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Woman's sphere is home
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thought, and we will have nothing to do with it. When you are driving with your carriage along the track of the horse-railroad, your wheels run very smoothly; but if you are obliged to turn out, it wrenches the wheels and jars your carriage; and the deeper the ruts, the more disturbance and trouble will you have if you are obliged to move out of them. We all move in the ruts of habit and custom; and it disturbs and troubles us to be asked to move out of them—to do or think anything unusual. This vis inertiæ is what stands in the way, first and most of all, of the success of this movement, of the reception of these ideas, as of every other movement of reform. And this dead-weight of prejudice, this vis inertiæ of old and traditional thought, is concentrated in this phrase, uttered with tones of indifference or with tones of self-satisfaction and pride, "I think, for my part, that woman's sphere is home." This phrase you hear everywhere—in the parlors, in the streets, in conventions, and in pulpits, and read in books—"Woman's sphere is home!" (Applause). "Well, is it not?" some one asks among you, perhaps. Now, I have no desire to deny that the home is for woman, as for man, the most noble sphere of life. I am sure that there is not one who will stand upon this platform, or speak or write in this cause, who will deny that; not one but will declare that they count home a sacred and noble sphere for woman, as for man—a sphere for grand and high influence, for noble consecration and devoted work; whether it be the simple duties of housekeeping, which a high and cultivated soul can make beautiful by the spirit in which they are done—or whether it be the care of children and the training up of the youthful mind into noble thought and preparation for noble action, which is a sphere so high, that none of us, perhaps, know how high it is—or whether it be as the friend and comforter, encourager and inspirer, to all things noble in thought and grand in action, of man. But if home be the sphere of woman—as none of us deny or doubt for a moment—if it be a sphere for woman high and noble, and to some altogether sufficient to bound their capacities and bound their desires, it is also a sphere for man—a sphere which he altogether too much neglects, not knowing how high and noble it is, and that his duty lies at home, however much he ignores it, with his wife and with his children. But when it is said that home is woman's only sphere—and that is what is meant—it is simply a mistake; it is simply a narrow statement. Take the very woman who says this. As she passes along the street, she sees a placard for a Woman's Rights meeting, and with scornful lip she says, "I think woman's sphere is home"—and goes promenading up and down the street to meet acquaintances, and spends all the morning in shopping—because woman's sphere is home! (Applause and laughter). And after dinner, she says to her husband, "Where shall we go this evening?" "I think we will go to the opera," he says; and so she leaves the children with the servant, and spends half the night at the opera, because woman's sphere is home! (Laughter). On Sunday she goes to church morning and evening, because woman's sphere is home! and during the week goes to concerts and lectures and balls, perhaps, because woman's sphere is home! This is the answer to be given to all those who claim that woman can do nothing but attend to household affairs, or to those duties which are called especially the duties of home. No woman attends to these utterly. No woman need neglect the duties of home in order to fulfill duties in a wider sphere. It takes as much time to sit and hear a lecture as to stand and deliver it; to sit and hear a concert as to stand before the audience and sing.
