every repulsive task exclusively
on the woman. It is the brute right of the stronger, which very
slowly yields to the refining influence of reflective sympathy.

With each successive advance of society, it is not true that the
distinction of sex becomes more definite and more important; but it
is true that the distinctive feeling of men towards women becomes
less a feeling of scorn and authority--more a feeling of deference and
homage. Woman is as distinct from man in the grossest barbarism as in
the finest civility: only, in that, she is the degraded servant of
his senses; in this, the honored companion of his soul. If, with the
progress of society, the sphere of feminine life becomes more
domestic, inward, individual, so also does that of man. His ideal
life constantly encroaches more on his active life; his physical
energies become less predominant, and his moral sympathies stronger.
Woman begins by being totally distinct from man in personality and
estate, totally subjected to him in service. She goes on, with the
improvement of civilization, to be ever freer from his authority,
nearer his equal in status, more closely blended with him in
personality and moral pursuits. They are not master and servant; but
equals, responsible to one another for mutual perfection, each
responsible to God for personal perfection. While, therefore, to
efface the intrinsic characteristics of the sexes would undoubtedly
be a retrograde step, it is an impossible step, which no one proposes
to take. It is proposed merely to efface those factitious
characteristics, whose removal will clear away barriers and secure
the more rapid improvement of all, by blending their culture, their
liberty, and their worship--showing us men and women as equal units of
humanity in its personal ends, but dependent co-adjutors in its
social means.

The common destiny of a woman, as a representative of humanity, is
the same as that of a man; namely, the perfect development of her
being in the knowledge of truth, and in the practice of virtue and
piety. Her peculiar destiny is wifehood and maternity. But if she
declines this peculiar destiny of her sex, or it is denied her, still
her common human destiny remains unforfeited; and she has as clear a
right to the unrestricted use of every means of fulfilling it as she
could have if she were a man.

The good wife and mother fulfils a beautiful and a sublime office--the
fittest and the happiest office she can ful