Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1859-08-11
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From Womans Thoughts about WomenJ
SELF DEPENDENCE.
BIZ MRS. MULock.

aIf you want thing DONE 90 yourself if not. send:
This pithy axiom, of which most men
know the full value, is by no means SO well
appreciated BY women. One of the very
last things we learn, often through course
.aG.misefsble helplessness, heart-burnings,
Iiculties, contumelies and pain, is the les
con, taught to boys from their school days,
Of self-dependence.
= Us opposite, either plainly or implicitly,
Mss been preached to US sll our lives. "An
Independent young lady"-"a woman who
can take care of berself'-and such like
phrases. have become tscitly suggestive OF
boydenishness, coarseness, strong g-minded-
ness. down to the lowest depth of bloomer
ism, cigarrette-smoking and talking slang
( And there are many good reasons, in
grained in: the very tenderest@ core of wo-
mans nature, why this should be. We
are "the weaker vessel;" whether acknow,-
edging it or not, most of us feel this: il be-
comes mans duty and delight to show Us
honor accordingly. And this honor, dear as
il may be to him to give, is still dearer to
US 10 receive.
Dependence is, in itself, an easy and
plessant thing: dependence upon one we
love, being perhaps the very sweetest thing
in the world. To resign ones self tally
and contentedly into the hands of another;
to have no logger any need of asserting
ope's rights or ones personality, knowing
that both are as precious to that other as
they ever were to ourselves; to cease TAX
ing thought about ones sell at all, and rest
sale. at ease, assured that, in great things
end small, we shall be guideo and cherished
guarded and helped-in fact, thorough! y
,.taken care of"-how delicious is all this!
So delicious, that it seems granted to very
few.of, us, and to fewer still as permanent
condition of being.
Were il our ordinary lot. were every wo-
man living to have either father, brother. or
husband. TO watch over and protect her, then,
indeed. the harsh but salutary doctrine OF
self-dependence need never be heard Of
But il is not so. In spite oe the pretty
ideals of poets, the easy taken-ior-granted
truths of d-fashioned educators of female
youth, this fact remains patent 10 any per.
son of common sense and experience, that
ia4the present day, whether voluntary or not
one half Of our women, are obliged to take
care Of themselves-obliged to look solely
to themselves for maintenance, position, oc.
cupation. smusement. reputation, life.
- Of course referto the large class fol-
which these Thoughts are mesnt-the single
women; who. while most needing the ex.
ercise Of selfdependenee, are usually the
very last in whom it is inculca;ed, or even
permitted. From babyhood they are given
to understand that heiplessuess is feminine
.sis4 beautifully. hel2fulness-except in GER
tain received forms of manifestation--un.
,womanly and ugly. :, The boys may do I
thousand things which are mot proper fol
little girls"
! And herein, think, lies the great mis-
fake a, the roo. of most women's education
that the law of their existence is held t.
be. not Right, but Propriety; certain re
ceiyed notion Of womsnhood, which has de
scended from certain great grandmothers
admirably suited for some sorts of their de
scendants, but totally ignoring the fact tha
each sex is composed of individuals differing
in character almost as much from one an
other as from the opposite sex. For do We
not continually 6nd womapshiP men ant
masculine women9 and some o. the fines
tvpes of character we have, known among
both sexes, are they not often those VIII
combine the qualities of both! Therefore
there must be somewhere standard o
ubstrsc, right, including manhood and wo
manhood, and yet superior to either. On
Of the first of its common laws. or common
duties, is this of self-depe: dence.
We women are, no less than men, eac
OF, US distinct;texis'ence. In two out o
the tbsee great facts OF our lie, we ar
Certainly, independent agents; aud all ou
.ong we are accountable Only in tn
higAs.. bis saf-4, is:sg! own SOULS and III