Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/141

Rh women tyrannize over their husbands. These form the exceptions, not the rule; and to judge of all, by these exceptions, shows either a weak head or a bad heart.

As far as we have observed these social reformers, we find that the great evil complained of, the head and front of all the wrong they suffer, lies in the necessity there is for the female sex to attend to domestic duties, while man steps abroad into the world, and makes himself a name and a place therein. They complain that every avenue to wealth, place, and preferment, is blocked up by men, and that a woman is not permitted, by the absurd customs of society, to contend for honors and wealth, but must meekly withdraw into her little circle at home, and be content with her husband’s honor, or the portion of his wealth he may choose to dole out to her.

With this idea set steadily before their minds, at the same time that they are profoundly ignorant of what really makes the difference between man and woman, they see nothing but wrong and oppression in the usages of society, and charge upon man the authorship of what is only the legitimate result of a law impressed by the hand of God upon the human mind.

In thus speaking, it is not meant to deny that