Sunday, May 27, 2012

What is the sphere of woman?

"What is the sphere of woman? Home. The social circle. 
What is her mission? To mold character, --to fashion herself and others after the model character of Christ.

What are her chief instruments for the accomplishment of her great work? The affections. Gentleness, sweetness, loveliness, and purity are the elements of her "power".

Her place is not on life's' great battlefields. Man belongs there. It is for him to go forth armed for its conflicts and struggles to do fierce battle with the host of evils that throng our earth. But woman must abide in the peaceful sanctuaries of home, and walk in the noiseless vales of private life.

There she must dwell, beside the secret springs of public virtue.

There she must smile upon the father, the brother, the husband, when, returning like warriors from the fight, exhausted and covered with the dust of strife, they need to be refreshed by sweet waters drawn from affections spring, and cheered to renewed struggles by the music of her voice.

There she must rear the Christian patriot, and statesman, the self-denying philanthropist, and the obedient citizen.

There, in a word she must form the character of the world, and determine the destiny of her race! How awful is her mission! What dread responsibility attaches to her work!

Surely she is not degraded by filling such a sphere. nor would she be elevated, if , forsaking it, she should go forth into the highway of society and jostle with her brothers for the offices and honors of public life. Fame she might occasionally gain, but it would be at the price of her womanly influence." ~Dan Wise (1857) 

[Slightly edited.]

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