Twenty Commandments for Women
A CONTINENTAL periodical for women—a ‘sort of German “Ladies’ Home Journal”—has had its readers competing for prizes for the best ten points of conduct, or “Ten Commandments,” for women in the various relations of life. The tables which follow won prizes, and will serve at least to show American women some German domestic ideals:— Ten Commandments for the Mother
5. Be firm and without severity. 6. Do not stint with your mother love. Tenderness is not effeminacy. And just because life often is cold and hard and cruel, a sunny, bright, glad childhood is a blessing for the whole life. 7. Discipline as life disciplines. It does not scold, it does not plead, it does not fly into a passion. It simply teaches that every deed has its adequate effect. 8. Do not laugh at the little sorrows and pains of child life. Nothing wounds a child more than to find ridicule where it looked for sympathy. 9. In illness and danger protect, nurse, cherish, and cheer as much as in your power. And do not weaken your vitality by giving way to anguish and sorrowing. What can be done must be done as well as possible. 10. Do not forget that the happiness of having a child includes the duty of smoothing his way in the world—of endowing him with health, gladness, courage, vigor; of finally letting him live his own life freely and in his own way. Your pay you have had in advance, for your sorrowing was happiness, and your sacrificing joy. Ten Commandments for the Homemaker
1. Make your household one harmonious whole, no matter how small the scale. 2. Use only what you can comfortably afford in good quality and ample quantity. 3. Let your home appear bright and sunny. It is not easy to be unpleasant in a cheerful room. 4. Treat your servants wisely and kindly, and it will be impossible for them to either impose or oppose. 5. Have time for everything, and be never in a hurry. 6. A certain formality is necessary to save every-day life from triviality, and freedom from looseness. 7. Do not forget that “society” is the death of home life; hospitality its flower. 8. Know how to talk and how to listen, how to entertain and how to amuse. 9. Have many interests and no studies. 10. Do not forget that your home should not only be a well-conducted dormitory and boarding place, but truly a home, the center and focus of all interest, pleasure, and happiness for everybody connected with it.