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.
* * * * *
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!"
It is very funny how such women will fancy they are recommending
themselves by this kind of talk, to persons whose approbation they
sometimes seek. If they only knew what a sensible, rational person may
be thinking about while they are patiently but politely listening to
such befogged nonsense; how pity is dominant where they suppose
admiration to be the while; how the listener longs to break out and
say, My dear woman, _I_ have washed and ironed, and baked and brewed,
and swept and dusted, and washed children, and made bonnets, and cut
and made dresses, and mended old coats, and cleaned house, and made
carpets, and nailed them down, and cleaned windows, and washed dishes,
and tended the door-bell, and done every "menial" thing you can think
of, when it came to me to do, and I'm none the worse for it, though
perhaps you would not have complimented my "intellect," as you call
it, had you known it. Lord bless me! there's nothing like one's _own_
hands and feet. Bells are very good institutions when one is sick, but
I never found that person who, when I had the use of my feet, could do
a thing as quick as myself, and as a general thing the more you pay
them the slower they move; and as I'm of the comet order, I quite
forget it is "_beneath me_" to do things, till I've done them. So you
see, after all, so far as I am concerned, it is no great credit to me,
although it _is_ very shocking to know that a woman who writes isn't
always dressed in sky blue, and employed in smelling a violet.
* * * * *
Then there is another subject to which I wish women would give a
little consideration; and that is the reason for the decline of the
good old-fashioned hospitality. I think the abolition of the good old
"tea" of our ancestors has a great deal to do with it, and the
prevalent and absurd idea that hospitality is not hospitality, unless
indorsed by a French cook, and a brown-stone front. Now, _dinner_
takes the place of this meal. Dinner! which involves half a dozen
courses, with dessert and wines to match. That is an affair which
requires the close supervision of the wife and mother of the family,
even though she may have a cook well-skilled, and attendants
well-drilled. Now, as most American wives and mothers, have about as
much strain on their vitality from day to day as they can possibly,
with their fragile constitutions, endure, they naturally prefer as few
of these domestic upheavings as they can get along with, and retain
their social footing; nor for one do I blame them for this. The blame,
is in a system which subordinates everything lovely and desirable in
the way of hospitality, to the coarse pleasures of show and gluttony.
Who shall be the bold lady pioneer of reform in this matter?
Certainly, ladies have a personal interest in abolishing this state of
things, when gentlemen's dinner-parties, including half a dozen
invitations, to the exclusion of every lady, except the hostess, are
becoming so common. Make your dinners more simple, fair dames, and
make your dress as simple as your dinners. Restore in this way the
power to invite your friends oftener, and let your and your husband's
invitations to dinner, include gentlemen _and their wives_. If the
latter are fools, they will not become less so by being excluded from
rational conversation. If they are _not_ fools, it is an outrage to
treat them as if they were. It would be useless, of course, to hint
that dinner had better be at midday. Fashion would turn up her nose at
the idea. And yet you know very well that _that_ is the natural and
most wholesome time to dine. As to gentlemen "not being able to leave
their business," to do this, I might suggest that they go to bed
earlier, to enable them to go earlier to that business in the morning.
I might also add, that gentlemen generally can find time to do
anything which they greatly desire to do. I might also add, that for
one child or young person who eats this heartiest meal of the day, and
goes directly to bed upon it without harm, thousands bring on an
indigestion, which makes life a curse instead of the blessing it ought
to be.
Where do you ever hear now, the frank, hearty invitation, "Come in any
time and see us?" How is it possible, when a table preparation that
involves so much thought and expense, is considered the proper way to
honor a guest, and conversation and cordiality are secondary matters,
if not altogether ignored? Of what use is it to have a fine house, and
well-stocked wine-cellar, and drilled servants, when the passion for
show has reached such a pitch, that public saloons and suites of rooms
in vast hotels, must be hired, and a man leave his own house, be it
ever so fine, because he must have more room and more parade, than any
private house can by any possibility furnish, without pitching the
whole family into inextricable chaos and confusion for a month.
This is all false and wrong, and demoralizing. It is death to social
life--death to the true happiness and well-being of the family, and in
my opinion, ladies are to blame for it, and ladies only can effect a
reform.
Simplify your toilets--simplify your dinners, ladies. There are many
of you who have sufficient good sense to indorse this view of the
case; how many are there with sufficient courage to defy the tyranny
of omnipotent fashion and carry it out?
* * * * *
Now, let me tell you how it was in good old-fashioned New England
towns; when people enjoyed life five times as well as now. Then
husbands, wives, and children had not each a separate circle of
acquaintances, and their chief aim was not to regulate matters, with a
view to be in each other's society as little as possible. That fatal
death-blow to the purity, happiness, and love of home.
_Then_ you went at dark to tea. I am speaking of the old-fashioned New
England parties. You and your husband, and your eldest boy or girl;
the latter being instructed not to pull over the cake to get the best
piece, or otherwise to misbehave themselves. There were assembled the
principal members of the church, and, above all, its pastor and
spouse, and deacons ditto. The married women had on their best caps
and collars, and the regulation black-silk-company-dress, which, in my
opinion, has never been improved upon by profane modern fingers. The
young girls wore a merino of bright hue, if it were winter, with a
little frill of lace about the shoulders; or a white cambric dress if
the mildness of the weather admitted. The men always in black, laity
or clergy, with flesh-colored gloves, of Nature's own making,
warranted to fit.