man as seen in Mythology.
Conclusion of the matter.
Friendship in the Future.

THE FRIENDSHIPS OF WOMEN.

INTRODUCTION.

THE peculiar mission of woman, it has been said, is to be a wife and
mother. Is it not as truly the peculiar mission of man to be a
husband and father? If she is called to add to the happiness and
worth of her husband, he is called to add to the happiness and worth
of his wife. They are alike bound to protect and educate their
children. And the other duties, the private improvement of self and
the public improvement of society rest on them in common. The
assertion, then, that the distinctive Office of woman is to be the
helpmeet of man, does not imply that she ought to be legally or
morally any more subservient to him than he to her; for the supreme
duty of a woman, as of every other human being, is, through the
perfecting of her own nature as a child of God, to fulfil her
personal destiny in the universe. To love, to marry, to rear a
family, is by no means an entire statement of the obligations and
privileges of women: because no woman always has lover, husband, or
children; many fail to have all of them in succession; and a few
never have either of them.

In some of these cases the domestic appointment of woman is defeated;
but her personal destiny may still De achieved. The qualities of her
soul and the fruitions of her life, as a free individual, may be
perfected in spite of this relative mutilation in her lot. The
growing desire in our time for show and luxury, the increase of the
excitements of publicity, the sensational literature of fiction,
which is absorbing an ever-larger share of attention from the more
sensitive portion of the feminine public, these causes are
concentrating an undue interest on the passion of love. It is the
almost exclusive theme of plays, novels, poems. One consequence is an
exaggeration of the part that should be played by this sentiment in
the experience of the individual. It comes to be the engrossing
subject of regard. Life is considered a failure, unless it contains
love, followed by marriage; yet it must often be deprived of this
experience. In the most civilized countries, especially in their
brilliant capitals, a higher and higher ratio of women miss of happy
love and marriage.

There never were many morally baffled, uneasy, and complaining women
on the earth as now; because never before did the capacities of
intelligence and affection so greatly exce