Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

From her nature and duties, the woman lives retired within her house. If she go abroad, it will be only from necessity, and then in the most quiet, modest, and unobstrusive way. She lives for her relatives, her family; not to attract the admiration of others, nor with the faintest idea that she may shine abroad—to be so charged would be to be charged as shameless. Only by this degraded class, who are barely tolerated without the city, and under the rigid supervision of the officers of order and decorum—could such a purpose be supposed to be thought of? She dresses with neatness, according to the established order, but always with such modesty that nothing is offensive to the chastest eye. She understands the range of her activity and of her affections. It is within the circle of family and relatives. All her accomplishments are to make her home pleasing. Duties and places are settled. She lives for those to whom she belongs, and who also belong to her. Her smiles are for her husband, and for her children, and her relations. She has no thought of going abroad to shine, nor to waste the time and money which belong to her family upon strangers. She never dreams that she has any mission which calls her away from her home. She has no call to "clothe the ragged," wash other people's dirty children, reform evil-doers, "convert the heathen," nor support "Society!" (These are some of the phrases which you will hear among the Barbarian women).

Where women have not husbands, none the less they have relatives, and their home is with them. They have a right to this home, and are bound to do their duty in it, submissively, usefully, and quietly.

If the Western Barbarians would see to it that all women, married or unmarried, were duly cared for in homes of relatives, as of right, and that they also made themselves welcome there by their usefulness and obedience, they would find an end of that agitation as to Women's Rights existing among them. Rights would be as indisputable as duties—and the first of these would be a quiet, modest, and rational obedience to their natural protectors, who, in turn, would be bound to respect and protect them. And if by any strange chance a woman was absolutely without relatives (a thing nearly impossible in our Flowery Land), then the State should see to it that she had a suitable home.

The education of woman, in a well-ordered Society, is also fixed and clear. It has immediate relation to her position and her duties.

She is from the first never disturbed in the natural order. She sees her relatives always quiet, modest, obedient. She never thinks this state of things to be wrong. She perceives the manner of female life; its seclusion, its devotion to the family, its purpose, and end. There is no complexity about it, no outside glitter, no field for show, no seeking for excitement and display. All her duties are at home—her happiness is there; there she is to be attractive, and there she is to attract—the love and respect of her husband, the regard of her relatives, the affection and obedience of her children!

So, her education needs no straining after effect. It looks directly to her duties, to her natural function and place; and to those accomplishments, of mind and of person, which shall enable her to be happy with books, with music, and the like; and shall add to the pleasures of her home.

All these things are common-place with us—so simple as to appear trivial. Our Illustrious wives and mothers could not understand the reasons for their elaboration—they have never seen the women of the Western Barbarians!

The position of women in the Social system of the West, on the whole, is the most remarkable thing in it.

I have made sufficiently suggestive remarks in the progress of these Observations; and only now have to add a word or two upon the general effect.

It gives a wonderful life, restlessness, and colour to the whole aspect of Barbarian life. Think of all the women in our Illustrious Land, at once leaving their homes, the seclusion of their orderly houses and lives, and rushing everywhere with the men, over the Land! And, not only so, dressed in splendid gaiety of colour, and adorned with gems and feathers, crowding into all places of amusement and of travel!