"
The very virtues of woman, not less than her faults, fit her for her
attachment to man. There is no man so bad as not to find some pitying
woman who will admire and love him; and no man so wise but that he shall
find some woman equal to the full comprehension of him, ready to
understand him and to strengthen him. With such a woman he will grow
more tender, ductile, and appreciative; the man will be more of woman,
she of man. Whether society, as it is at present constituted, fits our
young women to be the good wives they should be is another question. In
lower middle life, and with the working classes, it is asserted that the
women are not sufficiently taught to fulfill their mission properly;
but, if in large towns the exigencies of trade use up a large portion of
the female population, it is no wonder that they can not be at the same
time good mill-hands, bookbinders, shopwomen, and mothers, cooks, and
housewives. We may well have recourse to public cookery, and talk about
working men's dinners--thus drifting from an opposite point into the
coming socialism--when we absorb all the home energies of the woman in
gaining money sufficient for her daily bread. Yet these revelations, nor
those yet more dreadful ones which come out daily in some of our law
courts, are not sufficient to make us overlook the fact that with us by
far the larger portion of marriages are happy ones, and that of men's
wives we still can write as the most eloquent divine who ever lived,
Jeremy Taylor, wrote, "A good wife is Heaven's last, best gift to
man--his angel and minister of graces innumerable--his gem of many
virtues--his casket of jewels.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149