Women's duty

“ The being who discharges the duties of its station, is independent; and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother. ”

“ Note.—I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current everywhere (for they are equally jargons) ; of the jargon, namely, about the "rights" of women, which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women, and should be "recalled to a sense of their duty as women," and because "this is women's work," and "that is men's," ”

“ When governments have called for unusual duty that is difficult or disagreeable or dangerous, it is the woman in khaki who responds: "Take me. I am here." She will, in fact, do anything that there's no one else to do. ”

“ The President: Before this Convention closes, I want to say a word to the women who hear me. This work lies chiefly in our hands. We have undertaken no child's play. It is nothing less than a change in customs hoary with age—in laws which have existed through long years—in mistaken religious interpretations and views of duty, which have received the sanction and veneration of antiquity. It is to place woman where she may make herself fit for life's duties, in whatever department she may find herself, whether as woman, daughter, wife, or mother. ”

“ Can we, however, immerse ourselves continually during our day to day detailed work in discussions on woman's capacity in order to prove with evidence and examples that she is capable, like man, of taking up any career and fulfilling any duty? ”

“ It is melancholy to see, in all mechanical trades where woman’s labour is available, how many thousands are following pursuits, many of them injurious to health and to morals, and none of them qualifying a woman, in any respect, for future domestic duties. ”

“ And it is the pride and honour of our country, that woman holds a commanding influence in the domestic and social circle, which is accorded to the sex in no other nation, and such as will make her wishes and efforts, if united for a benevolent and patriotic object, almost omnipotent. ”

“ For to them are to be committed the minds and habits of every future child, at the time when every impression is indelible, and every influence efficient. What, then, can American women do in forwarding an enterprise so vast and so important? ”

“ Women, then, are to be educated for teachers, and sent to the destitute children of this nation by hundreds and by thousands. This is the way in which a profession is to be created for woman—a profession as honourable and as lucrative for her as the legal, medical, and theological are for men. ”

“ In the schoolroom, or at domestic service, a woman [114] is learning to train children, and to perform domestic duties properly, but in the workshop and manufactory, she follows a monotonous toil, useful neither to body nor mind, often injurious to both, and forming habits and tastes disqualifying her for future domestic duties. ”

“ If they would be the women they ought to be, noble, high-minded, matronly women, impressed with a lofty sense of their duty and high and generous conceptions of womanhood, it is imperatively important that they cultivate judiciously the greatest possible strength and activity of body. ”

“ When young ladies are taught the construction of their own bodies, and all the causes in domestic life which tend to weaken the constitution; when they are taught rightly to appreciate and learn the most convenient and economical modes of performing all family duties, and of employing time and money; and when they perceive the true estimate accorded to these things by teachers and friends, the grand cause of this evil will be removed. ”

“ Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. ”

“ They connect the duties of woman with the propensities and faculties peculiarly her own. To the men, they leave the defence of the country and the administration of public affairs; to the women, they assign the government of the home, the guardianship of the family hearth, and the education of children. ”

“ The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty. ”

“ We honor these pioneers because women who had been trained to follow and not to lead, and taught that wives and mothers should buy their security at the cost of a discarded fragment of their sex, dared to summon men to an equal bar and to declare that in purity, as in justice, there is no sex. ”

“ I take it that dignity of character, power of action, resolute will, commanding judgment, steady temper of mind, strong inward resources, are as essential in a good wife and mother as in a good husband and father. In a word, I take it that all that is noble, dignified, useful, and beautiful in character and life, is as essential in women as in men. If so, then why not give woman opportunities such as are necessary to develop her powers and form her character? Those opportunities can not be given without Employment. We can not make men without Employment; how can we expect to make women? ”

“ Though she may go out to do great deeds of goodness in the world, though she may speak from forums, teach from college chairs, write books, fill offices of trust and profit, go on missions of truth, peace, and mercy among her fellows, she will still love best of all places the sequestered scene of Home. I would not, either by law, or custom, or public opinion, confine woman's powers to the routine of domestic duties. ”

“ Feminine charity, feminine activity as a nurse, feminine petitions for the pardon of criminals, infinite other samples of women’s kindly dispositions must convince us that these activities are an integral part of their emotional life, and that women perform them only, perhaps, in a kind of dark perception of their own helplessness. ”

“ ALL LABOR IS NOBLE AND HOLY!”
That man should provide and woman dispense are the radical conditions of domestic service; conditions which I believe are highly favorable to the development of the highest type of womanhood. But at the same time they are far from embracing all women capable of high development, nor are they perhaps suitable for every phase of character included in that myriad-minded creature—woman. ”

“ If the world were mine, and I could educate but one sex, it should be the girls. I could make a greater and better [Pg 87] world of the next generation by educating the girls of this. It is not half so important that our legislators be wise, as that our mothers be so. It is not half so important that our men be brave, as that our women be so. Strengthen the women-heart, and you strengthen the world. Give me a nation of noble women, and I will give you a noble nation. Cultivate the woman-mind if you would cultivate the race. ”

“ The capabilities of women in present society are the result of the prevailing objective circumstances. Society as a whole, and not only women, bear the responsibility for the main features of the shortcomings. ”

“ The military aristocracy has never neglected the function of women in the state. The definition of their function may differ from ours, but that there is a function is recognized, and it is related to the other vital social organs. ”

“ If this new evaluation of woman’s work in civilization seems to err on the side of woman, we shall be satisfied if it helps to bring about a re-evaluation which shall include women not in an incidental way but as people of flesh and blood and brain—feeling, seeing, judging and directing, equally with men, all the great social forces which mold character and determine general comfort, well-being and happiness. ”

“ They may be better adapted to the constitution of the female sex, but the question arises, Are those in which women now engage, except domestic duties, more congenial [Pg xii] to their taste, more acceptable to their feelings, more likely to develop their mental powers, and rightly direct their moral nature, than many others in which they might engage? ”

“ So in the wise, virtuous, self-supporting, common-sense women we propose as the mothers of the future republic, the reverend gentleman may see a lack of what he considers the feminine element. In the development of sufficient moral force to entrench herself on principle, need a woman necessarily lose any grace, dignity, or perfection of character? Are not those who have advocated the rights of women in this country for the last twenty years as delicate and refined, as moral, high-toned, educated, just, and generous as any women in the land? ”

“ In these pages we have made some record of woman's work in past centuries, and also caught glimpses of duties, loves, hopes, fears, and sorrows not unlike our own. A wider sphere is now accorded, and a deeper responsibility devolves upon woman to fill it wisely and well. We should never forget that, as far as they were faithful to the duties appointed to them, they elevated their sex to a higher and nobler position, and therein performed the best work of the women of the Middle Ages. ”

“ There is much that crowds on me for utterance, but there will be those among you that will be able to give a fuller and fitter expression to the thoughts that cluster around this all-important question, the "Rights and Duties of Women"—her rights equal to those of men—she alone the judge of her duties. ”

“ Resolved, That one cause of the depressed condition of woman is the fact that the distinctive profession of her sex, as the nurse of infancy and of the sick, as educator of childhood, and as the chief minister of the family state, has not been duly honored, nor such provision been made for its scientific and practical training as is accorded to the other sex for their professions; and that it is owing to this neglect that women are driven to seek honor and independence in the institutions and the professions of men. ”

“ The former may add to the luxuries of life; the latter is essential to the happiness of home—to the joys and endearments of a family, to the affection of relations, to the fidelity of domestics. “Woman’s mission” has become almost a phrase of the day. That there are other duties for women besides household, and for some women especially, we by no means deny. But here are the broad, general, and permanent duties of the sex. ”

“ What we have to think of is the necessity,—in all justice, in all honour, in all humanity, in all prudence,—that every girl's faculties should be made the most of, as carefully as boys'. While so many women are no longer sheltered, and protected, and supported, in safety from the world (as people used to say) every woman ought to be fitted to take care of herself. ”

“ You go too fast and too far, my dear sir, you will frighten everybody. At least, I 204 believe like you in the equality of the sexes through the equivalence of their functions, but I take good care not to breathe a word of it. I content myself with claiming for woman instruction, diminution of conjugal servitude, and offices of charity; counting, between ourselves, that these victories obtained, women will be in a position through their education and proved utility, to affranchise themselves completely. ”

“ But no matter what our views may be of the destinies, characteristics, functions, or limitations of the sex, certain reforms are indispensable before woman and, through her, family life can reach their highest development. ”

“ There is no way to get round this question except by maintaining that men should not be exempted from the cares and duties which for all recorded ages have been assigned to women; and that women should enter upon the equally settled sphere of man, and become lawyers, politicians, clergymen, members of Congress and of State legislatures, sailors, merchants, commercial travellers, bankers, railway conductors, and steamship captains. ”

“ These have no use for rights or duties more.
Duties today are more than they can meet,
And law insures their right to clothes and food—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.
And, more’s the pity, some good women, too;
Good, conscientious women with ideas;
Who think—or think they think—that woman’s cause
Is best advanced by letting it alone ”

“ But to see the three chief figures of this great movement of Woman's Rights sitting upon a stage in joint council, like the three Parcæ or Fates of a new dispensation—dignity and the ever-acceptable grace of scholarly earnestness, intelligence, and beneficence making them prominent—is assurance that the women of our country, bereft of defenders, or injured by false ones, have advocates equal to the great demands of their cause. ”

“ Were we the stupid, degraded, heartbroken beings that we have been represented, silence might better become us; but as women of God, women filling high and responsible positions, performing sacred duties—women who stand not as dictators, but as counselors to their husbands, and who, in the purest, noblest sense of refined womanhood, are truly their helpmates—we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demand that we should. ”

“ And now the time has arrived when the womanhood of the nation have to be appealed to, and I am making a patriotic appeal to you, the women of my own country, to come forward and help in the present crisis. ”

“ In that way alone could perfect liberty of choice and action be secured for women; and she held it just that women should so be provided for, because the mothers of the community fulfil in the state as important and necessary a function as the men themselves do. ”

“ Then the wives of our guardians must strip for their exercises, inasmuch as they will put on virtue instead of raiment, and must bear their part in war and the other duties comprised in the guardianship of the State, and must engage in no other occupations: though of these tasks the lighter parts must be given to the women rather than to the men, in consideration of the weakness of their sex. ”