Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/92



A SERMON OF THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN.—PREACHED AT THE MUSIC HALL, MARCH 27, 1853.

Sunday I spoke of the “Domestic Function of Woman”—what she may do for the higher development of the human race at home. To-day I ask your attention to “A Sermon of the Ideal Public Function of Woman, and the Economy thereof, in the higher Development of the Human Race.”

The domestic function of woman, as a housekeeper, wife, and mother, does not exhaust her powers. Woman's function, like charity, begins at home; then, like charity, goes everywhere. To make one-half of the human race consume all their energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife, and mother, is a waste of the most precious material that God ever made.

I. In the present constitution of society there are some unmarried women to whom the domestic function is little, or is nothing; women who are not mothers, not wives, not housekeepers. I mean those who are permanently unmarried. It is a great defect in the Christian civilization, that so many women and men are never married. There may be three women in a thousand to whom marriage would be disagreeable under any possible circumstances; perhaps thirty more to whom it would be disagreeable under the actual circumstances—in the present condition