Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/382

362 woman, nor are her business capabilities encouraged and developed by systematic training. Gloomy must be the feelings of the father of a family of young daughters, when he is about to bid farewell to the world, if he is leaving them without the means of pecuniary support. Their brothers may go out into society and gain position and competency; but for them there is but little choice of employment, and, too often, they are left with repressed and crippled energies to pine and chafe under the bitter sense of poverty and dependence.

Their pursuits are to be determined, not by their inclination, judgment, and ability, as are those of man, but by the popular estimate of what is proper and becoming. In Turkey public delicacy is outraged if @ woman appears unveiled beyond the walls of the harem; in America a sentiment no less arbitrary presumes to mark out for her the precise boundaries of womanly propriety; and she who ventures to step beyond them, must do it at the peril of encountering low sneers, coarse allusions, and the withering imputation of want of feminine delicacy.

Even for the same services woman generally receives less than man. The whole tendency of our customs, habits, and teaching, is to make her dependent — dependent in outward circumstances, dependent in spirit.

As a consequence of her fewer resources, marriage has been to her the great means of securing position in society. Thus it is that this relation — which should ever be a "holy sacrament," the unbiased and generous election of the free and self-sustained being — too often is degraded into a mean acceptance of a shelter from neglect and poverty! We ask that woman shall be trained to unfold her whole nature; to exercise all her powers and faculties.

It is said that the domestic circle is the peculiar province of woman; that. "men are what mothers make them." But how can that woman who does not live for self-culture and self-development, who has herself no exalted objects in life, imbue her children with lofty aspirations, or train her sons to a free and glorious manhood? She best can fulfill the duties of wife and mother, who is fitted for other and varied usefulness.

The being who lives for one relation only can not possess the power and scope which are required for the highest excellence even in that one. If the whole body is left without exercise, one arm does not become strong; if the tree is stunted in its growth, one branch does not shoot into surpassing luxuriance.

That woman whose habits and mental training enable her to assist and sustain her husband in seasons of difficulty, and whose children rely on her as a wise counselor, commands a life-long reverence far deeper and dearer than can be secured by transient accomplishments, or the most refined and delicate imbecility! All women are not wives and mothers, but all have spirits needing development, powers that grow with their exercise.

Those who are best acquainted with the state of society know that there is, at this time, a vast amount of unhappiness among women for want of free outlets to their powers; that thousands are yearning for fuller development, and a wider field of usefulness. The same energies which in man find vent in the professions, and in the thousand forms of