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Untitled Article
after . The year * of youth passed by , and with them the hope Of marriage , and the sttllen and coarse-fninded parent , whenever his daughter made a casual remark on the economy of the household wa saccuatotned to reply With an oath , ' Hold your tongue ! It is yotfr o * ti fault , that yotir legs were not long ago under
another man ' s table / But to return . When the marriageable daughters of & tnan in middling circumstances have returned home frota the nunneHes , designated € boarding schools , '—to which the objections of Matthew Bramble Would be even stronger in the present day , than they were of old , —wheti they return , the busi * ness is to get them upon the market without delay . Custom will
not permit of the cheap and ready method of ordinary advertisements , and certain prescribed rates must be followed . Dinners , evening parties . Slid dances , are the approved modes of * showing off , ' and as a repetition of these advertisement , or rather auction dances , without hooking a gudgeon , is a heavy drain upon the
family resources , fdf they must do the thing handsomely / every species of private penury must be resorted to , to keep up appearaftces / Still it k in vain , fdr , ifi mercantile phraseology , ' girls are a drug , a mere drug , Sir , ** and a journey on the continent is perhaps projected , on the score of economy , and a fresh speculation combined .
The females hitherto referred to , may be principally regarded as toys , educated and € accomplished' for the amusement of the wealthy , and whom no good or wise man would possibly wish to be the mother of his children . It is a fearful thing , for a being accustomed to think , to contemplate the possibility of being the father of children , whom he could not behold without shame , and whose early infancy , he must be conscious , would be one of evil impressions . I now come to the tiext class , the daughters of
tradesmen of moderate mcoittes , resulting from constant attention to their business . Such females are made to play & double part ; they are to be house-Wives on ordinary occasions , and fine ladies wheti required . They mtist stickle the fool * , and chronicle the smalt beer behind the scenes , and sing and play on the piano , — * hethet with taste or without— -whenever * company' is collected .
As girls , it is usually contrived that they shall be 'finished during the last half year * at a boarding school , of late ' oti th £ continent / thkt is at Calais or Boulogne , Where their faculties do assuredly get somewhat enlarged , and they acquire a species of manner ^ which consist much in pretension ; and those who have studied the specimen , can tell them as te&dily , as a soldier in plain clothes may be detected by those conversant with his habits ,
When the girls return home , whether from the seminary or the pension , the father , if he be of the old school , and fond of good feeling , will desire his household drudge , whom he calls his wife , Of bis mistress , — -just a * coarsely as a Red Indian saya , ' my squaw / of , ' toy woman / - —he will dedire her to instruct his giru
Untitled Article
SWft On the Condition of Women in England .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 222, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/6/
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