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    2 94 WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO ?

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    *& M Number I Consrciitjded Of This My J...

    for a much larger portion of the middle class than will condescend to accept itI think it is absurd to keep servants and to "bring *

    . daughters up to idleness and penury , unable to do household work , and disgusted at tlie idea of marrying in a rank where it would be

    necessary to do it . I think that the way in which all girls who can possiblbe supported in idleness shrink from real active household

    • work , is y a great mistake and a great misfortune ; that it does not help their intellectual development the least in the world ; that they

    would be a great deal cleverer and healthier and happier if they did it ; and that if poor middle-class fathers would bring _* up their

    little daughters to do the house work , after the fashion of Mary in the " Minister ' s "Wooing" and pay the money they would otherwise

    ive to a servant for , s and boardto an assurance office to . secure g their daughters dowries wage , it would , be a great deal the better

    plan in innumerable cases , and that plenty of time would remain for mental cultivation , though less for shabby and showy

    accomplishments . But such an idea is widely removed from anybody ' s thoughts or

    practice at present , and the actual fact staring- us in the face- is , that young men do not seek portionless wives , and do not consider the

    present amount of domestic knowledge and practice owned by young women as equivalent to " capital . '' Therefore we are obliged to

    put aside this third suggestion as being of no real use in regard to those included as " educated women . "

    Since , therefore , such are exonerated by custom and by the altered habits of society from those active domestic habits which make a

    woman in the lower ranks an equal sharer in Jier husband ' s labors , and enable her in single life to make a little money go a long way ,

    and since public opinion nominally condemns marriage for a maintenancewhere is tlie practicable alternative , except to help her to

    , become an " independent factor" on a higher" level . It is very easy to cast a dexterous color of ridicule over people and things by

    a happy epithet , which seems to embody a new idea in words and to point out its absurdity ; but let us just consider what an

    independent factor really is , and who come fairly under that designation . In the first laceall domestic servantsto the number of 664 , 467 ,

    ( according to p the , census of 1851 , ) the , nurse , the cook , and the housemaid , without whom we are accustomed to think that we

    could not exist for a , day , are women working on their own account and away from their own homes , yet we do not find that tradesmen

    consider them unlikely to make good wives . Again , all dressmakers , shopkeepers , charwomen , etc ., earn an independent livelihood before

    marriage , and in many cases continue to do so afterwards , yet we d cause iscomfor d by t the hurry housewife and ill ' prepared s absence from meals the _working more man than ' su home fficien , t the reason dirt s ,

    heavy why every mora , woman l obli , who tions has - shoul deliberately d fulfil cho them , sen scrupulousl to take upon to herself the exclusion certain

    of all temptations in other , directions . y -

    2 94 What Can Educated Women Do ?

    2 94 WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO ?

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1860, page 294, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011860/page/6/