Part 4

Sunday, "the Day of Rest," so called, to many mothers of families, is the most toilsome day of the whole week. Children, too young to go to church, must of course be cared for at home; domestics on that day, of all others, expect their liberty. The father of the family, also, in many cases, thinks it hard if, after a week's labor, he too cannot roam _without_ his family; never remembering that his wife, for the same reason, needs rest equally with himself, instead of shouldering on that day a double burden. Weary with family cares, she remembers the good word of cheer to which she has in days gone by listened from some clergyman, not too library-read to remember that he was _human_. The good, sympathetic word that sent her home strengthened for another week's duties. The good word, which men think they can do without; but which women, with the petty be-littling every day annoyances of their monotonous life, long for, as does a tired child to lay its head on its mother's breast. A mother may feel thus and yet have no desire to evade the responsible duties of her office. Indeed, had she not often her oratory in her own heart, she would sink discouraged oftener than she does, lacking the human sympathy which is often withheld by those upon whom she has the nearest claim for it. To such a woman it is not a mere form to "go to church;" it is not to her a fashion exchange; she _really_ desires the spiritual help she seeks. _You_ may find nothing in the words that come to her like the cool hand on the fevered brow. The psalm which is discord to your ear, may soothe her, like a mother's murmured lullaby. The prayer, which to you is an offence, brings her face to face with One who is touched by our infirmities. If an "undevout astronomer is mad," it seems to me that an undevout woman is still more so. Our insane asylums are full of women, who, leaning on some human heart for love and sympathy, and meeting only misappreciation, have gone there, past the Cross, where alone they could have laid down burdens too heavy to bear unshared. A great book is unwritten on this theme. When men become less gross and unspiritual than they now are, they will see the great wrong of which they are guilty, in their impatience of women's keenest sufferings because they "are only mental."

* * * * *

Ladies, many of you attempt too much. I am convinced that there are times in everybody's experience when there is so much to be done, that the only way to do it is to sit down and do nothing. This sounds paradoxical, but it is not. For instance: the overtasked mother of a family, in moderate circumstances, who must be brains, hands, stomach and feet for a dozen little children, and their father, who counts full another dozen. Do the best she may, plan the wisest she may, her work accumulates fearfully on her hands. One day's labor laps over on the next, till she cannot sleep at night for fear she shall oversleep in the morning. And though she works hard all day, and gives herself no relaxation, she cannot see any result at the close, save that she "hath done what she could." Of course you say, let her be satisfied with that, and not worry about it. That is only another proof how easy it is for some people to bear the troubles of _other_ people. Suppose her nervous system has been strained to the utmost, so that every step is a weariness, and every fresh and unexpected demand sets her "all of a tremble," as women express it, what is the use of reasoning then about not working? The more she can't work, the more she will try to, till she drops in her tracks, unless, catching sight of her prospective coffin, she stops in time. Now there are self-sacrificing mothers who need somebody to say to them, "Stop! you have just to make your choice now, between death and life. You have expended all the strength you have on hand--and must lay in a new stock before any more work can be done by you. So don't go near your kitchen; if your cook goes to sleep in the sink on washing-day, let her; if your chambermaid spends the most of her time on ironing-day with the grocer-boy in the area, don't _you_ know anything about it. Get right into bed, and lie there, just as a man would do if he didn't feel one quarter as bad as you do; and ring every bell in the house, every five minutes, for everything you want, or think you want; and my word for it, the world will keep on going round just the same, as if you were spinning a spasmodic tee-totum, as hens do, long after their heads have been cut off. Yes--just lie there till you get rested; and they all find out, by picking up the burdens you have dropped, what a load you have been uncomplainingly shouldering. Yes--just lie there; and tell them to bring you something nice to eat and drink--yes, _drink_; and forbid, under dreadful penalties, anybody asking you what the family are to have for dinner. Let them eat what they like, so that they don't trouble you, and season it to their tastes; and here's hoping it will do them good."

And now having located you comfortably under the quilt, out of harm's way, let me tell you that if you think you are doing God service, or anybody else, by using up a year's strength in a week, you have made a sinful mistake. I don't care anything about that basket of unmended stockings, or unmade pinafores, or any other nursery nightmare which haunts the dreams of these "Martha" mothers. You have but one life to live, that's plain; and when you are dead, all the king's men can't make you stand on your feet again, that's plain. Well, then--don't be dead. In the first place, go out a part of every day, rain or shine, for the fresh air, and don't tell me you can't; at least not while you can stop to embroider your children's clothes. As to "dressing to go out," don't dress. If you are clean and whole, that's enough; have boots with elastics at the side, instead of those long mile Balmorals that take so long to "lace up,"--in short, _simplify your dressing_, and then stop every wheel in the house if necessary in order to go out, but go; fifteen minutes is better than nothing; if you can't get out in the day-time, run out in the evening; and if your husband can't see the necessity of it, perhaps he will on reflection after you have gone out. The moral of all which is, that if nobody else will take care of you, you must just take care of yourself. As to the children--I might write a long book on this head, or those heads, bless 'em! THEY can't help being born, poor things, though they often get slapped for that, and nothing else, as far as I can see. It is a pity you hadn't three instead of six, so that the care of them might be a pleasure instead of a weariness; but "that's none of my business," as people say after they have been unusually meddlesome and impertinent. Still I repeat it, I wish you _had_ three instead of six, and I don't care if you _do_ go and tell John.

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Women can relieve their minds, now-a-days, in one way that was formerly denied them: they can write! a woman who wrote, used to be considered a sort of monster--At this day it is difficult to find one who does not write, or has not written, or who has not, at least, a strong desire to do so. Gridirons and darning-needles are getting monotonous. A part of their time the women of to-day are content to devote to their consideration when necessary; but you will rarely find one--at least among women who _think_--who does not silently rebel against allowing them a monopoly.

What? you inquire, would you encourage, in the present overcrowded state of the literary market, any more women scribblers? Stop a bit. It does not follow that she should wish or seek to give to the world what she has written. I look around and see innumerable women, to whose barren, loveless life this would be improvement and solace, and I say to them, write! Write, if it will make that life brighter, or happier, or less monotonous. Write! it will be a safe outlet for thoughts and feelings, that maybe the nearest friend you have, has never dreamed had place in your heart and brain. You should have read the letters I have received; you should have talked with the women I have talked with; in short, you should have walked this earth with your eyes open, instead of shut, as far as its women are concerned, to indorse this advice. Nor do I qualify what I have said on account of social position, or age, or even education. It is not _safe_ for the women of 1868 to shut down so much that cries out for sympathy and expression, because life is such a maelstrom of business or folly, or both, that those to whom they have bound themselves, body and soul, recognize only the needs of the former. _Let them write_ if they will. One of these days, when that diary is found, when the hand that penned it shall be dust, with what amazement and remorse will many a husband, or father, exclaim, I never knew my wife, or my child, till this moment; all these years she has sat by my hearth, and slumbered by my side, and I have been a stranger to her. And you sit there, and you read sentence after sentence, and recall the day, the month, the week, when she moved calmly, and you thought happily, or, at least, contentedly, about the house, all the while her heart was aching, when a kind word from you, or even a touch of your hand upon her head, as you passed out to business, or pleasure, would have cheered her, oh so much! When had you sat down by her side after the day's work for both was over, and talked with her just a few moments of something besides the price of groceries, and the number of shoes Tommy had kicked out, all of which, proper and necessary in their place, need not of necessity form the stable of conversation between a married pair; had you done this; had you recognized that she had a _soul_ as well as yourself, how much sunshine you might have thrown over her colorless life!

"Perhaps, sir," you reply; "but I have left my wife far behind in the region of thought. It would only distress her to do this!" How do you know that? And if it were so, are you content to leave her--the mother of your children--so far behind? _Ought_ you to do it? Should you not, by raising the self-respect you have well nigh crushed by your indifference and neglect, extend a manly hand to her help? _I_ think so. The pink cheeks which first won you may have faded, but remember that it was in your service, when you quietly accept the fact that "you have left your wife far behind you in mental improvement." Oh! it is pitiable this growing apart of man and wife, for lack of a little generous consideration and magnanimity! It is pitiable to see a husband without a thought that he might and should occasionally, have given his wife a lift out of the petty, harrowing details of her woman's life, turn from her, in company, to address his conversation to some woman who, happier than she, has had time and opportunity for mental culture. You do not see, sir--you will not see--you do not desire to see, how her cheek flushes, and her eye moistens, and her heart sinks like lead as you thus wound her self-respect. You think her "cross and ill-natured," if when, the next morning, you converse with her on the price of butter, she answers you listlessly and with a total want of interest in the treadmill-subject.

I say to such women: Write! Rescue a part of each week at least for reading, and putting down on paper, for your own private benefit, your thoughts and feelings. Not for the _world's_ eye, unless you choose, but to lift yourselves out the dead-level of your lives; to keep off inanition; to lessen the number who are yearly added to our lunatic asylums from the ranks of misappreciated, unhappy womanhood, narrowed by lives made up of details. Fight it! oppose it, for your own sakes and your children's! Do not be _mentally_ annihilated by it. It is all very well to sneer at this and raise the old cry of "a woman's sphere being home"--which, by the way, you hear oftenest from men whose home is only a place to feed and sleep in. You might as well say that a man's sphere is his shop or his counting-room. How many of them, think you, would be contented, year in and year out, to eat, drink, and sleep as well as to transact business there, and _never desire_ or _take_, at all costs, some let-up from its monotonous grind? How many would like to forego the walk to and from the place of business? forego the opportunities for conversation, which chance thus throws in their way, with other men bent on the same or other errands? Have, literally, _no_ variety in their lives? Oh, if you could be a woman but one year and try it! A woman--but not necessarily a butterfly--not necessarily a machine, which, once wound up by the marriage ceremony, is expected to click on with undeviating monotony till Death stops the hands.

* * * * *

I am often asked the question, "Do I believe that women should vote?" Most assuredly. I am heart and soul with the women-speakers and lecturers, and workers in public and private, who are trying to bring this thing about. I have heard and read all the pros and cons on this subject; and I have never yet heard, or read, any argument in its _dis_favor, which is worth considering by whomsoever uttered, or written. Everything must have a beginning, and no noble enterprise was ever yet undertaken that did not find its objectors and assailants. That is to be expected. These women-pioneers are prepared for this. It is not pleasant, to be sure, to see those men in their audiences, who should give them a hearty, manly support, making flippant, foolish, shallow remarks on the subject; or thanking God that _their_ wives and daughters are not "mixed up in it." Meantime their wives and daughters may be "mixed up" in many things much less to their credit, and much more to the detriment of their relations as mothers and wives. And when I hear a woman making fun of this subject, or languidly declaring that, for her part, she wouldn't give a fig to vote, and she is only glad enough to be rid of the whole bothering thing, I feel only pity, that in this glorious year of our Lord, 1869, she should still prefer going back to the dark ages. I feel only pity, that, torpidly and selfishly content with her ribbons and dresses, she may never see or think of those other women, who may be lifted out of their wretched condition, of low wages and starvation, by this very lever of power.

As to the principal objection urged against voting, I think a woman may vote and yet be a refined, and lady-like, and intelligent person, and worthy of all respect from those who hold womanhood in the highest estimation. I think she may go to the ballot-box without receiving contamination, just as I believe that she may walk in the public thoroughfares, and pass the most desperate characters, of both sexes, without a spot on her spiritual raiment. Nay, more--I believe that _through her_ the ballot-box is to become regenerated. Nor do I believe that any man, educated or uneducated, unless under the influence of liquor, would in any way make that errand a disagreeable one to her. You tell me, but they _are_ under that influence more or less on election day. Very well--the remedy for that is in closing the liquor-shops till it is over.

As to women "voting as their husbands tell them," I have my own opinion, which I think results would prove to be correct. I think, for instance, that no wife of a drunkard would vote that any drunkard should hold office, howsoever her husband himself might vote, or tell her to vote. Then, why is it any worse for a _woman_ "to vote as she is bid," than for an ignorant _male_ voter to vote as he is bid. And as to the "soil and stain on woman's purity," which timidity, and conservatism, and selfishness insists shall follow the act, it might be well, in answer, to draw aside the veil from many homes in New York, _not_ in the vicinity of the Five Points either, where long-suffering, uncomplaining wives and mothers, endure a defilement and brutality on legal compulsion, to which this, at the worst estimate ever made by its opponents, would be spotlessness itself. No--no. Not one, or all of these reasons together, is the _true_ reason for this opposition; and what is more, not one, or all of these reasons together, will _eventually_ prevent women from having the franchise. It is only a question of time; that's one comfort.

_WOMEN AND SOME OF THEIR MISTAKES._

But, then, it is not altogether the fault of men, that women have so poor a time in this world.

If I had a boy, my chief aim would be to make him yield to his sisters. Why? _Because_ so many boys have been taught a contrary lesson; their selfishness every day growing stronger and stronger, till the day when they marry some woman, who is expected to "fall into line"--toes out, head erect, shoulders squared--at the word of command, like their sisters. It is a very common thing to hear a mother say to her daughters, you must do this, or that, or omit doing this, or that, or some day you will cause the unhappiness of the man you marry. When was a parent ever known to say this to a _boy_ about his future wife? The idea, I have no doubt, would be considered quite ludicrous. But I have yet to learn why it is not as necessary in one case as in the other. Now, to oblige the girls of a family to be punctual to their meals, on penalty of displeasure, and cold food, and to save a warm breakfast for the _boy_, whenever he chooses to lie in bed an hour or two later than the rest of the family, is making a fatal mistake, so far as the boy is concerned, and educating a selfish husband for some unfortunate girl who may be entrapped by him. _Then_ this foolish mother will be the very first to lament to her circle of sympathizing friends, that "_her_ John" should have married a woman who is so exacting and unyielding. _Then_, these sisters will mourn publicly that dear "John" should have made such a terrible matrimonial blunder as to marry a woman who was not enamored of mending his stockings every evening in the week, which he spent out doors, in any kind of amusement that the whim of the hour suggested. _Then_--aunts, and cousins, and uncles, of the hundredth degree, will join and swell the chorus, till "dear John," if he has not sense enough to see the discrepancy between their preaching and their practice, as exemplified in their exactions towards their own husbands, will believe himself entitled to honorable mention in "Fox's Book of Martyrs."

The evil, I have said, _begins_ with the boy's home education. "Sister" must mend his gloves and stockings, and alter his shirts, whenever he wishes; but "brother" may altogether decline waiting upon his sisters to evening visits, or amusements, in favor of other ladies, or may, in any other way, show his utter selfishness and disregard of their natural claims upon him.

This is all wrong, and boys so brought up must of necessity resist, when matrimony presents any other side of the question than that of blind, unswerving obedience.

Now, imagine this selfishness intensified a thousand fold by solitary years of bachelorhood, and you have a creature to whom "The Happy Family" would forever be a myth.

Perhaps you think that I imagine selfishness to be peculiarly the vice of the other sex. Not at all. There are women who are most disgustingly selfish; wives and mothers unworthy both these titles; but I shall find you ten selfish husbands to one selfish wife, and therefore I call the attention of parents to this part of their sons' education. If half the admonitions bestowed so lavishly upon girls were addressed to their brothers, the family estate and the public would be the gainers.

There is one class of women that in my opinion need extinguishing. I think I hear some male voice exclaim, _One_? I wish there were not a great many! Sir! know that the foolishest woman who was ever born is better than most men; but I am not treating of that branch of the subject now. As I was about to remark, there is a class of sentimental women who use up the whole dictionary in speaking of a pin, and circumlocute about the alphabet in such a way, every time they open their mincing lips, that nobody but themselves can know what they are talking about, and truth to say, I should have been safe not to admit even that exception. Their "_ske-iy_" must always be heavenly "_ble-u_;" to touch household matters with so much as the end of a taper finger would be "beneneath them," and that though Astor may have considerable more money in the bank than themselves. To sweep, to dust, to make a bed, to look into a kitchen-closet, to superintend a dinner--was a woman made for that? they indignantly exclaim. Now, while I as indignantly deny that she was born with a gridiron round her neck, I repudiate the idea that any one of these duties is beneath any woman, if it be necessary or best that she should perform them. I could count you a dozen women on my fingers' ends, whom the reading world has delighted to honor, who held no such flimsy, sickly, hot-house views as these. Because a woman can appreciate a good book, or even write one, or talk or think intelligently, is she not to be a breezy, stirring, wide-awake, efficient, thorough, capable housekeeper? Is she not to be a soulful wife and a loving, judicious mother? Is she to disdain to comb a little tumbled head, or to wash a pair of sticky little paws, or to mend a rent in a pinafore or little pair of trousers? I tell you there's a false ring about women who talk that way. No woman of true intellect ever felt such duties _beneath_ her. She may like much better to read an interesting book, or write out her own thoughts when she feels the inspiration, than to be _much_ employed this way, but she will never, never disdain it, and she will faithfully stand at her post if there can be no responsible relief-guard. You will never find her sentimentally whining about moonshine, while her neglected children are running loose in the neighbors' houses, or through the streets. You may be sure she is the wrong sort of woman who does this; she has neither head enough to attain to that which she is counterfeiting, nor heart enough really to care for the children she has so thoughtlessly launched upon the troubled sea of life. I sincerely believe that there are few women with a desire for intellectual improvement, who cannot secure it if they will. To be honest, they find plenty of time to put no end of embroidery on their children's clothes; plenty of time to keep up the neck-and-neck race of fashion, though it may be in third-rate imitations. They will sit up till midnight, but they will trim a dress or bonnet in the latest style, if they cannot hire it done, when the same energy would, if they felt inclined, furnish the _inside_ of their heads much more profitably; for mark you, these women who are above household cares will run their feet off to match a trimming, or chase down a coveted color in a ribbon. _That_ isn't "belittling!" _That_ isn't "trivial!" _That_ isn't "beneath them!"