Who does not observe the immediate glow and serenity that is diffused
over the life of women, before restless or fretful, by engaging in
gardening, building, or the lowest department of art? Here is
something that is not routine, something that draws forth life towards
the infinite.
I have no doubt, however, that a large proportion of women would give
themselves to the same employments as now, because there are
circumstances that must lead them. Mothers will delight to make the
nest soft and warm. Nature would take care of that; no need to clip
the wings of any bird that wants to soar and sing, or finds in itself
the strength of pinion for a migratory flight unusual to its kind. The
difference would be that _all_ need not be constrained to
employments for which _some_ are unfit.
I have urged upon the sex self-subsistence in its two forms of
self-reliance and self-impulse, because I believe them to be the
needed means of the present juncture.
I have urged on Woman independence of Man, not that I do not think the
sexes mutually needed by one another, but because in Woman this fact
has led to an excessive devotion, which has cooled love, degraded
marriage, and prevented either sex from being what it should be to
itself or the other.
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