Home is where affection calls,
Home’s a shrine the heart has builded.”
It has been argued by the over-fastidious, when these great questions relating to our being and well-being are discussed, that it is better for our daughters that they should not know what awaits them in marriage, “lest their heart fail them.” This cannot be best. Stepping into an unknown sphere with no definite knowledge of its demands and with no preparation to meet these demands, will only occasion disheartenment, if not downright discontent, when the difficulties and responsibilities are met.
As well might a raw recruit enter the army with no knowledge of warfare and without having been drilled for service, and expect at once to become a successful commander. As well might one accept any other position of high trust in life, without knowing what fitness was demanded, and hence all unprepared for it, the only qualification of the one accepting the trust being respect for and confidence in the employer, and expect to render excellent service, as for a wife to enter unprepared upon her high duties. In either case, by dint of hard and unremitting work, a few might succeed, but the many would fail.
A revised proverb says, “Home was not built in a day.” To insure a successful home the home-maker must be a success, and to accomplish this there are years of thoughtful preparation necessary.
Marguerite Lindley says, “We cannot overdo the matter of discreetly rearing our girls. They are to be the wives and mothers of the next generation, and on them rests the matter of the prosperity of the nation. The world is to be largely influenced by their abilities and strength, and it rests with the educators of to-day to prepare them for the great work that is before them. The keynote for harmony in mental and physical education has never yet been touched, and will not be until their physical well-being is made supreme, and the mental is based on its power.”
Jules Michelet, in his admirable book, L’Amour—admirable for the time and for the people for whom it was written—says, “It would seem that French mothers were determined to educate their daughters in all the non-essentials to wifehood and motherhood, while the things that pertained to their own well-being, and the well-being of home and family, were utterly neglected.” Again, he says, “Every mother practices a kind of self-delusion. She will say, most emphatically, ‘Oh, how I love my daughter,’ and yet what does she do for her? She does not prepare her for marriage either mentally or physically.”
When our daughters have had it burned in upon their inner consciousness that sensible dress and early hours, hygienic food and habitual outdoor exercise, will do for them and the succeeding generations what nothing else can do; and when our young men show their appreciation of these things, and commend them in the highest terms possible, then will a better day dawn for the race, and a real start be made for the true betterment of mankind. Is it not true, that the majority of our young women emulate the fancies and customs upon which our young men put a premium? Here then is an opportunity for our wide-awake sons to set the pace in a reform that will tell more for the coming generations than they dream of. Says a late writer, “We may smile at but need not rebuke the instinct of the young girl to enhance by adornments her physical charms, which nature already has made more attractive than all things else to man. Woman’s innate solicitude is to please, but this is not best accomplished by artificial manners or external show.”
We see nothing wrong in adding to the first intent of dress—namely a covering—anything, yes everything which may make it attractive, so long as it does not detract from its healthfulness and comfort.
Is it not very strange that so many women of sense and wisdom, and breadth of culture far beyond the ordinary, will not hesitate to adopt and cling to customs of dress that are little less than barbarous. Does it not seem, that among the large majority of women in civilized lands, the question is, when dress is considered, “Is it becoming?” or “Is it within the reach of my pocketbook?” while rarely is the consideration of healthfulness given any weight whatever. It is a lamentable truth, but we must acknowledge it if we are honest.