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366 THE DISPUTED QUESTION.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
, "With An Increasing 1 Majority Of Abov...
necessity has made numbers do the same ; and in times of urgency ? women nave been recognised as auxiliaries , for which ordinary
_circumstances afforded them no opportunity . Assisted and directed ? they haye overcome work demanding considerable strength _^
both of body and mind , and often contending against all the obstacles in their way , continued from choice what was
undertaken from exigency . We dislike women to work , lest it pervert their sympathiesdetract from their charms ; we dislike still more
their working in , public , lest it impair their morals ; but our dislike amounts to horror when we consider them as in danger of being ,
what is called , undomesticated by the change . Yet the change is going onand the theory of one generation will be the practice of "
the next , . Marriage is every day becoming more difficult , the position of women more troublesome , while , what will weigh perhaps
more than these with many persons , husbands suffer from their wives' frivolity , and sons from their mothers' weakness of every
kind . "While a few women are endeavoring to leaven the lump by shewing that the sex are linked to the universe and all it contains ,
they are advised to be content with the possession of that portion . which is at their fingers' ends .
The fractional number of working women in the middle classes are , when they bound over to abandon workfor some cause or none .
Men follow marry occupations , for which women are , better fitted , and many women labor at special employments , for which , having no real
vocation , they are inefficient . And while men are wanted for occupations _, congenial to their tastesthey refuse the offer on account of their
female relatives depending , helplessly on their presence , not only for maintenance , but protection . Ignorant , and untrained to work or to
think as women are , much cannot be claimed for them , beyond the removal of those conventional obstructions which mar their efforts
at advance . To obtain even this , an exhibition of greater moral courage and an effort at some combination among women
themselves , are as necessary as an expression of a more liberal opinion on the part of the public . Time and instruction are required to
fit woman for work ; but during the process , the sense of greater utility in the community would stimulate the sex ' s reliance , while
firmness of nerve , skill and invention , would be increased by practice .
Our character as a people , of more importance than our numbers , would , through the development of the higher energies
of women , be unquestionably improved . To argue that they are too weak to work , their minds too flimsy for mental effort , is to insist
that the poor shall be ignorant and vicious , the rich idle , vague , and , morbidwhile in truth it were easier to decide for what efforts the
capabilities ; of our women were unsuited , if exercised , than the reverseWhat a few have lishedall may in a measure
accomp . lish ; the first are not exceptions accomp , so , much as tried samples
of an untried stock . For success , the support of the _jDther sex
366 The Disputed Question.
366 THE DISPUTED QUESTION .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1858, page 366, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081858/page/6/
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