domestic affairs? How is she to do these things, if she has
been taught to think these matters beneath her study? How is the man to
expect her to do these things, if she has been so bred, as to make her
habitually look upon them as worthy the attention of none but low and
ignorant women?

_Ignorant_, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of those
things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you to
understand. A ploughman is not an ignorant man because he does not know
how to read. If he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an
ignorant man; but a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she
does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold
comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays
and sings. _Lovers_ may live on very aerial diet, but husbands stand in
need of something more solid; and young women may take my word for it,
that a constantly clean table, well cooked victuals, a house in order,
and a cheerful fire, will do more towards preserving a husband's heart,
than all the 'accomplishments' taught in all the 'establishments' in
the world without them.

6. SOBRIETY.

Surely no reasonable young man will expect sobriety in a companion,
when he does not possess this qualification himself. But by _sobriety_,
I do not mean a habit which is opposed to _intoxication_, for if that
be hateful in a man, what must it be in a woman? Besides, it does seem
to me that no young man, with his eyes open, and his other senses
perfect, needs any caution on that point. Drunkenness, downright
drunkenness, is usually as incompatible with _purity_, as it is with
_decency_.

Much is sometimes said in favor of a little wine or other fermented
liquors, especially at dinner. No young lady, in health, needs any of
these stimulants. Wine, or ale, or cider, at dinner! I would as soon
take a companion from the _streets_, as one who must habitually have
her glass or two of wine at dinner. And this is not an opinion formed
prematurely or hastily.

But by the word SOBRIETY in a young woman, I mean a great deal more
than even a rigid abstinence from a love of drink, which I do not
believe to exist to any considerable degree, in this country, even in
the least refined parts of it. I mean a great deal _more_ than this; I
mean sobriety of conduct. The word _sober_ and its derivatives mean
_steadiness_, _seriousness_, _carefulness_, _scrupulous propriety of
conduct_.