The Ohio law repeals a former law of 1857, which secured to all married women the control of the sale or the disposal of personal property exempt from execution: so its benefits are of a nature by no means unmixed. [44] See note, page 349. [45] See Appendix. [46] This passage was originally prompted by some reflections on the changes which have occurred in domestic life in Boston. Here the family, even among those of the highest social rank, had once a sacred simplicity pleasant to remember. Men were accustomed to take their three meals with their wives and children. The latest dinner-hour was two, p.m.; and suppers were unheard of. The evening party began at seven; and young girls went freely and uninvited from house to house, with their needle or their book. How greatly all this is changed, my readers, many of them, feel still more deeply than I; and, with this change, the formation of "clubs" of various kinds has brought about others far more important. A young married lady of rank and fashion was lately lamenting to me the isolation of husbands and wives, fathers and children, consequent upon club-life. "But," she concluded with a sigh, "if my husband had no club, he would expect a hot supper for a friend two or three times a week; and how could I ever accomplish that?" This _indolence_ of _women_ lies at the bottom of many serious social evils. The woman who will not, health and fortune permitting, make herself responsible in such a case for any number of hot suppers, deserves to see her own happiness wither, her own hearth made desolate. It is needless to add, that if women would educate themselves to be true and noble companions to their husbands, and resign on their own part all that is unsound, and therefore unbecoming, in fashionable life, hot suppers would cease to be a desideratum, and men would pass pleasant evenings without them. TEN YEARS: AN APPENDIX. "The only respect in which all men continue for ever to be equal, is that of the equal right which every man has to defend himself; but this involves a source of much inequality in respect to the things which any one may have a right to defend."--ADAM FERGUSON. TEN YEARS: AN APPENDIX. "To go on working, I consider the only thing to do; and, when friends urge this after every fresh effort, their doing so in itself contains a kind of verdict."--FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY. There are some items of interest, that have come under my observation, for the first time, during the last few years, which I have not found it possible to add to the preceding lectures without destroying their symmetry. I therefore offer them in an Appendix. They are not placed here because they are unimportant, but simply that the later progress of public opinion may be set forth by itself.