fil. If her domestic cares
occupy and satisfy her faculties, it is a fortunate adjustment; and
it is right that her husband should relieve her of the duty of
providing for her subsistence. But what shall be said of those
millions of women who are not wives and mothers; who have no adequate
domestic life--no genial private occupation or support?

Multitudes of women have too much self respect to be desirous of
being supported in idleness by men; too much genius and ambition to
be content with spending their lives in trifles; and too much
devotedness not to burn to be doing their share in the relief of
humanity, the work and progress of the world. If these were all happy
wives and mothers, that might be best. But denied that function, and
being what they are, why should not all the provinces of public labor
and usefullness, which they are capable of occupying, be freely open
to them? What else is it save prejudice that applauds a woman dancing
a ballet or performing an opera, but shrinks with disgust from one
delivering an oration, preaching a sermon, or casting a vote? Why is
it less womanly to prescribe as a physician than to tend as a nurse?
If a woman have a calling to medicine, divinity, law, literature,
art, instruction, trade, or honorable handicraft, it is hard to see
any reason why she should not have a fair chance of pursuing it.

Of course, such must ever be the exceptional callings of women; but
in proportion as those not otherwise more satisfactorily employed
enter into them, we must believe that the burden on men, instead of
being aggravated by the new competition, will be shared, and thus
lightened, and the best interests of society receive impulse. Is it
not, then, a sound claim which demands for women a full initiation
into all the noble realms and interests of humanity? Slavery and
ignorance engender worse vices and more hopeless degradation than can
result from the exposures of freedom and knowledge. Besides, freedom
and knowledge are the guides to every form of nobleness. They alone
can fit women truly to exert their most sacred prerogatives. Those
who have enjoyed the best means of knowing the truth say, that the
Harems of the East are the hot-beds of every wicked quality whose
seeds slumber in the heart of woman. Surrounded by rivals;
incessantly watched by those cunning and merciless monsters, the
eunuchs; knowing nothing of science, art, literature, or industry--
they must be devoured by animal p