Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1873-07-25
WoMEN's REAL NEEDS.


women dependent on their own exertions.
Ts tell such as these that woman's proper
sphere is home is mockery, for they are fore.
ed from their homes to get bread. Though
many barrier to woman's earning a liveli-
hood has been broken down, there are still
terrible difficulties in finding employment for
women. Specially onerous is the effort in the
case of those Of fallen fortunes, members of
the genteel classes. True it is that young
men now find it hard to get suitable work
they often have to 90 West But there is
no analogy among them to the Wholesale
yearly destruction Of consciences, bodies and
souls among women--destruction too often
brought about by dcstiution. How can ten
der-hsarted people fold their hands while so
many Of their sisters arc driven to the gates
Of hell by want Of bread Statements are
published that capable women, willing to
work, can get employment at good wages.
Good, steady, skilled labor is wanted in just
those departments where women have gained
position. The unremitting, earnest applica-
tion required to acquire skill in these depart
ments, is hard for women to 60 through. In
them, love ofwork, for its own sake, is no
more inherent than in men. Moreover, wo-
men are always looking for the appearance
of the possible emancipation. Men have moth
ing but their work to look to for dependence.
The greatest evil ofall is the lack Of the right
early training, and for this the family, the
parents, society in general, must be impeach-
ed. Society casts stigma on women who
earn their own livelihood, and parents pray
that their daughters may never be brought
so low. As to education, a girls training
stops just where the main part of boys be-
gins. Men are allowed full opportunity to
devote themselves to their chosen work. and
are not diverted by social demands. Women
are at the beck and call of everybody, as it
were, and have SO many society duties, so
many distracting little triaes to attend to,
that the wonder is not that there has not
been female Shakespeare, Raphael, Newton,
but that women have done so much. The
problem, what we shall do with our redun-
dant women in England, is answered by some
philosophers by proposing emigration and
marriage. But emigration has already been
largely tried, aud Scotch, English and Irish
women have been sent to Australia and
America in great numbers without much di-
minishing the gravity of the problem; while
as for marriage, there is yet to be found the
woman to say "nO" when the right man ap-
pears. As long as the number of women in
Great Britain exceeds that of the men by 6
per cent. marriage will not wholly do away
with the difficulty unless Mormonism is tried.
True marriage is the crown and glory of a
woman's life but it must be founded on love
and not on the desire of a home or of sup.
port, while nothing can be more deplOrable,
debnsing and corrupting than the lovcless
marriages brought about in our upper socie-
ty by craving ambition and longing for
good settlement Loveless marriages and a
different standard of morality for men and
women are the curses ofmodern society. The
dignity of labor is not yet appreciated. We
agree that work is honorable in a man, but
are not yet convinced that idleness is dishon-
orable in woman. A contempt for work is
at the bottom of the mind Of a fashionable
young lady. Frivolity is SO general that it
is surprising that so much good survives in
spite of neglect. So long as we frown down
and sneer at the efforts to enlarge woman's
sphere we are encouraging frivolity and idle
ness in women. We hear the interests and
rights Of woman spoken of as if these could
be separated from those Of men, as if men
and women were creatures of different kind.
A most common and mischievous error is
that which would make woman the mere
shadow and attendant of her lord, as if
shadow could be a true helpmeet. We have
long heard that mans sphere is the world /;
woman's is home. But women have part
in the world, too, while men are not ciphers
in the home circle. The speaker protested
against setting up an ideal standard and rec
ognizing no womanliness but such as conform
ed to that standard. The material need of
opening fresh avenues to woman is obvious
tho moral necessity is also Of the utmost i'm
portance. Women must have such occupa-
tiOns as will give them true and genuine SYM
pathies with their fathers and husbands, who
are tOiling day by day for their support, while
the women dependent upon them are weary.
ing out the hours trying to kill time. In this
way wide gulf, constantly expanding, is
opened between men and women.-MiSs
FaitJups FareiUeH Lecture.