The Young Maiden

by A. B. Muzzey

It may be objected that I assume the existence of two distinct spheres of action, in this world. This is acknowledged, and it is, I believe, susceptible of demonstration. In all nations there is found a division in the character of human occupations. The savage has his hunting and fishing grounds, which call for labors of a wholly different character from those of the wigwam. And though woman may, and often does engage in the sterner duties of the tribe, yet man cannot supply the earliest wants of the infant, and he violates the plainest decrees of nature, if he leave not some other duties exclusively to woman.

Civilization modifies this division of labor, but cannot obliterate it. Rather must its true work be the more wide separation of the sphere of each sex from that of the other. Christianity elevates the rank of woman, and through civilization, gives her a new moral and intellectual importance in society. Mental culture, again, diminishes both the taste and the necessity for those coarser tasks, to which, in ruder ages she must in some degree be subject. But if it qualify her for higher intellectual employments, her progress does not surpass that of man. They are relatively, as distant in this respect from each other, as they were in the days of the Patriarchs. The cultivated female mind enchants the world,

“And fills The air around with beauty; we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality.”

This leads us to say, that God must have designed woman for a peculiar sphere of action, because it is only when she is thus situated, that the mutual influence of the sexes, so important to earth’s moral good, can be fully exerted. The boy at school inclines to rough manners. What more effectual restraint upon this tendency, than the delicacy and gentleness which marks the little girl? She again, may become painfully diffident, and a recluse in her bearing, if not subjected to the society of the more confident sex. Encourage the boy to sit always by the fireside, and studiously shun conversation with the opposite sex, or put the girl forward and incite her to a bold and boisterous manner, and their mutual influence is diminished and soon lost. You transgress a plain law of the Creator.

So in the society of adults. Let men group themselves together, and they will converse only of their farms, their merchandize, and their manufactures, or of governments and administrations. Insulate the female sex, and they shall discourse upon dress, or the minor affairs of their neighbors, far too exclusively. But shall we, to obviate these evils, completely transpose their conditions? Do we wish to see woman on Change, or man given up to fashion, and culinary duties? No; let the main pursuits of each be distinct; but let neither regard him or herself as having no influence on the duties of the other.

What check were there on man’s wrong impulses as a lover of gain, or a devotee of ambition, should woman participate with him in these dispositions? And would not the inevitable consequence of her resigning herself to masculine offices and labors be, that she became as insane in the toil for riches as man; that she proved his rival instead of his ally; that far from composing and regulating the fire of his ambition, she did but kindle it to a devastating flame? To argue the contrary were to close our eyes on the native ardor of woman, and to forget the fearful agency of sympathy, when it takes an unholy direction. Morality, religion, the order, if not the very existence of society, hence point out a peculiar and appropriate sphere to woman.

Let me say first, negatively, what is not the province of this sex.

They should not engage in pursuits, for which their Physical powers are inadequate. If man is endowed with superior bodily strength, to him exclusively be allotted those manual avocations, which demand that strength. Let not the more delicate sex be tasked with the severe exercises of the field or the workshop. And if mental power depend at all on physical, if giant minds are usually found in vigorous frames, woman may infer that she can engage in the highest intellectual pursuits only by becoming an exception to the ordinary character of her sex.

“For contemplation he, and valor formed, For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.”

Again, it is not the province of woman to enter into Political life. Plato, indeed, admitted this sex to an equal share with man in the dignities and offices of his commonwealth. But we should remember his was an imaginary state, an Utopia, not a part of our plain, practical world. I do not forget here the long line of Queens that grace the annals of history; yet what had they achieved, wreaths though they wore on their brows, had not man been usually the prime minister and controlling agent in their governments? The affairs of nations require in those who guide them a practical acquaintance with business transactions, and a familiar knowledge of pursuits and interests with which woman is not ordinarily conversant. And how unfeminine were it in her to raise her gentle voice amid the storm of debate, or to rush into the heat and strife of partizan politics! Let such scenes never be coveted save by the Wolstonecrafts and the Wrights who have madly unsexed themselves.