“If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home….
But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless, and of small import to the soul, then, as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean.
To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours and holidays;
to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, books, cakes and boots;
to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene;
I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe?
How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?
No, a woman’s function is laborious; but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.
I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task;
I will never pity her for its smallness.”
G.K. Chesterton
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