That was a pleasant time in the history of the world, when every woman found, in spinning, weaving, and sewing, in the active labor of a small or the skilful management of a large household, full employment for time and thought, under the cheering shelter of a husband's or father's smile. That was a pleasant time also, when, in the middle English classes, women worked freely by a husband's side, with more regard to his interest than heed of the world's talk. But with the wide intellectual culture that America has been the first country in the world to offer to women, individual tastes and wishes must develop in single women; and all men who value the moral health of society must aid this development.
There is no greater enemy to body and soul than idleness, unless it be the absurd public sentiment which compels to idleness. Thousands and tens of thousands have fallen victims to it. The woman who will not labor, rich or honored though she be, bends her head to the inevitable curse of Heaven.
This curse works in failing health, fading beauty, broken temper, and weary days. Let her never fancy, that, being neither wife nor mother, she is exempt from the law: she cannot balance that decree of God by the foolish customs of society or the weak objections of her kindred. Never let her say she does not need to labor. Disease, depression, moral idiocy, or inertia, follow on an idle life. He who never rests has made woman in His image; and health, beauty, force, and influence follow on the steps of labor alone.
I shall not pursue this subject; for it is far easier for you to think it out, than to gather the facts I wish to bring before you. Read "Shirley," and let the saddest hours of Caroline Helstone's life bear witness for thousands who never find a vocation. Read the "Professor," and let its sweet stimulus kindle in you some appreciation of the joy which mutual labor can bring to a happy husband and wife.
Sad, indeed, then, is it when man himself represses a woman's longing for work, whether from false tenderness, from a dread of public opinion, a shrinking from her ultimate independence, or a small personal jealousy. That he does, in the aggregate and as an individual, so repress it, is unfortunately matter of history: it is no invention of an outraged inferior. I could offer you many private examples of this; but those that carry proofs of their reality with them will, I fear, seem very familiar. The first consists in the opposition shown to the attempt of Mr. Bennett to establish young women as watchmakers. Honorary Secretary to the Horological Department of the great Exhibition, he could not help observing the superiority of the Genevese watches, in cheapness and convenience of carriage. In England, watches are so dear that only the privileged classes can carry them. It would be for the interests of the manufacturers, of course, to be able to compete with the Swiss; but they were too short-sighted to see it. Finding that twenty thousand women and girls were employed in Switzerland in the manufacture of watches and watchmakers' tools, Mr. Bennett undertook to deliver a public lecture on the subject. It was interrupted by hisses, and broken up like a New-York convention. Three well-educated women then applied to him to be taught; but no Englishman could be found to take them. A Swiss, settled in London, did. They made more progress in six months than ordinary boys in six years; but they, as well as their teacher, were so cruelly persecuted, that it was found necessary to relinquish the attempt. My impression is, though I cannot find the account in print, that a further effort was made on a more extended scale, something like a school; and this was resisted by such combined effort on the part of the trade, that Mr. Bennett and his friends began to make a stir through the press. The "Edinburgh Review" mentions a watchmaker's wife who wished to work with her husband in his special department. Finding that it could not be done with the consent of the trade, she undertook, instead, the engraving of the brass work; but, though working in her own house, she was at last successful only under the plea that she had been regularly apprenticed by her father, also in the business. She persevered, and taught her two daughters; and so will many others.
Women in England must certainly make watches; and the time is not far distant when the men of Coventry will yield to this demand, as they have already yielded to others. A few years ago, winding silk, weaving ribbon, and pasting patterns of floss upon cards, excited the same opposition; but now thousands of women pursue these employments, and the men look on as quietly as the grazing cattle in the fields.
"The first steam factory in Coventry," says the "Edinburgh Review" for October, 1859,—"a very small factory,—was burned down during a quarrel about wages. Then there was an opposition to the employment of women at the looms. To this day, one of the lightest and easiest processes in the manufacture, which a child might manage, is engrossed by the men, under heavy penalties."
Fancy a strong man winding silk for a whole day, or sorting colors in floss! How has he ever degraded himself to such girls' work?