The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. BallotFulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Religion
The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot
Fulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Husband and wife; Women -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Women -- Suffrage
Contrast the woman who is educated with the one uneducated. See her in
her home, reigning a queen, while her uneducated sister, though she
may have wealth and beauty, will constantly feel the lack of that
which gold cannot procure nor fortune provide. "We are foolish,
and without excuse foolish," said Ruskin, "in speaking of the
'superiority' of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in
similar things. Each has what the other has not; each completes the
other, and is completed by the other; they are in nothing alike;
and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and
receiving from the other what the other only can give. Their separate
characters are briefly these: The man's power is active, progressive,
defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the
defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy
for adventure, for work, for conquest, whenever war is just, whenever
conquest is necessary. But the woman's power is for love, not for
battles; and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for
sweet ordering arrangement and decision. She sees the qualities of
things, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise;
she enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown of
contest. By her office and her place, she is protected from all danger
and temptation. The man, in his rough work in the open world, must
encounter all peril and trial. To him, therefore, the failure, the
offence, the inevitable error; often he must be wounded, or subdued,
often misled, and always burdened. But he guards the woman from all
this. Within his house, as ruled by her,--unless she herself has
sought it,--need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or
offence. This is the true nature of home,--it is the place of peace;
the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and
derision. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as
the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the
inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the
outer world is allowed, either by husband or wife, to cross the
threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer
world which you have roofed over and lighted a fire in. But so far as
it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth, watched
over by household gods, before whose faces none may come but those
whom they can receive with love,--so far as it is this, and roof and
fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,--shadows of the rock
in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea; so far
it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of home. And wherever
a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The stars only may
be overhead; the glow-worm in the night--cold grass may be the
only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is; and for a
noble-woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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