Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/198

 sports and pastimes. They lose "caste" and individuality. One of the many brilliant and original remarks of mankind concerning the female sex is that women should be cooks and housekeepers. So they should. No woman is a good housekeeper unless she understands cooking, nor can she be a good cook unless she be a good housekeeper. The two things are inseparable, and combine to make comfort with economy. A woman should know how to cook and keep house for herself, not only for man. Man says to her: "Be a cook,"—because of all things in the world he loves a good dinner; loves it better than his wife, inasmuch as he will often "bully" the wife if the dinner fails. But a woman must also eat, and she should learn to cook for her own comfort, quite apart from his. In the same way she should study housekeeping. If she lives a single life, she will find such knowledge eminently useful. But to devote all her energy and attention to cooking and housekeeping, as most men would have her do, would be a waste of power and intelligence. As well ask a great military hero to devote his entire time to the canteen.

In breaking her rusty fetters, and stepping out into the glorious liberty of the free, Woman has one great thing to remember and to strive for,—a thing that she is at present, in her newly emancipated condition, somewhat prone to forget. In claiming and securing intellectual equality with Man, she should ever bear in mind that such a position is only to be held by always maintaining and preserving as great an Unlikeness to him as possible in her life and surroundings. Let her imitate him in