And how is it with our homes--how fares it with American women in the family circle? To all right-minded women the duties connected with home are most imperative, most precious, most blessed of all, partaking as they do of the spirit of religious duty. To women this class of duties is by choice, and by necessity, much more absorbing than it is to men. It is the especial field of activity to which Providence has called them; for which their Maker has qualified them by peculiar adaptation of body and mind. To the great majority of American women these duties are especially absorbing, owing to the difficulty of procuring paid subordinates, well qualified for the tasks they undertake. The task of positive labor, and the task of close supervision, are both particularly burdensome to American wives and mothers. Thus far, or at least until very recently, those duties of wife and mother have been generally performed conscientiously. The heart of every worthy American woman is in her home. That home, with its manifold interests, is especially under her government. The good order, the convenience, the comfort, the pleasantness, the whole economy of the house, in short, depend in a very great measure on her. The food of the family is prepared by her, either directly or by close supervision. The clothing of the family passes through her hands or under her eye. The health of the family is included within the same tender, watchful, loving oversight. The education of the children is chiefly directed by her--in many families almost exclusively so. Whether for evil or for good, by careless neglect or by patient, thoughtful, prayerful guidance, she marks out their future course. This is even too much the case. American fathers love their children fondly; no fathers more affectionate than they are; they pet their children; they toil ceaselessly for them; but their education they leave almost entirely to the mother. It may be said, with perfect truth, that in the great majority of American families the educational influences come chiefly from the mother; they are tacitly made over to her as a matter of course. The father has too often very little to do with them. His work lies abroad, in the world of business or politics, where all his time and attention are fully absorbed. In this way the American mother rules the very heart of her family. If at all worthy she has great influence with her husband; she has great influence over her daughters; and as regards her sons, there are too many cases in which hers is the only influence for good to which they yield. Is there so little of true elevation and dignity in this position that American women should be in such hot haste to abandon it for a position as yet wholly untried, entirely theoretical and visionary?
It will be said that all women are not married, that all wives are not mothers, that there are childless widows and many single women in the country. Quite true, but in a rapid sketch one looks at the chief features only; and home life, with its varied duties, is, of course, the principal point in every Christian country. The picture is essentially correct, without touching on lesser details. We pause here to observe also that almost every single woman has a home somewhere. She makes a home for herself, or she is ingrafted on the home of others, and wherever she may be--even in that wretched kind of existence, boarding-house life--she may, if she choose, carry something of the home spirit with her. In fact, every true woman instinctively does so, whatever be the roof that covers her head. She thinks for others, she plans for others, she serves others, she loves and cherishes others, she unconsciously throws something of the web of home feeling and home action over those near her, and over the dwelling she inhabits. She carries the spirit of home and its duties into the niche allotted to her--a niche with which she is generally far more contented than the world at large believes--a niche which is never so narrow but that it provides abundant material for varied work--often very pleasant work too. Let it be understood, once for all, that the champions of widows and single women are very much given to talking and writing absurdly on this point. Their premises are often wholly false. They often fancy discontent and disappointment and inaction where those elements have no existence. Certainly it is not in the least worth while to risk a tremendous social revolution in behalf of this minority of the sex.
Every widow and single woman can, if she choose, already find abundance of the most noble occupation for heart, mind, body, and soul. Carry the vote into her niche, she certainly will be none the happier or more truly respectable for that bit of paper. It is also an error to suppose that among the claimants for suffrage single women are the most numerous or the most clamorous. The great majority of the leaders in this movement appear to be married women.
A word more on the subject of home life, as one in which the interests of the whole sex are most closely involved. It is clear that those interests are manifold, highly important to the welfare of the race, unceasing in their recurrence, urgent and imperative in their nature, requiring for their successful development such devotion of time, labor, strength, thought, feeling, that they must necessarily leave but little leisure to the person who faithfully discharges them.
The comfort, health, peace, temper, recreation, general welfare, intellectual, moral, and religious training of a family make up, indeed, a charge of the very highest dignity, and one which must tax to the utmost every faculty of the individual to whom it is intrusted.
