The Young Lady's Mentor Part 12

[107] See the Memoirs of Pepys, Evelyn, De Grammont, &c.

THE SPHERE OF WOMAN'S INFLUENCE.

"The fact of this influence being proved, it is of the utmost importance that it be impressed upon the mind of women, and that they be enlightened as to its true nature and extent."

The task is as difficult as it is important, for it demands some exercise of sober judgment to view it with requisite impartiality; it requires, too, some courage to encounter the charge of inconsistency which a faithful discharge of it entails. For it _is_ an apparent inconsistency to recommend at the same time expansion of views and contraction of operation; to awaken the sense of power, and to require that the exercise of it be limited; to apply at once the spur and the rein. That intellect is to be invigorated only to enlighten conscience--that conscience is to be enlightened only to act on details--that accomplishments and graces are to be cultivated only, or chiefly, to adorn obscurity;--a list of somewhat paradoxical propositions indeed, and hard to be received; yet, upon their favourable reception depends, in my opinion, the usefulness of our influence, the destinies of our race; and it is my intention to direct all my observations to this point.

It is astonis.h.i.+ng and humiliating to perceive how frequently human wisdom, especially argumentative wisdom, is at fault as to results, while accident, prejudices, or common sense seem to light upon truths which reason feels after without finding. It appears as though _a priori_ reasoning, human nature being the subject, is like a skilful piece of mechanism, carefully and scientifically put together, but which some perverse and occult trifle will not permit to act. This is eminently true of many questions regarding education, and precisely the state of the argument concerning the position and duties of women. The facts of moral and intellectual equality being established, it seems somewhat irrational to condemn women to obscurity and detail for their field of exertion, while men usurp the extended one of public usefulness. And a good case may be made out on this very point. Yet the conclusions are false and pernicious, and the prejudices which we now smile at as obsolete are truths of nature's own imparting, only wanting the agency of comprehensive intelligence to make them valuable, by adapting them to the present state of society. For, as one atom of falsehood in first principles nullifies a whole theory, so one principle, fundamentally true, suffices to obviate many minor errors.

This fundamentally true principle, I am prepared to show, exists in the established opinions concerning the true sphere of women, and that, whether originally dictated by reason, or derived from a sort of intuition, they are right, and for this cause: the one quality on which woman's value and influence depend is the renunciation of self; and the old prejudices respecting her inculcated self-renunciation. Educated in obscurity, trained to consider the fulfilment of domestic duties as the aim and end of her existence, there was little to feed the appet.i.te for fame, or the indulgence of self-idolatry. Now, here the principle fundamentally bears upon the very qualities most desirable to be cultivated, and those most desirable to be avoided. A return to the practical part of the system is by no means to be recommended, for, with increasing intellectual advantages, it is not to be supposed that the perfection of the conjugal character is to consult a husband's palate and submit to his ill-humour--or of the maternal, to administer in due alternation the sponge and the rod. All that is contended for is, that the fundamental principle is right--"that women were to live for others;" and, therefore, all that we have to do is to carry out this fundamentally right principle into wider application. It may easily be done, if the cultivation of intellectual powers be carried on with the same views and motives as were formerly the knowledge of domestic duties, for the benefit of immediate relations, and for the fulfilment of appointed duties. If society at large be benefited by such cultivation, so much the better; but it ought to be no part of the training of women to consider, with any personal views, what effect they shall produce in or on society at large. The greatest benefit which they can confer upon society is to be what they ought to be in all their domestic relations; that is, to be what they ought to be, in all the comprehensiveness of the term, as adapted to the present state of society. Let no woman fancy that she can, by any exertion or services, compensate for the neglect of her own peculiar duties as such. It is by no means my intention to a.s.sert that women should be pa.s.sive and indifferent spectators of the great political questions which affect the well-being of community; neither can I repeat the old adage, that "women have nothing to do with politics." They have, and ought to have much to do with politics. But in what way? It has been maintained that their public partic.i.p.ation in them would be fatal to the best interests of society. How, then, are women to interfere in politics? As moral agents; as representatives of the moral principle; as champions of the right in preference to the expedient; by their endeavours to instil into their relatives of the other s.e.x the uncompromising sense of duty and self-devotion, which ought to be _their_ ruling principles! The immense influence which women possess will be most beneficial, if allowed to flow in its natural channels, viz. domestic ones,--because it is of the utmost importance to the existence of influence, that purity of motive be unquestioned. It is by no means affirmed that women's political feelings are always guided by the abstract principles of right and wrong; but they are surely more likely to be so, if they themselves are restrained from the public expression of them. Partic.i.p.ation in scenes of popular emotion has a natural tendency to warp conscience and overcome charity. Now, conscience and charity (or love) are the very essence of woman's beneficial influence; therefore every thing tending to blunt the one and sour the other is sedulously to be avoided by her.

It is of the utmost importance to men to feel, in consulting a wife, a mother, or a sister, that they are appealing _from_ their pa.s.sions and prejudices, and not _to_ them, as imbodied in a second self: nothing tends to give opinions such weight as the certainty that the utterer of them is free from all petty or personal motives. The beneficial influence of woman is nullified if once her motives, or her personal character, come to be the subject of attack; and this fact alone ought to induce her patiently to acquiesce in the plan of seclusion from public affairs.

It supposes, indeed, some magnanimity in the possessors of great powers and widely extended influence, to be willing to exercise them with silent, unostentatious vigilance. There must be a deeper principle than usually lies at the root of female education, to induce women to acquiesce in the plan, which, a.s.signing to them the responsibility, has denied them the _eclat_ of being reformers of society. Yet it is, probably, exactly in proportion to their reception of this truth, and their adoption of it into their hearts, that they will fulfil their own high and lofty mission; precisely because the manifestation of such a spirit is the one thing needful for the regeneration of society. It is from her being the depository and disseminator of such a spirit, that woman's influence is princ.i.p.ally derived. It appears to be for this end that Providence has so lavishly endowed her with moral qualities, and, above all, with that of love,--the antagonist spirit of selfish worldliness, that spirit which, as it is vanquished or victorious, bears with it the moral destinies of the world! Now, it is proverbially as well as scripturally true, that love "seeketh not its own" interest, but the good of others, and finds its highest honour, its highest happiness, in so doing. This is precisely the spirit which can never be too much cultivated by women, because it is the spirit by which their highest triumphs are to be achieved: it is they who are called upon to show forth its beauty, and to prove its power; every thing in their education should tend to develop self-devotion and self-renunciation.

How far existing systems contribute to this object, it must be our next step to inquire.

EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

"The education of women is more important than that of men, since that of men is always their work."[108]

We are now to consider how far the present systems of female education tend to the great end here mentioned--the truth of which, reflection and experience combine to prove. Great is the boast of the progress of education; great would be the indignation excited by a doubt as to the fact of this progress. "A simple question will express this doubt more forcibly, and place this subject in a stronger light: 'Are women qualified to educate men?' If they are not, no available progress has been made. In the very heart of civilized Europe, are women what they ought to be? and does not their education prove how little we know the consequences of neglecting it?"[109] Is it possible to believe, that upon their training depends the happiness of families--the well-being of nations? The selfishness, political and social; the forgetfulness of patriotism; the unregulated tempers and low ambition of the one s.e.x, testify but too clearly how little has been done by the vaunted education of the other. For education is useless, or at least neutral, if it do not bear upon duty, as well as upon cultivation, if it do not expand the soul, while it enlightens the intellect.

How far expansion of soul, or enlightenment of intellect, is to be expected from the present systems of female education, we have seen in effects,--let us now go back to causes.

It is unnecessary to start from the prejudice of ignorance; it is now universally acknowledged that women have a right to education, and that they must be educated. We smile with condescending pity at the blinded state of our respected grandmothers, and thank G.o.d that we are not as they, with a thanksgiving as uncalled for as that of the proud Pharisee.

On abstract ground, their education was better than ours; it was a preparation for their future duties. It does not affect the question, that their notion of these duties was entirely confined to the physical comfort of husbands and children. The defect of the scheme, as has been argued, was not in rationality, but in comprehensiveness,--a fundamentally right principle being the basis, it is easy to extend the application of it indefinitely.

Indiscriminate blame, however, is as invidious as it is useless; if the fault-finder be not also the fault-mender, the exercise of his powers is, at best, but a negative benefit. Let us, therefore, enter into a calm examination of the two princ.i.p.al ramifications, into which education has insensibly divided itself, as far as the young women of our own country are concerned; bearing in mind that women can only exercise their true influence, inasmuch as they are free from worldly-mindedness and egotism, and that, therefore, no system of education can be good which does not tend to subdue the selfish and bring out the unselfish principle. The systems alluded to are these:--

1st. The education of accomplishments for s.h.i.+ning in society.

2d. Intellectual education, or that of the mental powers.

What are the objects of either? To prepare the young for life; its subsequent trials; its weighty duties; its inevitable termination? We will examine the principles on which both these educations are made to work, and see whether, or how far, they have any relation to those most called for, by the future and presumed duties of the educated. The worldly and the intellectual, alternately objects of contempt to each other, are equally objects of pity to the wise, as mistaken in their end, and deceived as to the means of attaining that end.

The education of accomplishments, (especially as conducted in this country,) would be a risible, if it were not a painful subject of contemplation. Intense labour; immense sums of money; hours, nay, days of valuable time! What a list of sacrifices! Now for results. Of the many who thus sacrifice time, health, and property, how few attain even a moderate proficiency. The love of beauty, the power of self-amus.e.m.e.nt (if obtained) might, in some degree, justify these sacrifices; they are valuable ends in themselves, still more valuable from contingent advantages. There is a deep influence hidden under these beautiful arts,--an influence far deeper than the world in its thoughtlessness, or the worldly student in his vanity, ever can know,--an influence refining, consoling, elevating: they afford a channel into which the lofty aspirings, the unsatisfied yearnings of the pure and elevated in soul may pour themselves. The perception of the beautiful is, next to the love of our fellow-creatures, the most purely unselfish of all our natural emotions, and is, therefore, a most powerful engine in the hands of those who regard selfishness as the giant pa.s.sion, whose castle must be stormed before any other conquest can be begun, and in vanquis.h.i.+ng whom all lawful and innocent weapons should, by turns, be employed.

Let us consider how we employ this mighty ally of virtue and loftiness of soul. Into the cultivation of the arts, disguised under the hackneyed name of accomplishments, does one particle of intellectuality creep?

Would not many of their ablest professors and most diligent pract.i.tioners stare, with unfeigned wonder, at the supposition, that the five hours per diem devoted to the piano and the easel had any other object than to accomplish the fingers? The idea of their influencing the head would be ridiculous! of their improving the heart, preposterous!

Yet if both head and heart do not combine in these pursuits, how can the cultivators justify to themselves the devotion of time and labour to their acquisition: time and labour, in many cases, abstracted from the performance of present, or preparation for future duties,--this is especially applicable to the middle cla.s.ses of society.

Let us now turn to the issues of this education! The accomplishments acquired at such cost must be displayed. To whom? the possessor has no delight in them,--her immediate relatives, perhaps, no taste for them;--to strangers, therefore. It is not necessary to make many strictures on this subject; the rage for universal exhibition has been written and talked down: in fact, there are great hopes for the world in this particular; it has descended so low in the scale of society, that we trust it will soon be exploded altogether. The fas.h.i.+on, therefore, need not be here treated of, but the spirit which it has engendered, and which will survive its parent. This, as influencing the female character--especially the maternal--bears greatly upon the point in view;--to live for the applause of the foolish _many_, instead of the approbation of the well-judging _few_; to rule duty, conscience, morals, by a low worldly standard; to view worldly admiration as the aim, and worldly aggrandizement as the end of life; these are a few,--a very few, indications of this spirit, and these have infected every rank, from the highest to the middle and lower cla.s.ses of society. To every thing gentle or refined, to every thing lofty or dignified in the female character, this spirit is utterly opposed. Refinement would teach to shun the vulgar applause which almost insults its object,--dignity would shrink from displaying before heartless crowds those emotions of the soul, without which all art is vulgar,--and how can women, who have neither refinement nor dignity, retail that influence which, rightly used, is to be so great an engine in the regeneration of society? How can the vain and selfish exhibitor of paltry acquirements ever mature into the mother of the Gracchi, the tutelary guardian of the rising virtues of the commonwealth? It is in vain to hope it.

Before making any strictures on intellectual education, it is necessary to enter into a short explanation; for it is not denied that rightly-cultivated mental power is a great good. The kind of cultivation which is here decried is open to the same objections as the last mentioned. It is the cultivation of power, with a view, not to the happiness of the individual, but to her fame; not to her usefulness, but to her brilliancy. We have only to look round society, and see that intellect has its vanity as well as beauty or accomplishments, and that its effects are more mischievous. It has a hardening, deadening kind of influence; the more so, that the so-called mental cultivation frequently consists only of a pedantic heaping up of information, valuable indeed in itself, but wanting the principle of combination to make it useful.

Stones and bricks are valuable things, very valuable; but they are not beautiful or useful till the hand of the architect has given them a form, and the cement of the bricklayer has knit them together. It is a fine expression of Miss Edgeworth, in speaking of the mind of one of her heroines, "that the stream of literature had pa.s.sed over it was apparent only from its fertility." Intellectual cultivation was too long considered as education, properly so called. The mischief which this error has produced, is exactly in proportion to the increase of power thereby communicated to wrong principles.

What, then, is the true object of female education? The best answer to this question is, a statement of future duties; for it must never be forgotten, that if education be not a training for future duties, it is nothing. The ordinary lot of woman is to marry. Has any thing in these educations prepared her to make a wise choice in marriage? To be a mother! Have the duties of maternity,--the nature of moral influence,--been pointed out to her? Has she ever been enlightened as to the consequent unspeakable importance of personal character as the source of influence? In a word, have any means, direct or indirect, prepared her for her duties? No! but she is a linguist, a pianist, graceful, admired. What is that to the purpose? The grand evil of such an education is the mistaking means for ends; a common error, and the source of half the moral confusion existing in the world. It is the subst.i.tution of the part for a whole. The time when young women enter upon life, is the one point to which all plans of education tend, and at which they all terminate: and to prepare them for that point is the object of their training. Is it not cruel to lay up for them a store of future wretchedness, by an education which has no period in view but one; a very short one, and the most unimportant and irresponsible of the whole of life? Who that had the power of choice would choose to buy the admiration of the world for a few short years with the happiness of a whole life? the temporary power to dazzle and to charm, with the growing sense of duties undertaken only to be neglected, and responsibilities the existence of which is discovered perhaps simultaneously with that of an utter inability to meet them? Even if the mischief stopped here, it would be sufficiently great; but the craving appet.i.te for applause once roused, is not so easily lulled again. The moral energies, pampered by unwholesome nourishment,--like the body when disordered by luxurious dainties,--refuse to perform their healthy functions, and thus is occasioned a perpetual strife and warfare of internal principles; the selfish principle still seeking the accustomed gratification, the conjugal and maternal prompting to the performance of duty. But duty is a cold word; and people, in order to find pleasure in duty, must have been trained to consider their duties as pleasures. This is a truth at which no one arrives by inspiration! And in this moral struggle, which, like all other struggles, produces la.s.situde and distaste of all things, the happiness of the individual is lost, her usefulness destroyed, her influence most pernicious. For nothing has so injurious an effect on temper and manners, and consequently on moral influence, as the want of that internal quiet which can only arise from the accordance of duty with inclination. Another most pernicious effect is, the deadening within the heart of the feeling of love, which is the root of all influence; for it is an extraordinary fact, that vanity acts as a sort of refrigerator on all men--on the possessor of it, and on the observer.

Now, if conscientiousness and unselfishness be the two main supports of women's beneficial influence, how can any education be good which has not the cultivation of these qualities for its first and princ.i.p.al object? The grand objects, then, in the education of women, ought to be, the conscience, the heart, and the affections; the development of those moral qualities which Providence has so liberally bestowed upon them, doubtless with a wise and beneficent purpose. Originators of conscientiousness, how can they implant what they have never cultivated, nor brought to maturity in themselves? Sovereigns of the affections, how can they direct the kingdom whose laws they have not studied, the springs of whose government are concealed from them? The conscience and the affections being primarily enlightened, all other cultivation, as secondary, is most valuable. Intelligence, accomplishments, even external elegance, become objects of importance, as a.s.sisting the influence which women have, and exert too often for unworthy ends, but which in this case could not fail to be beneficial. Let the light of intellect and the charm of accomplishments be the willing handmaids of cultivated and enlightened conscience. Cultivate the intellect with reference to the conscience, that views of duty may be comprehensive, as well as just; cultivate the imagination still with reference to the conscience, that those inward aspirations which all indulge, more or less, may be turned from the gauds of an idle and vain imagination, and shed over daily life and daily duty the halo of a poetic influence; cultivate the manners, that the qualities of heart and head may have an additional auxiliary in obtaining that influence by which a mighty regeneration is to be worked. The issues of such an education will justify the claims made for women in these pages; then the spirit of vanity will yield to the spirit of self-devotion: that spirit confessedly natural to Women, and only perverted by wrong education.

Content with the sphere of usefulness a.s.signed her by Nature and Nature's G.o.d, viewing that sphere with the piercing eye of intellect, and gilding it with the beautiful colours of the imagination, she will cease the vain and almost impious attempt to wander from it. She will see and acknowledge the beauty, the harmony of the arrangement which has made her physical inferiority (the only inferiority which we acknowledge) the very root from which spring her virtues and their attendant influences. Removed from the actual collision of political contests, and screened from the pa.s.sions which such engender, she brings party questions to the test of the unalterable principles of reason and religion; she is, so to speak, the guardian angel of man's political integrity, liable at the best to be warped by pa.s.sion or prejudice, and excited by the rude clas.h.i.+ng of opinions and interests. This is the true secret of woman's political influence, the true object of her political enlightenment. Governments will never be perfect till all distinction between private and public virtue, private and public honour, be done away! Who so fit an agent for the operation of this change as enlightened, unselfish woman? Who so fit, in her twofold capacity of companion and early instructor, to teach men to prefer honour to gain, duty to ease, public to private interests, and G.o.d's work to man's inventions? And shall it be said that women have no political existence, no political influence, when the very germs of political regeneration may spring from them alone, when the fate of nations yet unborn may depend upon the use which they make of the mighty influences committed to their care? The blindness which sees not how these influences would be lessened by taking her out of the sphere a.s.signed by Providence, if voluntary, is wicked--if real, is pitiable. As well might we desire the earth's beautiful satellite to give place to a second sun, thereby producing the intolerable and glaring continuity of perpetual day. Those who would be the agents of Providence must observe the workings of Providence, and be content to work also in that way, and by those means, which Almighty wisdom appoints. There is infinite littleness in despising small things. It seems paradoxical to say that there are no small things; our littleness and our aspiration make things appear small. There are, morally speaking, no small duties. Nothing that influences human virtue and happiness can be really trifling,--and what more influences them than the despised, because limited, duties a.s.signed to woman? It is true, her reward (her task being done) is not of this world, nor will she wish it to be--enough for her to be one of the most active and efficient agents in her heavenly Father's work of man's regeneration,--enough for her that generations yet unborn shall rise up and call her blessed.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] Aime Martin.

[109] Ibid.

LOVE--MARRIAGE.

The conventual and monastic origin of all systems of education has had a very injurious influence, on that of women especially, because the conventual spirit has been longer retained in it.

If no education be good which does not bear upon the future duties of the educated, it follows that the systematic exclusion of any one subject connected with, or bearing upon, future duties, must be an evil.

The wisdom of employing those who had renounced the world to form the minds of those who were to mix in it, to be exposed in all its allurements, to share in all its duties, was doubtful indeed; and the danger was enhanced by the fact, that the majority of recluses were any thing but indifferent to the world which they had renounced. The convent was too often the refuge of disappointed worldliness, the grave of blasted hopes, or the prison of involuntary victims; a withering atmosphere this in which to place warm young hearts, and expect them to expand and flourish. The evil effects would be varied according to the different characters submitted to its influence. The sensitive entered upon life oppressed with fears and terrors; with a conscience morbid, not enlightened; bewildered by the impossibility of reconciling principles and duties. The ardent and sanguine, longing to escape from restraint, pictured to themselves, in these unknown and untried regions, delights infinite and unvaried; and, seeing the incompatibility of inculcated principles and worldly pleasures, discarded principle altogether. It is needless to pursue this subject further, because a universal a.s.sent will (in this country, at least,) await the remarks here made; their applicability to what follows may not at first be so apparent. The conventual spirit has survived conventual inst.i.tutions,--in the department of female education especially.

In the first place, the instructors of female youth are considered respectable and trustworthy only in proportion as they cease to be young, or at least in proportion as they appear to forget that they ever were so. Any touch of sympathy for the follies of childhood, or the indiscretions of youth, would blast the prospects of a candidate for that honourable office, and, in the opinion of many, render her unfit for its fulfilment. The unfitness is attached to the opposite disposition; for the very fact of its existence is as effectual an obstacle to her being a good trainer of youth, as if she had taken a vow never to see the world but through an iron grating. Experience can never benefit youth, except when combined with indulgence. The instructor who, from the heights of past temptations and subdued pa.s.sion, looks down with cool watchfulness on the struggles of his youthful pupil, will see him lie floundering in the mire, or peris.h.i.+ng in the deep water. He must retrace his own steps, take him by the hand, and sustain him, till he is pa.s.sed the dangerous and slippery paths of youth. He must become as a little child to the young and frail being committed to his care, and whose welfare and safety depend (in great measure) upon him. A cold and unloving admiration never will produce imitation: it is like the hopeless love of poor Helena:--

'Twere all as one as I should love a bright particular star!

Here, then, the conventual spirit has been in injurious operation;--no less so on other points.

This conventual prejudice has banished from our school-rooms the name of love, and presented to their youthful inmates fragments instead of books, cramped and puny publications instead of the works of master-spirits, lest the mind should be contaminated by any allusion to that pa.s.sion contained in them. The wisdom of such a proceeding is much upon a par with that which devoted the feet to stocks and the shoulders to backboards, in order to make them elegant, and denied them heaven's air and active exercise through care for their health. The result, in the one case as in the other, is disease and distortion. Nature will a.s.sert her rights over the beings she has made; and she avenges, by the production of deformity, all attempts to force or shackle her operations. The golden globe could not check the expansive force of water; equally useless is it to attempt any check on the expansive force of mind,--it will ooze out! We ought long ago to have been convinced that the only power allowed to us is the power of direction. If one-half the amount of effort expanded to useless endeavours to cramp and check, had been turned towards this channel, how different would be the results! It is true that it is easier to check than to guide,--to fetter than to restrain; and that to attempt to remove evil by the first-occurring remedy is a natural impulse. But a pause should by made, lest in applying the remedy a worse evil be not engendered. Distorted spines and "pale consumptions," the result of the one mistake, are trifling evils, when compared with the moral evils resulting from the other. For if, as is affirmed, no education can be good which does not bear upon future duties, how can that be wise which keeps love and its temptations, maternity and its responsibilities, out of view? Who would believe that this love, so denounced, so guarded against, so carefully banished from the minds of young women, is the one principle on which their future happiness may be founded or wrecked? It is sure to seek them, (most of them, at least,) like death in the fable, to find them unprepared,--too often to leave them wretched.

Meanwhile, these exaggerated precautions in the education of one s.e.x have been met by equally fatal negligence in the education of the other; and while to girls have been denied the very thoughts of love,--even in its n.o.blest and purest form,--the most effeminate and corrupt productions of the heathen writers have been unhesitatingly laid open to boys; so that the two s.e.xes, on whose respective notions of the pa.s.sion depends the enn.o.bling or the degrading of their race, meet on these terms:--the men know nothing of love but what they have imbibed from an impure and polluted source; the women, nothing at all, or nothing but what they have clandestinely gathered from sources almost equally corrupt. The deterioration of any feeling must follow from such injudicious training, more especially a feeling so susceptible as love of a.s.suming such differing aspects.

Let no sober-minded person be startled at the deductions hence drawn, that it is foolish to banish all thoughts of love from the minds of the young. Since it is certain that girls will think, though they may not read or speak, of love; and that no early care can preserve them from being exposed, at a later period, to its temptations, might it not be well to use here the directing, not the repressing power? Since women will love, might it not be as well to teach them to love wisely? Where is the wisdom of letting the combatant go unarmed into the field, in order to spare him the prospect of a combat? Are not women made to love, and to be loved: and does not their future destiny too often depend upon this pa.s.sion? And yet the conventual prejudice which banishes its name subsists still.

"Mothers forget, in presence of their children, all the dangers with which this prejudice has surrounded themselves; the illusions which arise from that ignorance, and the weakness which springs from those illusions. To open the minds of the young to the nature of true love, is to arm them against the frivolous pa.s.sions which usurp its name, for in exalting the faculties of the soul, we annihilate, in a great degree, the delusions of the senses."[110]

Examine the first choice of a young girl. Of all the qualities which please her in a lover, there is, perhaps, not one which is valuable in a husband. Is not this the most complete condemnation of all our systems of education? From the fear of too much agitating the heart, we hide from women all that is worthy of love, all the depth and dignity of that pa.s.sion when felt for a worthy object;--their eye is captivated, the exterior pleases, the heart and mind are not known, and, after six months union, they are surprised to find the beau ideal metamorphosed into a fool or a c.o.xcomb. This is the issue of what are ordinarily called love-matches, because they are considered as such. "Cupid is indeed often blamed for deeds in which he has no share." In the opinion of the wise, the mischief is occasioned by the action of vivid imaginations upon minds unprepared by previous reflection on the subject; that is, by the entire banishment of all thoughts of love from education. We should endeavour, then, to engrave on the soul a model of virtue and excellence, and teach young women to regulate their affections by an approximation to this model; the result would not be an increased facility in giving the affections, but a greater difficulty in so doing; for women, whose blindness and ignorance now make them the victims of fancied perfections, would be able to make a clear-sighted appreciation of all that is excellent, and have an invincible repugnance to an union not founded upon that basis. Love, in the common acceptation of the term, is a folly,--love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, is not only a consequence, but a proof of our moral excellence,--the sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to be a high moral influence; it is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish part of our nature.[111]

What is meant by educating young women to love wisely is simply this, that they be taught to distinguish true love from the false spirit which usurps its name and garb; that they be taught to abstract from it the worldliness, vanity, and folly, with which it has been mixed up. They should be taught that it is not to be the amus.e.m.e.nt of an idle hour; the indulgence of a capricious and greedy vanity; the ladder, by the a.s.sistance of which they may climb a few steps higher in the grades of society; in short, that except it owe its origin to the n.o.ble qualities of heart and mind, it is nothing but a contemptible weakness, to be pitied perhaps, but not to be indulged or admired.

When the might influence of this pa.s.sion is considered, the important relations and weighty responsibilities to which it gives rise, we have reason to be astonished at the levity with which the subject is treated by the world at large, and the unconsciousness and indifference with which those responsibilities are a.s.sumed. It is like the madman who flings about firebrands and calls it sport. The remedy for this evil must begin with the s.e.x who have in their hands that powerful influence, the liberty of rejection. Let them not complain that liberty of choice is not theirs; it would only increase their responsibilities without adding to their happiness or to their usefulness. The liberty which they do possess is amply sufficient to insure for them the power of being benefactors of mankind. As soon as the n.o.ble and elevated of our s.e.x shall refuse to unite on any but moral and intellectual grounds with the other, so soon will a mighty regeneration begin to be effected: and this end will, perhaps, be better served by the simple liberty of rejection than by liberty of choice. Rejection is never inflicted without pain; it is never received without humiliation, however unfounded, (for simply to want the power of pleasing can be no disgrace;) but in the existence of this conventional feeling we find the source of a deep influence. If women would, as by one common league and covenant, agree to use this powerful engine in defence of morals, what a change might they not effect in the tone of society! Is it not a subject that ought to crimson every woman's cheek with shame, that the want of moral qualifications is generally the very last cause of rejection? If the worldly find the wealth, and the intellectual the intelligence, which they seek in a companion, there are few who will not shut their eyes in wilful and convenient blindness to the want of such qualifications. It is a fatal error which has bound up the cause of affection so intimately with worldly considerations; and it is a growing evil. The increasing demands of luxury in a highly civilized community operate most injuriously on the cause of disinterested affections, and particularly so in the case of women, who are generally precluded from maintaining or advancing their place in society by any other schemes than matrimonial ones. I might say something here on the cruelty of that conventional prejudice which shackles the independence of women, by attaching the loss of caste to almost all, nay, all, of the very few sources of pecuniary emolument open to them. It requires great strength of principle to disregard this prejudice; and while urged by duty to inveigh against mercenary unions, I feel some compunction at the thoughts of the numerous cla.s.s who are in a manner forced by this prejudice into forming them. But there are too many who have no such excuse, and to them the remaining observations are addressed. The sacred nature of the conjugal relation is entirely merged in the worldly aspect of it. That union sacred, indissoluble, fraught with all that earth has to bestow of happiness or misery, is entered upon much of the plan and principle of a partners.h.i.+p account in mercantile affairs--each bringing his or her quantum of worldly possessions--and often with even less inquiry as to moral qualities than persons so situated would make; G.o.d's ordinances are not to be so mocked, and such violations of his laws are severely visited upon offenders against them. It would be laughable, if it were not too melancholy, to see beings bound by the holiest ties, who ought to be the sharers in the most sacred duties--united, perhaps, but in one aim, and _that_ to secure from a world which cares not for them, a few atoms more of external observance and attention: to this n.o.ble aim sacrificing their own ease and comfort, and the future prospects of those dependent on them. If half the sacrifice thus made to the imperious demands of fas.h.i.+on, (and which is received with the indifference it deserves,) were exerted in a good cause, what benefits might it not produce?

While women are thus content to sacrifice delicacy, affection, principle, to the desire of worldly establishment or aggrandizement, how is the regeneration of society to be expected from them? Formerly, too, this spirit was confined to the old, hackneyed in the ways of the world, and who, having worn out the trifling affections which they ever had, would subject those of their children to the maxims of worldly prudence.

This we learn from fiction and the drama, where the worldly wisdom of age is always represented as opposed to the generous but imprudent pa.s.sions of youth. But now, in these our better and more enlightened days, those mercenary maxims which were odious even in age, are found in the mouths of the young and the fair,--or at least, if not in their mouths, in their actions. To sacrifice affection to interest is a praiseworthy thing. It is fearful to hear the withering sneer with which that folly, love, is spoken of by young and innocent lips--a sneer of conscious superiority, too! It is a superiority not to be envied, and which makes them objects of greater pity than those whom they affect to despise. There is no subject so sacred that it has not a side open to ridicule, and all the most pure and n.o.ble attributes of our nature may be converted into subjects for a jest, by minds in which no lofty idea can find an echo. All notions of unworldly and unselfish attachment are branded with the name of romantic follies, unworthy of sensible persons; and the idealities of love, like all other idealities, are fast disappearing beneath the leaden mantle of expediency.

The reform must begin here, as in all great moral questions, with the arbiters of morals--those from whom morals take their tone--women. That we have no right to expect it to begin with the other s.e.x, may be proved even by a vulgar aphorism. It is often triumphantly said, that "a man may marry when he will--a woman must marry when she can." How keen a satire upon both s.e.xes is couched in this homely proverb! and how long will they consent not only patiently to acquiesce in its truth, but to prove it by their actions? That women may be able thus to reform society, it is of importance that conscience be educated on this subject as on every other; educated, too, before the tinsel of false romance deceive the eye, or the frost of worldly-mindedness congeal the heart of youth. It seems to me that this object would best be effected, not by avoiding the subject of love, but by treating it, when it arises, with seriousness and simplicity, as a feeling which the young may one day be called upon to excite and to return, but which can have no existence in the lofty in soul and pure in heart, except when called forth by corresponding qualities in another. Such training as this would be a far more effectual preventive of foolish pa.s.sions, than cramping the intellect in narrow ignorance, and excluding all knowledge of what life is--in order to prepare people for entering upon it: a plan about as wise in itself, and as successful as to results, as the bolts, bars, and duennas of a Spanish play. Outward, subst.i.tuted for inward, restraints are sure to act upon man mentally, as actual bonds do physically; he only wants to get free from them. n.o.ble and virtuous principles in the heart will not fail to direct the conduct aright, and it is to transfer these things from matters of decorum or expediency, to matters of conscience, that we should use our most earnest endeavours. Above all, it is inc.u.mbent upon those who have the training of the young--of women especially--so to imbue their souls with lofty and conscientious principles of action, that they may be alike unwilling to deceive, or liable to be deceived; that they may not be led as fools or as victims into those responsible relations, for the consequences of which, (how momentous!) to themselves, to others, and to society at large, they are answerable to a G.o.d of infinite wisdom and justice.