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412 FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS. •
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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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.
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Washington Potts / ' consigning her children to French nurses , and her frail personality to the sofaand _nieaisiiring all her ,
acquaint-, ances by the _" almighty dollar . " Belgravian fathers will likewise urge a second point in
self-vindication . They will say that as , on the one hand , they cannot reasonably be expected to train up Ladies Ethelfed and Fredegonde
. 'to a profession , neither , on the other , is it possible to leave them an income which will enable tnem to keep up the parental . menage ;
that £ 20 , 000 a year is not possessed of any mysterious power of Belf-multiplication , whereby at the death of the life-owner it can
provide equivalent incomes for the heir , a couple of _" " detrimentals ;" and four young ladies . We take care to forestall these obvious
answers very clearly , or it would be of little use to expend printers ' ink on an appeal which would instantly be met by such upon the
threshold . The real question is one of degree . Supposing that Belgravian
daughters will possibly and probably marry into wealthy households without any particular strain upon their natural womanly
inclinations ; and taking _~ for granted that Belgravian fortunes . cannot be so subdivided as to make the part equal to the whole , do
Belgravian fathers take sufficient reasonable care of their daughters in regard to money ; do they leave them as well provided for as they
might do ; do they give them _> taking into honest consideration all the circumstances of the _case——aH the interests , habits , and
secondnature necessities of an aristocracy— -a fair measure of happy independence of a marriage for money ? We are convinced that in
_xespect to Belgravia , English Belgravia , the answer must be an emphatic No . A dowry of - £ 5000 bears about as mu . ch proportion
to a paternal income of £ 20 , 000 a year . as the . remarkable measure _& £ distance between _" one o'clock and . London Bridge . " v
The paternal expenditure . in those families where daughter after daughter comes to the domestic hearth ought surely _tp be strictly
regulated hy the bounden duty of saving or insuring for a certain reasonable competence for each child . If she marries , let her take
it into her husband ' s home , where it wiU give her accession of dignity and influence in her husband ' s family ; if she remains single
, it will support her , not in the luxury of her father's house , but _without strain or narrowness . Abroad this is done in one shape
< or another ; look at the German stiffs ; foundations like secular conventswhere the daughters of the nobility v . can dwell in .
peace and , honor according to their quality ; establishments founded in many cases by noble families for their , female _descendant
of every degree ; varying it may be in comfort and in the wisdom of their regulations and respective freedoms , yet embodying . [> . a
principle of the most excellent kind . Look again at the . French dots , and at the care taken ( whatever the other defects of the system ) to
, leave a daughter in all outward comfort and _respectabyity . , In no
_cpimtry are women freer and , more honored individually than in
412 Fathers And Daughters. •
412 FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1861, page 412, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081861/page/52/
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