Cheraw gazette. [volume] (Cheraw, S.C.) 1835-1838, 1837-02-07
From The Mothers Magazine.
DAUGHTERS NOT EDUCATED FOR WIVES
AND MOTHERS.

DAUGHTERS NOT EDCCATED FOR WIVES
AND MOTHERS.
Few mothers seem to appreciate the
amazing responsibility resulting from the
relations of wife, mother, and mistress of
family. Else how can we account for
tho fact, that so little attention is bestow-
ed upon the education of daughters, in or
der to initiate them into the mysteries OF
housewifery? And yet this view of the
case is mortitying, 70. every lady knows
that the most common artist, on the prin-
ciple of selfiateresr, deems it essential to
his success in trade, to serve due ap-
premiership.
But mere inanention 10 domestic duties
and qualifications, is not all we have to
complain of. We are compelled to ask,
why is it, that our daughters are so often
absolutely disguised with those duties and
employments, to which the God of nature
intended the life ofwoman should be prin-
cipally devoted?
Miss Hannah More says, 4" I will ven-
ture to affirm, that let woman know
what size may, yet if she does not consider
it the perfection of the character of a
wife,
To study household good,
And rood works in her husband to promote
she is ignorant of the most important
branch Of female knowledge" She fur.
tl,er saws, "The idea of female drudge,
or an unpublished housewife, did not enter
into the views of Milton, when comment
ing upon Ewes reception and entertain
ment of the angel Raphael. The poet"
she says, uniformly kept up the same
happy combination of intellectual worth
with polished manners, ascribing grace to
her steps and dignity to her gestures, her
husband politely calling her " daughter Of
God and man, accomplished Eve"
The same is true OF Solomon, when de-
scribing, in the thirty.frst chapter of Pro-
verbs, the frugal wife and mother in Is
rael. He says, She openeth her mouth
with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law
of kindness. Her children rise up and
call her blessed, her husband also and he
praiseth her. She will do him good and
not evil all the days of her life. She
looketh we'll to the ways of her household,
and eate,h not the bread of idleness." y"
What could Solomon have meant, when
he added, "She worketh willingly with
her hands; she considereth field, and
buyeth it," The whole of this chapter
forces upon the mind the conviction, that
industry, frugality, and economy, were the
chief ornaments of the female character
in the DAYS of Solomon, and were also an
important source of wealth, and respecta-
bility, and permanency to family distinc-
ton. Solomon beautifully expresses the
same sentiments in another chapter, in the
following comprehensive and pithy sem
tencc: "Every wise woman buildeth her
house,"
1t may be added, these domestic quail
ties, upon which Solomon lays SO much
stress, will be found, almost without ex-
ception, sure index TO female virtue and
integrity-certainly where they have been
based upon religious principles; for in
this case, they must be the genuine fruit OF
that mode of training which God has him.
self prescribed. These virtuous habits
and principles in the female sex, are the
stability of nations no less than of families,
and they must forever constitute no incon-
siderable portion of domestic happiness,
because, in the naterc Of things, they are
immutably right and proper.
In the :ssisisS OF daughters is s'v''