To the Ladies

My uncle walking with his son!










Lady Mary Chudleigh writes a testament, To The Ladies, telling women to "value [themselves], and men despise: You must be proud, if you'll be wise," meaning women should reject marriage if they value themselves.  She was a very intellectual woman, but was bitter because she was married at seventeen-years-old and lived in the countryside raising three children for the rest of her life.  One day I hope to be married and have children of my own once I am in my late twenties and have started my career.  We spoke in class about how women have to sacrifice career for family, but men can have both, and I agree with this to some extent.  Primarily, it is women who opt to care for their children in their infant years, but more and more these days, men are taking paternity leave so they can be the caregivers to their babies, which I think is amazing.  It takes two to tango, so I believe it should take both the mother and father to look after their young baby, as well.  After a baby has reached toddler years and is able to start playschool or preschool, I don't find anything wrong with a mother working, at least part time, or a home-based business would suffice.  I think women have fallen into the role of stay-at-home mother, which I am all for if that's what a woman chooses, but I like the changing times where there are now stay-at-home fathers, too!  It makes me happy when I see a father pushing a stroller down the street with his children riding along; proving that he's helping with the child-raising, as well, and it's not entirely left up to the mother these days!

The Trivial Delights of Mankind

We studied the poem, The Rape of the Lock, by Alexander Pope, in which a man cuts off a lock of hair from a woman's head and they have a big fight over it, and, in the end, the hair is immortalized in the stars by the Muse.  The theme of this poem is what mighty contests rise from trivial things, and Pope is attacking the shallow values and misplaced priorites of the upper classes in his mock epic.  Well-off people spend far too much time worrying about insignificant things and spend too much money on items that they don't neccessarily need, but purchase them just because they want them, such as Ipods, cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices.  They spend money to redecorate and update their already lavishly furnished homes with expensive items that they won't actually use but are "just for show".  People, both nowadays and in previous times, spend too much time and money worrying about all the wrong things; they should really be worrying about all the poverty-stricken and homeless and sick people, rather than the little lock of hair that was cut from their head that will, in time, grow back, or the cell phone that's twice as much money as any other but this one "looks nicer".