Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/55

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
47
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE
47

girls he is reported to have used the following words—

"To keep house, cook, nurse and delight in making others happy is your mission, duty and livelihood."

The boys are to be happy themselves; the girls are to make others happy. No doubt Mr. Burns spoke sincerely; but is he not one of the "others"? And it is well to note that the "making of others happy" is not put before the girls as an ideal, but as a duty and means of livelihood. They are to be self-sacrificing as a matter of business—a commercial necessity. It is because man realizes that self-sacrifice in woman is not a matter of free-will, but of necessity, that he gives her so little thanks for it. Her duty and means of livelihood is to make others happy—in other words, to please him.

Whether she was trained to be useful or useless that was the object of her up-bringing. Men in one class of society would be likely to require wives able to do rough house or field work; so to do rough house or field work she was trained. Men in another class of society