the Lord +their God commanded. Let my people go, that they may serve me, seems +the Lord to have been saying these many years to the taskmasters of +America; but who is the Lord, the taskmasters have cried, that we +should obey his voice to let Israel go? We know not the Lord, neither +will we let Israel go. Now on summer fields red with blood, through +the terrible voice of the cannonade bearing its summons of death, we +are learning in anguish and tears who is the Lord; and if men choose +not to do justly and love mercy and walk softly with women, it is +according to analogy that women shall become to them the scourge of +God. The very charities, the tendernesses, the blessing and beneficent +qualities against which they have sinned shall become thongs to lash +and scorpions to sting,--and all the people shall say amen! + +I am so far from being surprised when women occasionally run away from +their husbands, that I rather marvel that there is not a hegira of +women; that our streets and lanes are not choked up with fugitives. I +do not believe in women's leaving their husbands to live with other +men; it is infamy and it is folly: but I do believe most profoundly in +women's leaving their husbands. It may be their right and their duty. +I think there is not the smallest danger in the state's putting all +possible power of this nature into the hands of women; because a +woman's nature is such that she will never exercise this power till +she has borne to the utmost, cruelty, malignity, or indifference; and, +in point of morality, indifference is just as good ground for +separation as cruelty. Love is the sole morality of marriage, and a +marriage to which love has never come, or from which it has departed, +is immorality, and a woman cannot continue in it without continually +incurring stain. I do not think she has a right to marry again; not +even a legal divorce justifies a second marriage; but she has a right +to withdraw from the man who imbrutes her. If the law does not justify +such action, she is right in taking the matter into her own hands. +There is no power on earth that can make a woman live with a man, if +she chooses not to live with him, and has a will strong enough to bear +out her choice; and when she finds that she ministers only to his +selfishness, when she discovers that her marriage is no marriage at +all, but an alliance offensive to all delicacy and opposed to all +improvement, she is not only justified in discontinuing it, but she is +not justified in continuing it. The position which a woman occupies in +such a connection is fairer in the eyes of the law, but morally it is +no less objectionable than if the marriage ceremony had never taken +place. A prayer and a promise cannot turn pollution into purity. + +Is this a movement towards violating the sanctity of marriage? It is +rather causing that marriage shall not with its sanctity protect sin. +When a slaver, freighted with wretchedness, unfurls from its masthead +the Stars and Stripes, that it may avoid capture, does it thereby free +itself from guilt, or does it desecrate our flag? Who honors his +country, he who permits the slave-ship to go on her horrible way +protected by the sacred name she has dared to invoke, or he who scorns +to suffer those folds to sanction crime, tears down the flag from its +disgracing eminence, unlooses the bands of the oppressor and bids the +oppressed go free? + +But are there not inconstant, weak women, who would take advantage of +such power, and for any fancied slight or foolish whim desert a good +home and a good husband? Well, what then? If a silly woman will of her +own motion go away and live by herself, I think she pursues a wise +course and deserves well of the Republic. I do not believe her good +husband will complain. On the contrary, he would doubtless adopt a +part at least of the Napoleonic principle, and build a bridge of gold +for his fleeing spouse. Such power will never make silly women, though +it may possibly render them more conspicuous, and that will be a +benefit. The more vividly a wrong is seen and felt, the more likely is +it to be removed. The remedy for the mischief which Lord Burleigh's +she-fool may do is, not to bind her to your hearth, but to keep her +away from it altogether; and better than a remedy, the preventive is, +so to treat women that they shall not be fools. If the ways of male +transgressors against women can be made so hard that they shall, in +very self-defence, set to and mend them--Heaven be praised! + +But what of the Bible? Is not the permanency of the marriage +connection inculcated there? No more than I inculcate it. I certainly +do not see it enforced in any such manner as to weaken my position. +Its permanency is assumed rather than enjoined; but a basis of +essential oneness is also assumed, which is the sufficient, the true, +and the only true and sufficient basis. "Therefore," says Adam, "shall +a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: +and they shall be one flesh." But if, instead of cleaving to his wife, +a man cleaves away from his wife, and instead of being one flesh, the +twain become twain,--I do not see that Adam has anything to say on the +subject. I suppose Eve looked so lovely to him, and he was so delighted +to have her, that it never occurred to him to make any provision +against the contingency of his abusing her. I have not made any +especial research, but I do not remember anything in the precepts or +examples of the Bible that enjoins the continuance of association in +spite of everything. In principle it is presumed to be perpetual, but +in practice the Bible makes certain exceptions to perpetuity,--lays +down rules indeed for separation. "What God hath joined together let +not man put asunder," says our Saviour, which surely does not mean +that what greed or lust or ambition has joined together woman may not +put asunder. When a young man and a maiden, drawn towards each other +by their God-given instincts, have become one by love, no mere outside +incompatibility of wealth or rank, or any such thing, should forbid +them to become one by marriage. For what God hath joined together let +not man put asunder. But the God who would not permit an ox and an ass +to be yoked together to the same plough, never, surely, joined in holy +wedlock a brute and an angel; and if the angel struggles to escape +from the unequal yoke-fellow to whom the powers of evil have coupled +her, who dare thrust her back under the yoke with a "Thus saith the +Lord"? Christ himself does not pronounce against the putting away of +wife or husband, but against the putting away of one and marrying +another. St. Paul's words regarding the Christian and the idolater can +hardly be applied in our society, but so far as they can be applied +they confirm my views. "Let not the wife depart from her husband," he +says, and immediately adds, "_but and if she depart, let her remain +unmarried_, or be reconciled to her husband." Precisely. For no +trivial cause should the wife give her husband over to be the prey of +his own wicked passions; but if he is so bad, if he so degrades her +life that she must depart, let her remain unmarried. + +It may be said that the interests of children would be compromised by +this mode of procedure. But the interests of children are already +fatally compromised. The interests of children are never at variance +with those of their parents. If it is for the interest of the mother +to leave her husband, it is not for the interest of her children that +she should stay with him. Whatever mortification or disgrace might +come to a few children would not be the greatest harm that could +happen to them, and in the end all children would be the gainers. + + "I hold that man the worst of public foes + Who, either for his own or children's sake, + To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife + Whom he knows false abide and rule the house." + +True. For "man" put "woman," and for "wife" "husband," and it will be +no less true. Of one thing be sure. The interests of children need not +block the wheels of legislation. The mother will take them into as +earnest consideration as any assembly of men. If they are not safe in +her hands, they will not be safe in any hands. + +Furthermore notice, the chief stress of Scriptural prohibition is laid +on men. The rules and restraints are for men. Very little injunction +is given to women. The Inspirer of the Bible knew the souls which he +had made, and for the hardness of men's hearts hedged them about with +restrictions, and for the softness of women's hearts left them chiefly +to their own sweet will. The great Creator knew that women would never +be largely addicted to leaving their husbands for trifling causes, nor +indeed are serious causes often sufficient to produce such results. +The rack and wheel and thumb-screw of married life are generally less +powerful than the patience of the wifely heart. But his Maker knew, +too, the inconstant nature of man, and bound him with the strictest +charges. I am entirely willing to abide by the Bible. Let the state +abide by it too, and give to women the legal power to save themselves. +There is no danger that they will abuse it. They will even use it only +to correct the most fatal abuse. + +But what, then, becomes of the marriage vows? Shall all their +solemnity vanish as a thread of tow when it toucheth the fire? No; but +I would have the marriage vows themselves vanish. They are heathenish. +They are a relic of barbarism. I have never studied into their origin, +but there is internal evidence that women had neither part nor lot in +framing them. The whole matter is one of those masculinities with +which society has been saddled for generations,--one of the bungling +makeshifts to which men resort when they are left to themselves, and +have but a vague notion of what it is that they want, and no notion at +all of how they are to get it. Look at it a moment. Here is the whole +world lying before man, waiting for him to enter in and take +possession. Woman desires nothing so much as that he should be monarch +of all he surveys. She acknowledges him to be in his own right, she +implores him to be by his own act, king. The greatest blessing that +can fall upon her is his coronation. It is only when the king is come +to his own that woman can enter into her lawful inheritance. So long +as he keeps his crown in abeyance, so long as he tramples his +prerogatives under foot, she too misses the purple and the throne. +What does he do? Instead of wearing his dignities, and discharging his +duties, he goes clad in rags, he dwells with beggars, he deals in +baubles, and depends for allegiance upon a word! With all his power +depending solely upon himself, with love and life awaiting only his +worthiness, with a devotion that knows no measure standing ready and +eager to bless him, all the dew of youth, all the faith of innocence, +all the boundless trust of tenderness, all the grace and charm and +resource of an infinitely daring and enduring affection,--he turns +away from it all and claims the coarseness of a promise! He does not +see the invincible strength of that subtile, impalpable bond which God +has ordained, but trusts his fate to a clumsy yet flimsy cord which +himself has woven, which his eyes can see and his hands handle, and in +which therefore he can believe, no matter though it parts at the first +strain. + +Does it? Did a person ever change his course out of respect to his +marriage vows? I do not mean his marriage or the marriage ceremony, +but simply the promises: to love, honor, and cherish on the one side; +to love, honor, and obey on the other. Did a man's promise ever fetter +his tongue from uttering the harsh word? Did a woman's promise ever +induce her to heed her husband's wishes? I trow not. The honor and +love which a husband or wife do not spontaneously render, they will +seldom render for a vow. If the vital spark of heavenly flame remains, +the promise is of no use. If it is gone out, the promise is of no +power. A solemn declaration of facts, a solemn assertion, calling upon +God and man for witness, would, it seems to me, be equally efficient, +and much more moral, than the present form of promise. Power over the +future is not given to any of us, but we can all bear witness of the +present. The history of this war goes to show that oaths of any sort +are of but little use,--mere wisps of straw when the current sets +against them,--and that Christ meant what he said when he said, "Swear +not at all." But, however the case may stand regarding facts, there +can be but one opinion regarding feelings. To swear to preserve an +emotion or an affection is to assume a burden which neither our +fathers nor we are able to bear. And to take an oath which one has no +power to keep, has a tendency to weaken in men's minds the obligation +of oaths. If there must be swearing, we should act on Paley's hint, +and promise to love as long as possible, and then to make the best of +the bargain. + +That part of the marriage contract which relates to obedience deserves +a separate attention. What is meant by a wife's obedience? Shall an +adult person of ordinary intelligence forego the use of her own +judgment and adopt the conclusions of another person's? Is that what +is meant? + +To the law and to the testimony again. In the beginning nothing is +said of obedience or lordship. There is no subordination of man to +woman or woman to man. They are simply one flesh. God created man in +his own image; male and female created he them. And God blessed +_them_, and said unto _them_, have dominion, &c. Eve was to have +dominion precisely like Adam, so far as we can see. But in the fall +she forfeited it, and the curse came: "Thy desire shall be to thy +husband, and he shall rule over thee." When the king was shorn of his +power, the queen was dethroned. That settles the question, does it +not? Not at all. God so loved the world, that, when the fulness of the +time was come, he sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the +law, to redeem them that were under the law. Christ hath redeemed us +from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. So then, +brethren, we are not children of bondwomen, but of free women! + +If you do not believe the Bible, the curse is of no account. If you do +believe the Bible, the curse is taken away. Now then where are you? + +But St. Paul is brought in here with great effect by the defenders of +the old _regime_. St. Paul, living under the new dispensation, became +its exponent, reduced it to a system, and must be considered authority +regarding its meaning and design. The curse had been as completely +taken away then as now, yet he says: "Wives, submit yourselves unto +your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of +the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.... Therefore as +the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own +husbands in everything." Can anything be stronger or more explicit? +Nothing. But if you take St. Paul, take the whole of him. Accepting +for wives the injunction of submission, accept it also for yourselves; +for in the preceding verses he says, "Be filled with the spirit, +_submitting yourselves one to another_ in the fear of God." The same +word is used to indicate the relations proper between husband and wife +and between friend and friend. If, then, according to St. Paul, the +wife must absolutely obey her husband, her husband must just as +absolutely obey his wife, and both must obey their next-door neighbor. + +Observe also the manner of the control and the submission,--"as unto +the Lord." The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the +head of the church. The wife is to be subject to the husband, as the +church is subject to Christ. Why, this is just what I want. Not a wife +in Christendom but would rejoice to recognize her husband to be her +head as Christ is the head of the church. Only let husbands follow +their model, and there would be no more question of obedience. Quote +St. Paul against me? St. Paul is my standard-bearer! If you had only +obeyed St. Paul, I should not be fighting at all. The world would go +on so smoothly and lovingly that I should never be required to stir up +its impure mind by way of remembrance, but should be occupied in +writing the loveliest little idyls that ever were thought of. It is +the flagrant disregard and violation of Paul's teachings that brings +me unto you with a rod instead of in love and the spirit of meekness. +I want no higher standard than was set up by Paul. + +Men reason very well so long as they confine their reasoning to pure +mathematics, but when they attempt to apply their logic to practical +life, they are at fault. They find it difficult to make allowance for +friction. They do not observe, and they do not know what to do with +their observations when they have made them. Consequently, though +their arguments look very well, they do not stand the test of +experiment. Nothing can be more charming than this implicit trust +which men so love and laud, this unhesitating submission of the fond +wife,--the "God is thy law, thou mine" of Milton (which most men +evidently believe is to be found in all the Four Gospels and most of +the Epistles). Yet its only practical justification would be the +infallibility of men. But in actual life men are not infallible. They +are just as likely to be wrong as women. The only obedience +practicable or desirable is the adoption of the wisest course after +consultation. Practically, there is seldom much trouble about this +matter; but there is none the less for all the theories and all the +vows of obedience. Yet we have it from good authority, that it is +better not to vow than to vow and not pay. + +When I see the strenuousness with which man has ever enjoined upon +woman respect for his position and submission to his will, the +persistence with which he has maintained his superiority and her +subordination, the compensatory and unreasonable, inconsequent homage +which he awards to those who acquiesce in his claims, I seem to be +reading a new version of an old story. Man takes woman up into an +exceeding high mountain, and shows her what seems to her dazzled eyes +all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and says unto +her, "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and +worship me." But as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall +be,--"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou +serve." For many generations the world has reaped a bitter harvest +from worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. Eve's +desire was to the man, and he ruled over her consequently, and she +brought forth a murderer. The virgin-mother rejoiced primarily in God, +and that Holy Thing which was born of her was called the Son of God. +For six thousand years the works of the flesh have been manifest, +which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, +idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, +seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and +such like. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, +long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. + +When women begin to talk of right, men begin to talk of courtesy. They +are very willing that women should be angels, but they are not willing +that they should be naturally-developed women. They like to pay +compliments, but they like not to award dues. One great article of +their belief is, that + + "A woman ripens like a peach, + In the cheeks chiefly," + +and the rod perpetually held over any deeper ripening is the not +always unspoken threat of a forfeiture of masculine deference. From +those who want what they have not shall be taken away that which they +have. Very well, take it away. No thoughtful woman desires any homage +that can be given or withheld at pleasure. The only reverence, the +only respect, which has any value, is that which springs from the +depths of the heart spontaneously. If the politeness which men show to +women, and for which American men are famous, does not spring from +their own sense of fitness, if it is a kind of barter, a reward of +merit, let us dispense with it altogether. Sometimes I almost fear +that it is so. Sometimes I am half inclined to believe that men are +kind and courteous chiefly to those who are independent of them. In a +railroad-car, not long since, I saw a woman, hard-featured, +coarse-complexioned, ignorant, rude, and boisterous, engaged in an +altercation with the conductor regarding her fare. The dozen men in +the vicinity leaned forward or looked around with intent eyes, +and--must I say, smiling? no--grinning faces, and saluted each fresh +outburst of violence with laughter. Could a true courtesy have found +amusement, or anything but pain, in such an exhibition? The woman was +most unwomanly, but she was a woman. That should be enough, on your +principles. She was a human being. That is enough, on mine. + +In "Our Old Home," Hawthorne--O the late sorrow of that beloved +name!--has most tenderly told the story of Delia Bacon. When her book +was published, we are informed, "it fell with a dead thump at the feet +of the public, and has never been picked up. A few persons turned over +one or two of the leaves, as it lay there, and essayed to kick the +volume deeper into the mud.... From the scholars and critics in her +own country, indeed, Miss Bacon might have looked for a worthier +appreciation." But, "If any American ever wrote a word in her behalf, +Miss Bacon never knew it, nor did I. Our journalists at once +republished some of the most brutal vituperations of the English +press, thus pelting their poor countrywoman with stolen mud, without +even waiting to know whether the ignominy was deserved. And they never +have known it to this day, nor ever will." + +Is this courtesy? Is this the lofty manhood which women are to bow +down and worship? To such as these is it that women are to say, "What +thou bid'st, unargued I obey"? Men may promise all the kingdoms of the +earth and the glory of them, and women may make never so persistent +efforts to bow down and enter into possession; but the worship will +never be heartsome, nor the title ever secure. Never will the human +mind, whether of man or woman, rest in that which is not excellent. So +long as men are unworthy of fealty, they may forever grasp, but they +cannot retain it. Their empire will be turbulent and their claim +disputed. They will have a secure hold on woman's respect only so far +as character commands it. Feudalism was better than barbarism, and the +nineteenth is an advance on the fifteenth century. But the inmost germ +of chivalry has not yet flowered into perfect blossom. By the +restiveness of woman under the tutelage of man may he measure his own +short-comings. It is not necessary that men should be renowned, but +they should be great. Fame is a matter of gifts, but character is +always at command. Not every man can be a philosopher, poet, or +president, but every man can be gentle, reverent, unselfish, upright, +magnanimous, pure. In field and wood and prairie, standing behind the +counter, bending over lapstone or anvil, day-book, ledger, or graver, +a man may fashion himself on the true heroic model, and so + + "Move onward, leading up the golden year; + For unto him who works, and feels he works, + The same grand year is ever at the doors." + +In that grand year courtesy shall be recognized as the growth of the +soul and not of circumstance. A man shall bear himself towards a +woman, not according to what she is, but to what himself is. He shall +dispense the kindnesses of travel, assembly, and all manner of +association, not only to the good and the gentle, but also to the +froward; and he will do it, not because he thinks it best or right, +but because he cannot do otherwise, without working inward violence +upon himself. If a woman show herself rude or unthinking, or if in any +way she transgresses the laws of taste, propriety, or morality, he +shall not, therefore, consider himself at liberty to utter coarse +jests or coarse rebuke, to cast free looks, or disport himself with +laughter. It shall not be possible for him to do so; but he shall +rather feel in his own heart the thrill and in his own blood the +tingle of degradation, and gravely and sadly will he + + "Pay the reverence of old days + To her dead fame; + Walk backward with averted gaze, + And hide the shame." + +Nor shall his deference be confined to woman, but man to man shall do +that which is seemly. For all poverty, loneliness, helplessness, +repulsiveness, and every form of weakness and misfortune, especially +for those worst misfortunes that come from one's own imprudence or +misdoing, he shall have sympathy and help. Then, indeed, "shall all +men's good be each man's rule." Then between man and woman shall be no +mine and thine, but Maud Muller's dream shall be fulfilled, and joy is +duty and love is law. + +Much of our classification of qualities into masculine and feminine, +all assignment of superiority or inferiority to one or other of the +sexes, seems to me to be founded on a false conception.[5] No virtue, +scarcely a quality, is the prerogative of man or woman, but manly and +womanly together make the perfect being. A man who has not in his soul +the essence of womanhood, is an unmanly man. A woman who has not the +essence of manhood, is an unwomanly woman. It is woman in +man,--gentleness, guilelessness, truth, permeating strength and valor, +that gives to man his charm: it is man in woman,--courage, firmness, +fibre, underlying grace and beauty, that give to woman her +fascination. A brutal man, a weak woman, is as fatally defective as a +coward or an Amazon. God made man in his own image; God made man male +and female. God, then, is in himself type of both male and female, and +only in proportion as all men are womanly and all women manly, does +each become susceptible of the love and worthy of the respect of the +other. Neither is the man superior to the woman, nor the woman to the +man, but they twain are one flesh. + + [5] This paragraph was written with a partial reference to + Mrs. Farnham's "Woman and her Era," of which book I had at + the time but a very general notion, derived from one or two + newspaper notices. Since then the appearance of an unclean + criticism in the "Publishers' Circular" induced me to + suspect that the book must embody some unusual excellence, + or it could not have forced a fallen soul thus to foam out + its own shame. From such a brief glance as I have been able + to give to "Woman and her Era," while these pages are going + through the press, I infer that, a little hidden from common + eyes under a somewhat appalling mass of metaphysical and + other learning, are collected a greater number of valuable, + timely truths than I have met in any other book on this + topic. Not agreeing to all her opinions, one can but rejoice + in the sagacity which most of them display, and in the good + temper and just spirit which characterize all. + + + + +XIV. + + +Doubtless there are many men who will say: To what purpose is all +this? What new development has arisen to necessitate a new outcry? +The world is getting on very well. People marry and are given in +marriage; buy, sell, and get gain. There is a good deal of wickedness +and suffering, but less of both than formerly, and both are evidently +diminishing. Earth is not heaven, and in the world we shall always +have tribulation, men and women both, but neither men nor women make +any particular complaint, and on the whole it may reasonably be +inferred that they are getting on comfortably. Pray let well enough +alone. + +But your well enough cannot be let alone, because it is not well +enough. Nothing is well enough so long as it can be bettered. The +world is not getting on comfortably, however comfortable you may be. +Mounted in your car of Juggernaut, you may find the prospect pleasing, +the motion exhilarating, and the journey agreeable, but your _Io +triumphe_ has but a discordant twang to those whom you are so +pleasantly crushing under your chariot-wheels. Your vision is not +trustworthy. Through I know not what process a judicial blindness +seems to come upon people, so that those ways seem good whose end is +death. True, the world is advancing, but with a motion which, compared +with that which it might attain, is retrogression. Whose fiat has +decreed, "Thus fast shalt thou go, and no faster"? Why is it that we +only creep, when we might run and not be weary, might mount up with +wings as eagles? Why do we dwell, with toil and tears, in the Valley +of the Shadow of Death, when the voice from heaven centuries ago bade +us come up higher? We have for our inheritance the elements of all +things good and great and to be desired; but we lack the clear vision +and the cunning hand to construct from them the Paradise that every +family might be, in spite of the sin that despoiled the first; so we +continue to dwell without Paradise, and very far off. Men and women +are at variance with themselves and with one another. Power and +passion run to waste. Positions are inverted, relations confused, and +light obscured. The sanctuary of the Lord is built up with untempered +mortar, and jewels of gold are degraded to a swine's snout. + +Underneath all wars and convulsions, underneath all forms of +government and all social institutions, it seems to me that the +relations between man and woman are the granite formation upon which +the whole world rests. Society will be elevated only just so fast and +so far as these relations become what God intended them to be. +Monarchies, republics, democracies, may have their benefits and their +partisans, but the family is the foundation of country. I said "it +seems to me" so. I have been charged with being sometimes too positive +in my opinions. It may have been a youthful fault, but I long since +corrected it. I should now suggest rather than affirm the equality +between the angles of a triangle and two right angles. I am open to +conviction on the subject of the multiplication-table; but on this +point my feet are fixed, and, as my Puritan ancestors were wont to +sing, somewhat nasally perhaps, but with hand on sword,-- + + "Let mountains from their seats be hurled + Down to the deep, and buried there, + Convulsions shake the solid world, + My faith shall never yield to fear." + +All other influences are fitful and fragmentary: the home influence +alone is steady and sufficient, and the home influence depends upon +the relations between father and mother. Unless there is on both sides +respect first, and then love, such love as brings an all-embracing +sympathy, and so an outer and inner harmony,--harmony between life and +its laws and harmony between heart and heart,--the child's head will +be pillowed upon discord, his cradle will be rocked by restlessness, +and his character can hardly fail to be unsymmetrical. We have all +seen the wickedness of man, that it is great in the earth; but why +should it not be, when he is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity; +when his plastic soul is moulded amid jarring elements, and the voices +that fall upon his infant ear--voices that should be modulated only to +tenderness and love, and all the sweet and endearing qualities--are +sharpened by coldness, embittered by disappointment, shrill through +unremitting toil and rough with sordid ambitions? I only wonder that +children bred up in such uncongenial homes come to be so much men and +women as they are. No outbreak of treachery or turpitude astonishes +me, when I remember the discordant circumstances into the midst of +which the baby-soul was born. The only astonishment is, that every +soul tends so strongly towards its original type as to have even an +outer seeming of virtue. I wonder that, when the twig is so ruthlessly +and persistently bent, the tree should reach up ever so crookedly +towards heaven. Kind Nature takes her poor warped little ones, and +with gentle, imperceptible hand touches them to a grace and softness +which we have no right to expect, but to never that divine grace, that +ineffable sweetness, of which the human soul is capable, and to which +in its highest moods it ever yearns. O, if this one truth could be +imprinted upon this age,--the one truth that the regeneration of the +world is to come through love,--what hope could one not see for the +future! God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and +henceforth there is no more offering for sin. It only remains for us +to enter into the holiest by this new and living way which he hath +consecrated for us. The offering of Divine love is complete. Let human +love come in to do its part, and the human soul shall be sanctified +from its birth. When clamor and wrath and evil-speaking and +evil-feeling are banished from the household hearth, murder and +plunder and lust will fly from the public ways. When the child is the +child of mutual love and trust and reverence and wisdom, he will never +belie his parentage. + +We give to the dead their honors,--meet homage for the dust that +shrined a soul. All passion is hushed, all pettiness vanishes in the +presence of the dread mystery. But there is a mystery more dread, a +mystery to which death is but as the sunshine for clearness,--the only +sunshine which lights up its hidden labyrinths. It is the inexplicable +secret of life. Fear not before the power which kills the body, but is +not able to kill the soul. Stand in awe before that Power which can +evoke both soul and body from nothingness into everlasting life. Death +does but mark the accomplishment of one stage in a journey, with whose +inception we had nothing to do. It is but a necessary change of +carriage at some relay-house,--an involuntary and inevitable event in +which we are but interested spectators or passive participants. But +whether the Spirit shall set out on its journey at all, and what shall +be the manner of its going, what its sustenance by the way, and what +the light upon its path,--these are matters for concern; for these +involve the weightiest responsibilities which man can bear. To fashion +an infinite soul and send it forth upon an infinite career,--infinite +susceptibilities laid open to the touch of infinite sorrow,--oh! to +him who has ever faced the facts of being,--not death, not death, but +this irrevocable gift of life, is the one solemnity, the awful +sacrament! + +You will say that you believe all this now, but you do not believe it. +You agree to it in a certain sentimental Pickwickian sense, but you do +not hold it as a living truth. You will assent to all that is said of +the importance of the family, and then go straightway and give your +chief time, thought, ingenuity, to your farms and your merchandise. +What men really believe in is making money, not making true men and +women. They believe that the greatness of a nation consists in its much +land and gold and machinery and ability to browbeat another nation, +not in the incorruptibility of its citizens. Wealth and fame, purple +and fine linen and sumptuous fare, brute force of intellect, position, +and power, one or another or all forms of self-indulgence,--these, not +purity, love, content, aspiration, and hearty good-will, they take to +constitute blessedness. What a man gives his life to, what he will +attend to with his own eyes and mind, and will not trust to any other +person, that he believes in. Any amount of fulsome adulation may be +poured out upon the womanly in nature, but one particle of true +reverence, one single award of rightful freedom, is worth it all. +Surely, if you could but see how the land is as the garden of Eden +before you, and around you a desolate wilderness, you would suffer +yourselves to be charmed into its ways of pleasantness and its paths +of peace. You do not know the beautiful capacities which this earth, +this very sin-stained, death-struck earth, bears in its redeemed +bosom. Where sin abounds to sorrow, grace may much more abound to +peace. Through the wonder of the Divine redemption there is possible +for us a new heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness shall +dwell, and always and everywhere righteousness and peace kiss each +other. You sing the praises of woman, but you do not begin to dream of +the loveliness, the blessedness, the beneficence of which she is +capable. You extol her in song and story, but with your life you will +not suffer women to be womanly. You are so evil, and you decree so +much evil, that, alas! a woman wakes to conscious life, and is not +free to follow the bent of her nature; she must expend all her +energies in clearing a breathing-space. O, you do a fearful wrong in +this, and you endure a fearful wrong. For do you think the work is for +woman alone? Do you think there is any such thing as a "woman +question" that is not also a man question? Do you not know, that + + "Laws of changeless justice bind + Oppressor with oppressed, + And, close as sin and suffering joined, + We march to fate abreast"? + +The first shock of penalty for transgression falls upon woman, but +sure and swift as the lightning it passes on to man. Every measure +that keeps woman down keeps man down. Every jot taken from woman's joy +is so much taken from man. All his wrong-thinking and wrong-doing that +bears so heavily upon her bears down upon himself with equal weight. +Action and reaction are not only inevitable, but constant. Every small +or great improvement in woman's condition elevates society, and +society is only men and women. If men persist in alternate or in +combined scorn and flattery, and will not do justly, the sorrow as +well as the shame is theirs, and both are instantaneous. + +We are told of the Persian bird Juftak, which has only one wing. On +the wingless side the male has a hook and the female a ring, and when +fastened together, and only when fastened together, can they fly. The +human race is that Persian, bird, the Juftak. When man and woman +unite, they may soar skyward, scorners of the ground, but so long as +man refuses God's help proffered in woman, he and she must alike grub +on the earth. If he will have her minister only to the wants of his +lower nature, his higher nature as well as hers shall be forever +pinioned. + +You may possibly suspect that I have sometimes insinuated a greater +moral obliquity on the part of man than on that of woman; and, indeed, +I believe you are right. But the greater obliquity which I attribute +to him is the result of his training, not an attribute of his nature. +I once held the contrary opinion, but it is not tenable. Man is made +in the image of God, and one part of God cannot be better than +another. If men were not capable of being nobler than their ordinary +life exhibits them, I should think this war an especial providence of +God in other respects than are usually mentioned. But look at the +developments which this very war has made. Is fortitude in pain, as +many have asserted, a womanly attribute? But what fortitude under pain +has been shown by our soldiers on the battle-field and in hospital! +Torn with ghastly wounds, tortured with thirst, weak from loss of +blood and lack of food, untended and unconsoled; or wasting away in +the crowded hospital week after week and month after month, longing +for home while dying for country; or scarred, maimed, and disabled for +life; yet uttering no word of complaint, breathing no murmur of +impatience, making a sport of pain, grateful for every word and touch +and look and thought of tenderness, when a nation's tenderness is +their just due, and glad all through that they have been able to fight +for the beloved land,--is fortitude indeed only a womanly virtue? Or +is it that gentleness and self-sacrifice are pure womanly, as is so +often maintained? Look through the same battle-fields and hospitals; +see men waiting upon men with the indescribable gentleness of +compassion and pure sympathy; see them risking life to save a wounded +comrade; see them passing day and night from cot to cot, to bathe the +fevered brow, to moisten the parched lip, to soothe the restless mind, +to receive the last message of love, and speed the parting soul. See +the wounded man bidding the surgeon pass him by to heal the sorer +hurts of his neighbor, or putting the canteen from his own lips to the +paler lips beside him, till you shall take every soldier to be a +Sidney. Rough men they may be or polished, rudely or delicately +nurtured, trained to every accomplishment or only born into the world, +but everywhere you shall look on such high heroic gentleness and +thoughtfulness and patience and self-abnegation as make the courage of +onset seem in comparison but a low, brute virtue. O blood-red blossoms +of war, with your heart of fire, deeper than glow and crimson you +unfold the white lilies of Christ! + +Who shall show us any good that cannot be predicated of the nature +which, stunted and twisted from the beginning, can yet bring forth +such heavenly fruit? If God can work in man so to will and to do, is +it for woman to stand aside and say, "I am holier than thou"? + +But though the exigencies of war make more obvious the fine +possibilities of men, it does not need a continent in deadly strife to +indicate their existence. There are sacred hours in every life when +that which is of the earth is held in abeyance and celestial +influences reign. No man, perhaps, has ever lived who has not had his +better moments,--moments when the spirit of God moved upon the turbid +waters of his soul and brought light out of darkness and beauty from +chaos: silent moments it may be, and solitary, or hallowed with a +companionship dearer even than solitude; moments when helplessness, +loveliness, innocence, or suffering thrilled him to the depths with +pity and tenderness, with indignation or with adoration. Have you +never seen the sweetest ties existing between father and daughter, or +brother and younger sister, when the wife has been removed by death, +or, through some fatal fault, is no mother to her child? What love, +what devotion, what watchful care, what sympathy, what strength of +attachment! The little unmothered daughter calls out all the +motherhood in the great, brawny man, and they walk hand in hand, blest +with a great content. "'Tis the old sweet mythos,"--the infant +nourished at the father's breast. + +Every-day occurrences reveal in men traits of disinterestedness, +consideration, all Christian virtues and graces. My heart misgives me +when I think of it all,--their loving-kindness, their forbearance, +their unstinted service, their integrity; and of the not sufficiently +unfrequent instances in which women, by fretfulness, folly, or +selfishness, irritate and alienate the noble heart which they ought to +prize above rubies. I have not hitherto made a single irrelevant +remark, and I will therefore indulge in the luxury of one now. It is +this: Considering how few good husbands there are in the world, and +how many good women there are who would have been to them a crown of +glory and a royal diadem, had the coronation but been effected, but +who, instead, are losing all their pure gems down the dark, unfathomed +caves of some bad man's heart,--considering this, I account that woman +to whom has been allotted a good husband, and who can do no better +than spoil him and his happiness by her own misbehavior, guilty, if +not of the unpardonable sin, at least of the unpardonable stupidity. +If it were relevant, I could easily make out a long list of charges +against women, and of excellences to be set down to the credit of men. +But women have been stoned to death, or at least to coma, with charges +already; and when you would extricate a wagon from a slough, you put +your shoulder first and heaviest to the wheel that is deepest in the +mud,--especially if the other wheel would hardly be in at all, unless +this one had pulled it in! I can understand and have great +consideration towards those men who, gentle, faithful, and true +themselves, possibly disheartened by long companionship with a +capricious, tyrannical woman, should fail to acquiesce with any +heartiness in the truth of the views which I have advanced. Their +experience is of long-suffering men and long-afflicting women, and +they can hardly be expected to entertain with enthusiasm a statement +which has perhaps no bearing upon their position. Still, when facts +meet facts, the argument is always on the side of the heaviest +battalions. It is the rule that generalizes, exceptions only modify. + +There is another circumstance which makes strongly against any +assertion of man's necessary moral inferiority to woman. The manly +ideal is often one to which no woman takes exception. In poetry and +romance, men, as well as women, paint heroes; and I hold that no one +can project from his imagination a better character than he is himself +capable of attaining. He can be all that he can portray. The stream +through his pen can rise no higher than the fountain in his heart, and +out of the heart are the issues of life which he may keep as pure and +clear as poesy. It was no woman's hand which limned the grand, sad +face of that "good king," who + + "Was first of all the kings who drew + The knighthood-errant of this realm and all + The realms together under me, their Head, + In that fair order of my Table Round, + A glorious company, the flower of men, + To serve as model for the mighty world, + And be the fair beginning of a time. + I made them lay their hands in mine and swear + To reverence the King, as if he were + Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, + To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, + To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, + To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, + To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, + To love one maiden only, cleave to her, + And worship her by years of noble deeds, + Until they won her; for indeed I knew + Of no more subtle master under heaven + Than is the maiden passion for a maid, + Not only to keep down the base in man, + But teach high thought, and amiable words + And courtliness, and the desire of fame, + And love of truth, and all that makes a man." + +Another fact must also be allowed. Individual men are often better +than their principles. Men who will, in cold blood, avow sentiments +really atrocious, will, in the presence of a commanding female +influence, straighten up to its requirements and carry themselves +tolerably well; but with their lips they will all the while deny the +power which their lives obey. Many a man who rails at strong-minded +women, female education, and petticoat government, who professes to +believe only in stocking-mending, love, and cookery, will be utterly, +though unconsciously, plastic to the hand of a truly strong-minded, +educated, and controlling woman. He does not know it; power in its +highest action works ever imperceptibly. Nevertheless, it is there, +and he follows it. His wrong opinions help to strengthen the citadel +of evil, but himself is less bad than he seems. This ought to be +remembered when inquisition is made. + +It would be easy to multiply evidence, but it is not necessary. Enough +has been produced to show that men have evinced the highest not only +of those qualities which belong to their own sex, but those which are +usually considered the prerogative of the other. And what men have +done man may do. Life can be as lovely as its best moods. _In vino +veritas_, said Roman philosophy, and builded better than it knew. In +the wine of love is the truth of life. As pure, as thoughtful, as +disinterested, as helpful, as manly as is the lover can the husband +be. What the poet sings, that the man should live. A race that has +attained a temporary exaltation can attain a permanent exaltation. If +one man has bent to the stern decree of duty, knowing + + "All + Life needs for life is possible to will," + +all men can compass self-control. I am filled with indignation when I +see the low standard accepted for man's due measurement. Well may he +exclaim, in sad, despairing reproach,-- + + "Men have burnt my house, + Maligned my motives,--but not one, I swear, + Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has," + +or this Romney or Sir Blaise, who forbids me access to the holy place, +denies me power to lead a saintly life. Why, it is because men can be +good that we reproach them. It is because we do see in them hints of +dormant excellences that we consider it worth while to keep them in a +state of agitation. If they must be as bad as their badnesses, there +is only one verdict: He is joined to idols; let him alone. But, +beloved, I am persuaded better things of you, and things that +accompany salvation, though I thus speak. What has been is of no fatal +import. What has been only shows the track of error; now we may follow +the footsteps of truth. The old world is a world masculinized; a world +of rugged, brawny, male muscularity, but slightly and partially +softened by feminine touch. Man was satisfied that woman in the +beginning should be taken out of him, and he has ever since been +trying to grope his way alone,--with what success ages of blunder and +blood bear terrible witness. Now, seeing that his _defeminization_ has +failed, let him compass the spiritual restoration of her who was +physically separated from him, that the twain may become one perfect +being, and reassume supreme dominion. The power lies ready to his +hand. Eve was never wholly torn away. Deep within every heart lies the +slumbering Princess still. A hundred years and many another hundred +have gone by, and round her palace-wall, round her star-broidered +coverlet, her gold-fringed pillow, and her jet-black hair, the hedge +has woven its ivies and woodbine, thorns and mistletoes. Burr and +brake and brier, close-matted, seem to refuse approach, and even to +deny existence, but ever and anon above their surly barricade gleams +in some evening sun the topmost palace spires, and we know that the +fated Fairy Prince shall come, and, guided by the magic music in his +heart, shall find that quiet chamber; reverently, on bended knee, +shall touch the tranced lips, and--lo! thought and time are born +again, and it is a new world which was the old. + +Men, notwithstanding their high privilege, remain in their low +estate,--partly because they are not enlightened out of it. They do +evil, not knowing what they do. Like all despots, they have dealt more +in adulation than in truth. They have heard from women the voice of +flattery, the cry of entreaty, the wail of helpless pain, the impotent +watchword of insurrection; but they have had small opportunity to +benefit by the careful analysis of character, the accurate delineation +and just rebuke of faults, and the calm, judicious, affectionate +counsel which comes from a wise and faithful friend--like me! Women +may stand before them, sweet, trusting creatures, "just as high as +their hearts," to be schooled into devotion and amiable submission. +They may float demi-goddesses in some incomprehensible ether above the +clouds, and receive incense and adoration. But for the ministering +angel to turn into an accusing angel, for the lectured to rise and lay +down the law to lecturers, is a thing which was never dreamt of in +Horatio's philosophy. + + "A man + May call a white-browed girl Dian, + But likes not to be turned upon + And nicknamed young Endymion." + +Nor, indeed, is it any more grateful to Dian than to Endymion. To +confront man on his throne with the stern, dispassionate charge, "Thou +art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest; for wherein +thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; and thinkest thou this, +O man, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?" seems to woman so +formidable a thing, that very few have had the courage to attempt it. +Many are so overborne with toil, disappointment, and faintness, that +they have no heart for it. It is easier to suffer than to attempt +remedy. They feel, in the lowest depths of their consciousness, + + "What all their weeping will not let them say, + And yet what women cannot say at all + But weeping bitterly." + +But they remain silent, and the case goes by default. There is, +besides, a dread of personal consequences. Popular judgment is very +much given to attributing general statements to private experience. If +a woman is married, her adverse opinions are likely to be charged with +implying conjugal discontent. If she is not married, they spring from +failure and envy, and, shrinking from such opprobrium, the few women +who see talk the matter over among themselves, and that is the end of +it. There is also a natural reluctance to suggest that which men +should do or be spontaneously, and there is a deeper reluctance, +instinctive, indefinite, inexplicable. + +The result is, that men go on in sin, seemingly unconscious that it is +sin. They have been pursuing one course all their life, meeting +obstacles, enduring fatigue, losing patience, but incapable of +perceiving that they are in the wrong path until the fact is pointed +out to them. They do not even understand the nomenclature of the +science of right living. Speak of cherishing a departed friend, and +they will descant on the absurdity of going about moaning and weeping +all your days. They attach no meaning to life-long tenderness but +life-long namby-pambyism, something excusable in youth and "courting," +but savoring strongly of weakness of character after the honeymoon has +waned. Put before them the general allegation of selfishness, +indifference, cruelty, and they will deny it with vehemence. Of +course. Without such denial they could have no excuse. Moral ignorance +alone saves them from utter condemnation. If they sinned +wittingly,--if they said, "Yes, I am cold and hard and hateful to my +wife, neglectful of my children, I give grudgingly money barely +sufficient for the necessities of life, or I provide for my wife every +luxury, but have no sympathy or companionship for her,"--if men said +or could say this, even to themselves, they would be--not men, but +demons. They are not demons, but men, capable of generosity, devotion, +and self-sacrifice. If they knew that they were cruel, outrageous, +intolerable in their most intimate relations, they would at once cease +to be so, and begin to become everything that could be desired. More +than this, I have so great faith in the noble possibilities of men, I +believe they have so strong an inward bias towards holiness, that they +will welcome the friendly hand which sets their iniquities before +them. They will hear the sad story with amazement, and say one to +another: "Who can understand his errors? A brutish man knoweth not; +neither doth a fool understand this. We have sinned with our fathers, +we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. So foolish was I +and ignorant; I was as a beast. But now I will behave myself wisely in +a perfect way. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart." And, +when men shall have grown good, there will be no further complaint of +women. To Lavater's list of impossible good women, Blake, the "mad +painter," appends, "Let the men do their duty, and the women will be +such wonders: the female life lives from the life of the male." There +are exceptions, but in the mass women are not independent of received +opinions, nor strong enough to front prejudice and mould society, or +where they cannot mould it, to guide their own lives in its very +spite. Therefore opinion needs to be right, prejudice removed, and +society renovated; and men must do it. Women are generally said to +make society. It is not so. Men make women, and men and women together +make society. Men are the rocky stratum, women the soil which covers +it. Men determine the outline, the level, the general character; women +give the curves, the bloom, the grace. Rear your hills and lay your +valleys, and the land shall speedily flow with milk and honey; but if +you will upheave mountains and spread deserts, you may expect scant +herbage on the one and but scattered oases on the other. + +I cannot, of course, pronounce that it is absolutely impossible for +woman to attain a truer life without man's co-operation. The Most High +ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will. What +revolution may await us in the future no one knows. Fired by what +impulse woman may throw off the stupor which has enthralled her so +long, array herself in her beautiful garments and mount upward to the +heavenly heights, whose air alone her spirit pants to breathe, whose +paths alone her feet are framed to tread, I do not know. Yet blessed +as is that day, come when and how it will, I would it were ushered in +by a peaceful dawn. Better that woman should take her place alone, +moved by an ineffable disdain, than that she should remain forever in +her low estate. Better still that man and woman should go together, he +bringing his sturdy strength to shorten, she lending her manifold +grace to lighten, the path that leads up thither; and both, following +the still, small voice of love, shall find no roughness, shall feel no +grief, shall fear no evil, but shall walk softly till the end come, +and shall rest in the peace of the beloved. + + + + +L'ENVOI. + + +O sweet my friend, hastening with happy steps to your marriage-morn, O +my poet, singing under your hawthorn-tree the song that never can grow +old, am I then a bird of evil omen? Does it thunder towards the left +as I pass by? Be not so credulous. I take no lustre from the +golden-bright day that lies half-hidden under the mild haze of +September: but I would that fair day's light should shine as the +brightness of the firmament for ever and ever. I breathe no blight +upon the hawthorn, no discord to the song; but I would the bloom of +the one and the melody of the other might never die away. Dream, O +maiden! your pleasant dreams; sing, O poet! your happy songs; but +while the flush of the sunrise is yet ruddy on your brows, think it +not strange that I leave your sweet light and go down to them who are +sitting in the region and shadow of death. + +Have _I_ written this book? It is but the voice of a thousand aching +hearts. Ten thousand dreary lives are wrought into its pages. It is +the sorrow of just such hearts as yours, the disappointment of just +such hopes, that have found a record here. The gloom that gathers on +these leaves is gloom that hangs over paths just as fair as yours in +their glad beginning. I feast my eyes on the beautiful temple of your +promise, and I pray that you may go no more out of it forever; but I +cannot forget that all my life I have seen highway and byway strewn +with the fragments of temples which in their majesty of completeness +must have been just as marvellous as yours. And being fully persuaded +in my own mind that there is a way whereby the wondrous edifice may be +made as enduring as it is brilliant, shall I not proclaim it +throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof, that the +trumpet of the jubilee may sound? You shall not make the darkness your +pavilion, because the world is hung with gloom; but neither shall you +reckon it offence, if I cannot wholly rejoice in your light for +thinking of the great multitudes who are sitting in a darkness which +may be felt. To-day is lost, but it is not too late for the morrow. +Wasted life can never be restored;-- + + "Though every summer green the plain, + This harvest cannot bloom again." + +Only beyond the grave can a new life spring into beauty, and the death +of this be swallowed up in victory. But for the lives that have not +yet been lavished, for the "poor little maidens" of great-hearted Dr. +Luther, for gentle Magdalenchen, fiery young Lenore, merry Beatrice, +skipping along their separate paths, each to her unknown womanhood, or +walking already through its shadowy ways,--how earnestly for them do +we covet the best gift! But if they fail of this, shall not one show +them how to live worthily without it? Shall not one bid them see how +poor and false and mean is everything which offers itself instead; how +sad were the exchange of an ideal good for a base reality; how fatal +the disaster when the sacred torch pales before a grosser flame? So +through these summer days, my little maid, when all sweet summer +sounds but echo to you the music of one low voice, add to the happy +thought within your heart this happiest thought of all: There shall +come a day when the same sky that bends in blessing above your head +shall bend,--no cloud to darken, but only to adorn, no fogs to hide, +but only mist-wreaths to deck its blue,--soft, serene, and beautiful, +above an earth purified by the same love which makes to you all things +pure. Through that new atmosphere, my poet, the tuneful voices of your +song shall go, wakening all the woods to melody, summoning shy +response from the ever-charmed hills, ringing out over the listening +waters, giving and gathering sweetness wherever a human heart throbs; +till earth, all a-quiver with the harmony, shall lift from the dust +her long-neglected lyre, sweep once more to her place among the stars, +and raise again her happy voice in the unforgotten music of the +spheres. + + + + +Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A New Atmosphere, by Gail Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW ATMOSPHERE *** + +***** This file should be named 36152.txt or 36152.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/1/5/36152/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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