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Chapter 2 DIFFICULTIES PECULIAR TO AMERICAN WOMEN.

Word Count: 3380    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

can women with a sense of their high responsibilities to their Country, and to the world; a

and difficulties. And as it has been shown, that American women have a loftier position, and a more elevated object of enterprise, than the femal

ces, which a woman, even of the lowest condition, in this Country, would deem indispensable to existence. So a woman, educated with the tastes and habits of the best New England or Virginia housekeepers, would encounter many deprivations and trials, which would never occur to one reared in the log cabin of a new set

e prosperity and democratic tendencies of this Country produce results, materially affecting the comfort of housekeepers, which the females of monarchical and aristocratic lands are not called to meet. In such countries, all ranks and classes are fixed in a given position, and each person is educated for

thy are leaving the rich mansions of their fathers, to dwell in the log cabins of the forest, where very soon they bear away the daughters of ease and refinement, to share the privations of a new settlement. Meantime, even in the more stationary portions of the community, there is a mingling of all grades of wealth, intellect, and education. There are no distinct classes, as in aristocratic lands, whose bounds are pr

ing larger compensation. In consequence of these things, there is such a disproportion between those who wish to hire, and those who are willing to go to domestic service, that, in the non-slaveholding States, were it not for the supply of poverty-stricken foreigners, there would not be a domestic for each family who demands

s; and yet, this perpetually fluctuating state of society seems forever to bar any such system and regularity. The anxieties, vexations, perplexities, and even hard labor, which come upon American women, from this state of domestic service, are endless; and many a woman h

r to American women, is, a delicacy of constitution,

giving fearful monitions as to the extent and alarming increase of this evil. Investigations make it evident, that a large proportion of young ladies, from the wealthier classes, have the incipient stages of curvature of the spine, one of the most sure and fruitful causes of future disease an

led to the responsibilities and trials of domestic life, their constitution fails, and their whole existence is rendered a burden. For n

avelled and visited extensively in most of the non-slaveholding States. In these circuits, she has learned the domestic history, not merely of her pupils, but of many other youn

by Nature, but those, which, for week after week, have worn down health and spirits, when nourishing her child. And medical men teach us, that this, in most cases, results from a debility of constitution, consequent on the mismanagement of early life. And so frequent and so mournful are these, and the other distresses that result from the delicacy of the female constitution, that the writer has repe

exceptions, and not as the general rule. The writer has heard some of her friends declare, that they would ride fifty miles, to see a perfectly healthy and vigorou

anions of the other sex. At the same time, young girls, in pursuing an education, have ten times greater an amount of intellectual taxation demanded, than was ever before exacted. Let any daughter, educated in our best schools at this day, compare the course of her study with that pursued in her mother's early life, and it will be seen that this estimate of the increase of mental taxation probably falls below the truth. Though, in some countries, there are small classes o

domestic life, the degree in which their minds and feelings ar

ral interests of her domestics have on her watchful care. In social life, she recognises the claims of hospitality, and the demands of friendly visiting. Her responsibility, in reference to the institutions of benevolence and religion, is deeply realized. The regular worship of the Lord's day, and all the various religious meetings and benevolent societies which place so much dependence on female influence and example, she feels obligated to sustain. Add to these multiplied responsib

nt. In consequence of a different physical training, English women, in those circles which enjoy competency, present an appearance which always strikes American gentlemen as a contrast to what they see at home. An English mother, at thirty, or thirty-five, is in the full bloom of perfected womanhood; as fresh and healthful as her daughters. But where are the American mothers, who can reach this period unfaded and unworn? In America, young ladies of the wealthier classes are sent to school from early childhood; and neither parents nor teachers make it a definite object to secure a proper amount of fresh air and exercise, to counterbalance this intellectual taxation. As soon as their school days are

which makes this delicacy of constitution still more disastrous. It is

of this part of the subject, which any one, familiar

unquenchable energy. It would seem that their desires contract, as easily as they expand, with their fortunes. The greater part of the adventurers, who migrate, every year, to people the Western wilds, belong" "to the old Anglo-American race of the Northern States. Many of these men, who rush so boldly onward in pursuit of wealth, were already in the enjoyment of a competency in their own part of the Country. They take their wives along with them, and make them share the countless perils and privations, which always atten

s marks of a degree of religious resignation, a deep quiet of all passion, and some sort of natural and tranquil firmness, ready to meet all the ills of life, without fearing and without braving them. Her children cluster about her, full of health, turbulence, and energy; they are true children of the wilderness: their mother watches them, from time to time, with mingled melancholy and joy. To look at their strength, and her languor, one might imagin

he extent of those sacrifices and sufferings, and the value of that firm faith and religious hope, which live, in perennial bloom, amid those vast solitudes. If the American women of the East merit the palm, for their sk

the hopes and enterprises of pioneer life. But, when the body fails, then the eye of hope grows dim, the heart sickens, the courage dies; and, in solitude, weariness, and suffering, the wanderer pines for the dear voices and the tender sympathies of a far distant home. Then it is, that the darkest shade is presented, which marks the peculiar trials and liabilities of American women, and which exhibits still more forcibly the disastrous results of t

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ount of exercise, that, if they should succeed in walking a mile or so, at a moderate

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Contents

Chapter 1 THE PECULIAR RESPONSIBILITIES OF AMERICAN WOMEN. Chapter 2 DIFFICULTIES PECULIAR TO AMERICAN WOMEN. Chapter 3 REMEDIES FOR THE PRECEDING DIFFICULTIES. Chapter 4 ON DOMESTIC ECONOMY AS A BRANCH OF STUDY. Chapter 5 ON THE CARE OF HEALTH. Chapter 6 ON HEALTHFUL FOOD. Chapter 7 ON HEALTHFUL DRINKS. Chapter 8 ON CLOTHING. Chapter 9 ON CLEANLINESS. Chapter 10 ON EARLY RISING. Chapter 11 ON DOMESTIC EXERCISE.
Chapter 12 ON DOMESTIC MANNERS.
Chapter 13 ON THE PRESERVATION OF A GOOD TEMPER IN A HOUSEKEEPER.
Chapter 14 ON HABITS OF SYSTEM AND ORDER.
Chapter 15 ON GIVING IN CHARITY.
Chapter 16 ON ECONOMY OF TIME AND EXPENSES.
Chapter 17 ON HEALTH OF MIND.
Chapter 18 ON THE CARE OF DOMESTICS.
Chapter 19 ON THE CARE OF INFANTS.
Chapter 20 ON THE MANAGEMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN.
Chapter 21 ON THE CARE OF THE SICK.
Chapter 22 ON ACCIDENTS AND ANTIDOTES.
Chapter 23 ON DOMESTIC AMUSEMENTS AND SOCIAL DUTIES.
Chapter 24 ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES.
Chapter 25 ON FIRES AND LIGHTS.
Chapter 26 ON WASHING.
Chapter 27 ON STARCHING, IRONING, AND CLEANSING.
Chapter 28 ON WHITENING, CLEANSING, AND DYEING.
Chapter 29 ON THE CARE OF PARLORS.
Chapter 30 ON THE CARE OF BREAKFAST AND DINING-ROOMS.
Chapter 31 ON THE CARE OF CHAMBERS AND BEDROOMS.
Chapter 32 ON THE CARE OF THE KITCHEN, CELLAR, AND STOREROOM.
Chapter 33 ON SEWING, CUTTING, AND MENDING.
Chapter 34 ON THE CARE OF YARDS AND GARDENS.
Chapter 35 ON THE PROPAGATION OF PLANTS.
Chapter 36 ON THE CULTIVATION OF FRUIT.
Chapter 37 MISCELLANEOUS DIRECTIONS.
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