The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-04-26
Women and Work.

1t has often been said, and it cannot
be said too often, that before women can
take their proper place in the world.
truer ideas in regard to work must pre-
vail. In the development of this oues-
tion of wOman's relation to work ies
the key to some problems that the ace
is trying to solve. Such questions a.
these agitate the thinking part of society
to-day: How shall marriage be made to
produce the best results? What influ-
enee can we bring to bear upon our
homes to give the greatest possible
strength and symmetry to the character
of children? How can the relations of
men and women in society become more
natural and noble?
A false public sentiment has ehrystal-
lied itself into law fOrbidding women
to work, except from necessity. There
must be philosophical reason for every
strong public feeling, even if the feeling
be wrong; and this prejudice is rooted
in the ancient chivalrOus regard for
women, which was suitable in an age
when the forces of the world were al
most purely physical. When the chief
business of men was to defend them
selves in mOated castles, the chief busi-
ness of women might we'll be embroid-
cry. The world has been ruled for cen
turies by spiritual rather than physical
power; men are thinking, in the main,
instead of fighting; selfishness is being
displaced by benevOlence, and those ele-
ments of character in which woman is
rich to denominate. But she Is still
kept in the castle at her embroidery /;
that is to say, this disposal of her meets
with the appreciation Of the greatest
number When men were ruled by
fhair aeinne or1 tho vt-nrl1 a
tle-field, there was not much chance for
women to work.
But conditions have changed; men
have adapted themselves to the change,
and women must do the same. There is
no room for false sentiment in regard to
work, in a society that calls for the no.
blest expression of whatever life there
may be in it's members The kind of
work is not important; but the idea
must prevail that it is as degrading for
woman to waste her life as for q man.
The possession of power must be re-
garded as a positive command to use
power for the good of society.
Whatever the force that is in a wom-
ans hand-time, money, talent of one
kind or anOther-that force she must
learn to use as conscientiously as if the
white hand were brawny and brown.
Idealists may repeat till they are hOarse
that woman's work is in the household;
it will not altar the reality of tens of
thousands of women who have no
household. All this cry of woman's
sphere is but the echo of our semi-sav-
age ancestors, who left their wives Sc
curely guarded and went off crusading.
When parents look at their daughters
with a view to developing the best that
is in them; when they educate them as
! human beings, with individual relations
to society and to God, and not as mar
riageable beings merely; when they
/ teach them the world is a domain for
| them to conquer, and that idleness and
vanity are as ignoble in them as in their
/ brothers, we shall see a race Of girls fit
/ for wives and mothers. To let girls
grow up under the prevailing influences,
and then try to make them all at once
self-sustaining, noble women, is like
training a peach tree to trellis, and
then expecting it to have all the SEM
blanee and conditions of an independent
/ life.-ChriStidn Union.