XVII.
WOMAN’S KINGDOM.
“I SEE unrest, discontent, strife, and sin: I see girls—children in years—from whose cheek the first blush of innocence, from whose soul the last vestige of youth, have vanished; women sold to frivolity; women wasting most precious gifts; women whose ambition has no higher object than to mislead and triumph over men; men growing hard, selfish, and wicked, the slaves of their passions, going down to death, with no hand to save,—all for the lack of a true home. Then I remember that the home is the true kingdom of woman, where her rights can never be dethroned; that all pure love, all right thoughts, all religion, all governments, if you would have them live, must have their roots beneath its altar. This conviction impels me to say to every woman who has a home, Let home stand first, before all other things! No matter how high your ambition may transcend its duties, no matter how far your talents or your influence may reach beyond its doors, before everything else build up a true home! Be not its slave! Be its minister! Let it not be enough that it is swept and garnished, that its silver glistens, that its food is delicious. Feed the love in it. Feed the truth in it. Feed thought and aspiration, feed all charity and gentleness in it. Then from its walls shall come forth the true woman and the true man, who, together, shall rule and bless the land.”
Is this an overwrought picture? We think not. What honor can be greater than to found such a home? What dignity higher than to reign its undisputed, honored mistress? What is the ability to speak on a public platform to large, intelligent audiences, or the wisdom that may command a seat on a judge’s bench, compared to that which can insure and preside over a true home, with such skill that husband and children “rise up and call her blessed”? To be the guiding star, the ruling spirit, in such a position is higher honor than to rule an empire. Woman’s rights! Has man any higher rights than these?
To be sure man often abuses his power, and brings sorrow and woe upon her who, trusting and loving him, should always be the mistress of his heart, an equal partner in all his possessions, his joys, and his sorrows. But are there no cases on record where “the woman Thou gavest me” has abused the power with which the marriage vow endowed her; destroying the peace, and making shipwreck of all that her husband holds most precious?
The law does not as yet secure to a wife such independence as will guard her against injustice and meanness from the hands of her husband; but what defence have they provided against the bitter sorrows that bad wives can bring down upon their husbands? Has any one ever ascertained the full statistics, or clearly estimated the average? It is well, no doubt, that this matter has been so widely agitated, as it all tends, we hope, to establish the rights of both man and woman on a firm foundation; but if, before this “revolution” is settled, man should make a full statement of his wrongs, there are those who could bring forward just cause of complaint in large measure. Ah! if husbands and wives would always remember that, with them, as in other associations, “union is strength”; that “united they stand, divided they fall”; that together they should walk through life, together share the joys, together bear the burdens and the crosses,—what a happy world this would be! If it is a united kingdom, the wife accepts the rough as well as the smooth of household rule, as her part of the administration. If able to govern without a “kitchen cabinet,” a happy woman is she! But if not, she also takes the trials of the kitchen, the disagreeable details which must form a part of her home life, the vexation of spirit caused by the inefficiency of the servants of the present time, and this is the dreariest part,—all great and increasing hindrances to the perfection at which she should aim. But a good wife will endure these infelicities till a remedy is found, remembering that they are but a small part of home. The purest, sweetest, holiest elements that constitute a home, if recognized and administered in the right spirit, will enable her to forget these trials in the joy and peace that is set before her, and to which all may surely attain, if woman forgets not her high calling in a poor ambition.
Meanwhile the husband—the household king—accepts his part in the rule of this united kingdom. Are his cares any lighter than his wife’s? Look at them. The dust and toil and strife, the battling with the great world outside, in whatever sphere his talents and duties call him, to provide necessities, luxuries, or honors, accordingly as he is prospered, for the family who are sheltered in his home.
We think the joys and the sorrows, the crosses and the crowns, in married life are about evenly balanced, and nothing will right all the wrongs, and bring order out of the confusion of these vexed questions, so surely as the shelter of a true home, ruled by the true wife and mother.