“One of our fashionable young women,—innocent, kind, gay, handsome, beautiful, as she may be,—is after all of no use whatever to a poor man who has to work for his living; except that, by trebling his expenditure, she is a most powerful stimulus to industry and enterprise. If he fail in business, or die without providing for her and her children, she has no other means of saving herself from starvation than that of opening a boarding-house; which is generally so ill managed, that in less than a year she is involved in debt, and sees her furniture brought to the hammer.
“As long as our young merchants get rich by speculations, or have their notes shaved by a Wall-street broker at the rate of one per cent. a month, they may be right in marrying those dear little objects of care and caresses; but when, at some future day, wealth will become the reward of labour and frugality, our ‘respectable young men’ will be obliged to select their wives for the kitchen as well as the parlour. All I can say in favour of our fashionable women is, that they do more for the settlement of the Western country than the soil, climate and the cheapness of land.”
“And what is most remarkable,” interrupted my friend, “is, that those very women, after they have resided a year or two in the Western States, become, by the strong force of example, and perhaps also from dire necessity, real Dutch housewives.”
“That is to say,” observed the Bostonian, “they scrub their own floors, clean the door-handles, wash the windows, sweep the rooms, make themselves busy in the kitchen, and walk about with children in their arms; all which, I can assure you, is done by the women of the best society in the Western States without destroying either their health or good looks. Women there are obliged to work, because they cannot find servants to do the work for them; and yet they are infinitely happier than your New York or Philadelphia ladies, who rise at eight or nine, breakfast at ten,—then, as Miss Fanny Kemble would have it, potter three or four hours,—then have a chat with three or four women of their set,—then walk Broadway or Chesnut-street, or go shopping,—then sit down to dinner,—then potter again until six o’clock,—then take tea,—and finally dress for a party, at which, unless they be very young, they stick up against the wall until supper.”
“I certainly wish for a medium between the extreme hardships of American women in the Western country, and their comparative indolence in the seaports,” observed my friend; “and yet I am glad that the republican spirit of the West is opposed to servitude of any kind, for it is a great corrective of our vulgar aristocracy of money. If, in the Western States, you could at all times command a sufficient number of hands, the possession of large real estates would soon lay the foundation of an aristocracy much more substantial and durable than that which effervesces on our seaboard. The human heart, after all, is aristocratic—that is, selfish—by nature; so that, if the resistance of the lower classes does not check the aggressions of the higher ones, the latter are sure eventually to get possession of the government. The Western settlers, who are obliged to work, and their wives, who must themselves superintend their households, have not even the time necessary for forming those exclusive coteries which govern society in the Atlantic cities.”
“And yet,” said the Bostonian, “it is not more than a year ago that I heard the wife of a Pittsburg lawyer complain of the state of their society, which was ‘dreadfully’ spoiled by the number of adventurers pouring in from the Eastern States.”
“Capital!” cried my friend; “the probability is she herself was but settled a few years.”
“That was precisely her case,” rejoined the Bostonian; “and, while she was playing the old family of the place, she wiped her children’s noses with her apron.”
“Now, I like that kind of aristocracy,” cried the doctor, “which is obliged to wipe babies’ noses, and that kind of family which is considered ancient when it has been three years stationary in a place; for it affords the surest proof that the true elements out of which an aristocracy may be formed are not yet to be found in the country.”
“You are out again,” cried the Bostonian. “You Englishmen, for some reason or other, never understand the particular genius of our people. We have ‘lots’ of aristocracy in our country, cheap, and plenty as bank-bills and credit, and equally subject to fluctuation. To-day it is worth so much,—to-morrow more or less,—and, in a month, no one will take it on any terms. We have, in fact, at all times, a vast deal of aristocracy; the only difficulty consists in retaining it. Neither is the position of our aristocrats much to be envied. Amidst the general happiness and prosperity of our people, their incessant cravings after artificial distinctions are never satisfied; they are a beggarly set of misers that will not sit down to dinner as long as there is a stranger present whom they are obliged to ask; and, as for the women, their position is truly deplorable. They are neither employed in domestic pursuits, nor does our society furnish them the agrémens of Europe. In a country whose population is the most active and industrious in the world, they are troubled with ennui, and have the whole livelong day no other companions than a few inquisitive creatures of their own sex. Were our women more engaged in the pursuits of active life,—were our state of society such as to offer them a more extended sphere of influence and usefulness,—did they receive less homage as women, and more as rational accountable beings, their aristocratic squeamishness would soon yield to a more sensible appreciation of character, and a patriotic attachment to their country.”