True it is, and deeply to be regretted, that there is a fashionable feeling abroad, which is the reverse of all this. Both men and women, in fashionable life, are apt to regard all labor—not only manual, but mental—as mere drudgery. They will labor, perhaps, if they cannot help it; but seldom, if they can. Or at least, this seems to be their feeling when they begin a course of industrious action. Some, it is confessed, finally become so much accustomed to action, that they continue it, either as a matter of mere habit, or because its discontinuance would now render them as miserable as they were in breaking up their natural indolence, and in forming their present industrious habits.
2. She should love the concerns and cares of domestic life, because no ordinary employment contributes more, on the whole, to female health.
I do not mean to say, that there is no other kind of employment which could be rendered equally healthy with doing house-work; but only that, as a whole, and especially in the present state of public sentiment, this is decidedly the best. Perhaps, in some circumstances, moderate labor—labor proportioned to her strength-in the field, or in the garden, might be healthier, were she trained to it; but as things and customs now are, this can hardly be done.
3. The employment is a pleasant one. It has at once all the advantages of a shelter from the severe cold of the winter, and of seclusion from the sultry sun of summer, and the storms of winter and summer both. [Footnote: Perhaps it may be said, that woman actually suffers more from the extremes of heat and cold, than man, notwithstanding her seclusion, This may be true; but I still think her constitution is not quite as liable to injury, from the weather, as that of man; besides which, she is rather less liable to accidents.] And not only is the house-keeper favored in these respects, but in many others. A pleasant, well ordered home, is perhaps the most perfect representation of the felicity of the heaven above, which the earth affords. At any rate, it is a source of very great happiness; and woman, when she is what she should be, is thus made a conspicuous agent in communicating that happiness.
Are not, then, home, and the domestic concerns of home, desirable? Are they not agreeable? Or if not, should not every young woman strive to make them so? How then does it happen that an idea of meanness is attached to them? How does it happen that almost every young woman who can, gets rid of them—as almost every young man does of farming and other manual labor.
4. Home affords to young women the means and opportunities of intellectual improvement. I do not mean to affirm, that the progress they can make in mere science, amid domestic concerns, will be quite as great in a given time—say one year—as it might be in many of our best schools. But I do mean to say, that it might be rapid enough for every practical purpose. I might say, also, that young women who study a little every day under the eye of a judicious mother, and teach that little to their brothers and sisters, will be more truly wise at the end of their pupilage, than they who only study books in the usual old fashioned—I might say, rather, new fashioned—manner. It is in these circumstances more strikingly true than elsewhere, that
"Teaching, we give; and giving, we retain."
5. But once more. She who is employed in the domestic circle, is more favorably situated—I mean, if the domestic circle is what it should be—for social improvement, than she could be elsewhere. She may not, it is true, hold so much converse on the fashions—or be a means of inventing, or especially of retailing, so much petty scandal—as in some other situation, or in other circumstances. Still, the society of home will be better and more truly refined, than if it were more hollow, and affected, and insincere—in other words, made up of more fashionable materials. If to be fashionable is to distort nature as much as possible—and if the most fashionable society is that which is thus distorted in the highest degree—then it must be admitted that home cannot always be the best place for the education of young women.
6. But, lastly, young women should love domestic life, and the care and society of the young, because it is, without doubt, the intention of Divine Providence that they should do so; and because home, and the concerns of home, afford the best opportunities and means of moral improvement.
The prerogative of woman—the peculiar province which God in nature has assigned her—has been already alluded to with sufficient distinctness. Let every reader, then, follow out the hint, and ask herself whether it is not important that she should love the place and circumstances thus assigned her; and whether she who hates them, is likely to derive from them the great moral lessons they are eminently designed to inculcate.