So in the society of adults. Let men group themselves together, and they will converse only of their farms, their merchandize, and their manufactures, or of governments and administrations. Insulate the female sex, and they shall discourse upon dress, or the minor affairs of their neighbors, far too exclusively. But shall we, to obviate these evils, completely transpose their conditions? Do we wish to see woman on Change, or man given up to fashion, and culinary duties? No; let the main pursuits of each be distinct; but let neither regard him or herself as having no influence on the duties of the other.
What check were there on man’s wrong impulses as a lover of gain, or a devotee of ambition, should woman participate with him in these dispositions? And would not the inevitable consequence of her resigning herself to masculine offices and labors be, that she became as insane in the toil for riches as man; that she proved his rival instead of his ally; that far from composing and regulating the fire of his ambition, she did but kindle it to a devastating flame? To argue the contrary were to close our eyes on the native ardor of woman, and to forget the fearful agency of sympathy, when it takes an unholy direction. Morality, religion, the order, if not the very existence of society, hence point out a peculiar and appropriate sphere to woman.
Let me say first, negatively, what is not the province of this sex.
They should not engage in pursuits, for which their Physical powers are inadequate. If man is endowed with superior bodily strength, to him exclusively be allotted those manual avocations, which demand that strength. Let not the more delicate sex be tasked with the severe exercises of the field or the workshop. And if mental power depend at all on physical, if giant minds are usually found in vigorous frames, woman may infer that she can engage in the highest intellectual pursuits only by becoming an exception to the ordinary character of her sex.
| “For contemplation he, and valor formed, For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.” |
Again, it is not the province of woman to enter into Political life. Plato, indeed, admitted this sex to an equal share with man in the dignities and offices of his commonwealth. But we should remember his was an imaginary state, an Utopia, not a part of our plain, practical world. I do not forget here the long line of Queens that grace the annals of history; yet what had they achieved, wreaths though they wore on their brows, had not man been usually the prime minister and controlling agent in their governments? The affairs of nations require in those who guide them a practical acquaintance with business transactions, and a familiar knowledge of pursuits and interests with which woman is not ordinarily conversant. And how unfeminine were it in her to raise her gentle voice amid the storm of debate, or to rush into the heat and strife of partizan politics! Let such scenes never be coveted save by the Wolstonecrafts and the Wrights who have madly unsexed themselves.
Nor can I admit that woman may with propriety be seen and heard at Public Meetings, mingling with the opposite sex. Man becomes effeminate by intermeddling with the province of woman. She also becomes coarse and masculine, when she enters his sphere. Is her nature more mild than his? Why then desecrate it, by those fierce collisions with him, which attend so many of our public discussions? How unlady-like are contention, violence, and passion. How certainly will woman sacrifice her best influence over man by consenting to stir his spirit to hostility, in ardent debate. Where are those mutual services, and friendly offices, so beautifully ordained by Providence, between the two sexes, when once they are ranged, as public competitors, in pride, zeal, envy, and jealousy, stimulating each other to the struggle for victory?
But to speak on the positive view of our subject. What is the appropriate sphere of woman? Miss Sedgwick, in her work on Self-training, has answered this question well, and to that I refer the reader. Meantime we all have, I think, an ideal of this sphere, although in the details of it we may somewhat differ. We all desire to see this portion of our race pure and pious; and we should add to these qualities gentleness, graceful manners, and a delicate, modest deportment. There are limits moreover of propriety, established in our own minds, beyond which we should be pained to see a friend of this sex ever pass. For one, I would not so contract these limits, as to repress the powers, or to do injustice to the capacities, or trench on the rights, of woman. I would encourage no Sultan spirit, nor arrogate a single claim over her, deduced from any assumed superiority of my own sex. Give her every opportunity; remove all obstacles; furnish the utmost facilities, and let God speak his will through her actions.
To this end, I would name first, what is incontestibly one part of the sphere of woman, Home. She may act in other situations, in this she must. Providence whispers to her in the cradle the divine monition, “Be a kind, obedient, dutiful daughter.” And if, to the latest moment of her life, she heed not this solemn charge, she is false, not only to her own sex, but to man and to God.
The Sister, by what other virtues can she expiate a neglect of the claims of her beautiful relation? Let her be a monitor to the younger, and receive kindly the counsels of the elder, in her paternal circle, and how does she grace a sweet portion of her appropriate sphere. Nor will I omit to say, that whether united to another by the sacred bond of marriage or not, if she be a true woman, she is instinct with those inward charms, and Christian dispositions, which qualify her for that responsible connection. Intelligence, wisdom, disinterested affection, a mind to advise, a heart rich with sympathies, and a hand to aid—these should find in her their chosen resting-place.
And what Mother can fill the sphere ordained for her sex, if she be not a devoted parent? Possessed of this trait, no woman can fail of honor and usefulness. She who looks on her race with a maternal interest, who feels that God hath made of one blood all the children of the earth, and who lives not for herself but her neighbor, she is of the genuine female nobility. There is in her character a grandeur—let her dwell in “Alpine solitude,”—before which the admired of all admirers, the gay butterfly, whose wings open and close with the sun of adulation, shrinks into an object of pity.
Next to home, I should cite Private Beneficence, the scenes of Charity, and the chamber of sickness, as within the sphere of woman. Let her not only minister to the needs of her own fireside, but put on the sandals of mercy, and go forth to the bed of suffering, and the dwelling of poverty.
Does she court distinction and applause? There are those who would rend the air with shouts, did she pass as a Queen, in some gilded chariot; or clap their hands at the strains of her eloquence, in crowded halls. But how few are these, compared with those who commend her, who is an angel of love in the dark hours of life. What true woman would not prefer that the statue erected to her honor should be of the delicate ivory, rather than of brass, that emblem of boldness?
She who would follow Christ, must, I am sure, take generally the sequestered path of private charity, rather than live for the public gaze, though it were that of the host of officers and members of all the benevolent societies in Christendom. Who were the women, whose charities are engraven on the eternal records of the New Testament? Private almoners, Joanna, Mary Magdalen, Susanna, and others “ministered unto their Lord of their substance,” by personal attendance.
But still farther, in the intercourse of Society, woman has duties appropriate to her sex, grave and weighty duties. I would not that she engage in a single pursuit, that shall disqualify her for this function. If she degrade herself to the rank of a painted image, decked in apparel to charm simpletons, or if she flutter in the breeze of silly speeches and simpering airs, she is a traitress to her nature. She goes out, deplorably out, of her sphere.
Nor would I that, by sun-burnt labors and field-tasks, she should bronze herself, and lose that refinement, which is a guardian to her virtue, and the anchor of her spiritual hope. A coarse woman, she who fails in all the attractions and graces of her sex, and who