Due to the crude household implements and the large families, the wife and mother undoubtedly endured far more physical strain and hardships than fall to the lot of the modern woman. The life of colonial woman, with the incessant childbearing and preparation of a multitude of things now made in factories, probably wasted an undue amount of nervous energy; but it is doubtful whether the modern woman, with her numerous outside activities and nerve-racking social requirements has any advantage in this phase of the matter. The colonial wife was indeed a power in the affairs of home, and thus indirectly exerted a genuine influence over her husband. And not only the mother but the father was vitally interested in domestic affairs that many a man of to-day, and many a woman too, would consider too petty for their attention. In spite of all the colonial disadvantages, as we view them, it seems undeniably true that those wives who have left any written record of their lives were truly happy. Perhaps their intensely busy existence left them but little time to brood over wrongs or fancied ills; more probably their deep love for the strong, level-headed and generally clean-hearted men who established this nation made life exceedingly worth while. Surely, the sanity, order, and stability of those homes of long ago have had much to do with the physical and moral excellence that have been so generally characteristic of the American people. FOOTNOTES: [75] _Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning_, 1678. [76] _Letters of A. Adams_, pp. 10, 89, 93. [77] Brown: _Mercy Warren_, pp. 73, 95. [78] Brown: _Mercy Warren_, p. 98. [79] Wharton: _Martha Washington_, p. 85. [80] Smyth: _Writings of B. Franklin_, Vol. III, p. 245. [81] Ravenel: _Eliza Pinckney_, pp. 93, 175. [82] Bassett: _Writings of Col. William Byrd_, pp. 356-358. [83] Wharton: _Martha Washington_, p. 153. [84] Page 242. [85] _English Garner_, Vol. II, p. 584. [86] Earle: _Home Life in Colonial Days_, p. 160. [87] Earle: _Home Life in Colonial Days_, p. 183. [88] Page 71. [89] Fisher: _Men, Women & Manners of Col. Days_, p. 275. [90] Sewall: _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 59, ff. [91] Humphreys: _Catherine Schuyler_, p. 123. [92] Humphreys: _Catherine Schuyler_, p. 193. [93] Vol. I, p. 122. [94] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 369. [95] Vol. I, p. 423. [96] Ravenel: _Eliza Pinckney_, p. 17. [97] _Memoirs of an American Lady_, p. 29. [98] _Letters_, p. 93. [99] Brooks: _Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days_, p. 197. [100] Sewall: _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 31. [101] Ebenezer Turell in _Memoirs of the Life and Death of Mrs. Jane Turell_. [102] _Letters of A. Adams_, p. 57. [103] _Letters of Franklin_, Vol. I, p. 324. [104] _Letters of Franklin_, Vol. III, p. 378. [105] Vol. II, p. 93. [106] Humphreys: _Catherine Schuyler_, p. 228. [107] Wharton: _Martha Washington_, p. 116. [108] Smyth: _Writings of B. Franklin_, Vol. II, p. 87.