A Jewish rabbi poetically said, "The Lord cannot be everywhere, so He made mothers." On account of their mission of motherhood we must regard women as holy, and may his name be anathema who harms them by treachery, deceit, compulsion or seduction! The love for one's mother is so spontaneous and natural that one hardly stops to consider why he loves her. It is because she harbored him for ten lunar months within her womb, suckled him at her breasts for many months more, educated him at her knee, sang sweet songs of comfort to him, and kissed away his bruises and sorrows, gave joy and peace to his young soul, and pointed him to ways which lead to immortality; because she was pure and good, and loved him so much that she would have given her all for him, or have died for him.
On account of their interdependence, the tie between mother and child is, for some years at least, very much more intimate than that which exists between father and child; and for many years after infancy the child will, as a rule, run instinctively to its mother in preference to its father.
Therefore, recollecting this, men resent nothing so much as a slur on their mothers, and revere their names as holy things. And yet some of these same men will thoughtlessly let us hope degrade the holiest functions of women, and bastardize their own offspring, who are allowed to grow up as rank weeds, with nothing but bitterness in the place of joy, and coarse names of reproach instead of honor.
There is a widespread misconception among many persons that a woman is naturally delicate and weak, and that her chief weapon of defence is the "unanswerable tear" which serves for her shield and spear. But there are some considerations which argue for her excelling in some points of strength, as she does in beauty. Like many an unsuspecting and honest man who fails to succeed in life by the usual worldly standard of success, so also a woman is handicapped by her good faith, and by her tendency to believe too much and rely too much on the promises of men. Her faith, which rightly should be regarded as an element of strength, too often leads to her ruin; her unsuspecting nature being little adapted to protect her from the trickery and deceitful declarations which are so often made under the guise of love.
The triumph of civilization is the predominance of moral over physical force; and until this is fully accomplished many women can have no chance to withstand the wickedness of those men who are brutally sacrificing such of them as are in need and unprotected for the physical gratification of a depraved lust.
Men are superior in the coarser grades of strength; and woman's only hope lies in that kind of civilization in which brutality is repressed by reason, and justice, and consideration for the welfare of others.
But even in physical strength women are easily the equals of men in staying power, for the average of their lives is longer. "Women are not only longer lived than men, but have greater powers of resistance to misfortune and deep grief. This is a well known law." They endure accidents and severe surgical operations with more fortitude and with better chances of recovery than men, and they were foremost in the ranks of the martyrs."They seem to withstand the vicissitudes of temperature better than men; and it is noticeable that more blankets are required in the male wards than in the female wards of hospitals.
One or two nights' loss of sleep will exhaust a man, while a woman can remain almost continuously by the sickbed day and night for long periods of time; and it is unquestionable that the power of endurance of the male nurse cannot compete with that of the woman nurse in a protracted illness.
When the shock and storm of adversity come to a family, sweeping away the home and all sources of support, it is very commonly observed that the man founders under the stress of the calamity, giving up all heart; and in such instances, when heroic strength and fortitude are called for, it is not infrequent for a gently nurtured wife or daughter to put aside her finery and come to the salvation of her family by her active exertions. In a quiet en show these capabilities for endurance, and rise magnificently in the face of the greatest calamities and trials.
"The tasks which demand a powerful development of muscle and bone, and the resulting capacity for intermittent spurts of energy, involving corresponding periods of rest, fall to the man; the care of the children and all the very various industries which radiate from the hearth, and which call for an expenditure of energy more continuous, but at a lower tension, fall to the woman".