them when she is obliged to,' answered the injudicious mother; 'at all
events, I am determined she shall enjoy herself while she is young.'
And this is the way I have often heard mothers talk! Yet, could
parents foresee the almost inevitable consequences of such a system, I
believe the weakest and vainest would abandon the false and dangerous
theory. What a lesson is taught a girl in that sentence, '_Let
her enjoy herself all she can, while she is single_!' Instead of
representing domestic life as the gathering place of the deepest and
purest affections; as the sphere of woman's _enjoyments_ as well as of
her _duties_; as, indeed, the whole world to her; that one pernicious
sentence teaches a girl to consider matrimony desirable because 'a
good match' is a triumph of vanity, and it is deemed respectable to
be 'well settled in the world;' but that it is a necessary sacrifice
of her freedom and her gayety. And then how many affectionate
dispositions have been trained into heartlessness, by being taught
that the indulgence of indolence and vanity were necessary to their
happiness; and that to have this indulgence, they _must_ marry money!
But who that marries for money, in this land of precarious fortunes,
can tell how soon they will lose the glittering temptation, to which
they have been willing to sacrifice so much? And even if riches last
as long as life, the evil is not remedied. Education has given a wrong
end and aim to their whole existence; they have been taught to look
for happiness where it never can be found, viz. in the absence of
all occupation, or the unsatisfactory and ruinous excitement of
fashionable competition.
The difficulty is, education does not usually point the female heart
to its only true resting-place. That dear English word '_home_,'
is not half so powerful a talisman as '_the world_.' Instead of
the salutary truth, that happiness is _in_ duty, they are taught to
consider the two things totally distinct; and that whoever seeks one,
must sacrifice the other.
The fact is, our girls have no _home education_. When quite young,
they are sent to schools where no feminine employments, no domestic
habits, can be learned; and there they continue till they 'come out'
into the world. After this, few find any time to arrange, and make
use of, the mass of elementary knowledge they have acquired; and fewer
still have either leisure or taste for the inelegant, every-day duties
of life. Thus prepared, they enter upon matrimony. Those early habits,
which would have made domestic care a light and easy task, have never
been taught, for fear it would interrupt their happiness; and the
result is, that when cares come, as come they must, they find them
misery. I am convinced that indifference and dislike between husband
and wife are more frequently occasioned by this great error in
education, than by any other cause.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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