122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



How many farmers' wives may tell the same sad story, only they may 

 multiply Mrs. Aborns' statement by two and three, and many by even four as 

 the, to them, sad result of being a farmer's wife, how many have felt all the 

 hardships and privations that have been their lot, j'et have suffered on in 

 silence and gone to their graves without giving voice to the feeling that in- 

 justice had been done them, and yet without design, on the part of those 

 who had sworn on the altar of their God to love and cherish them. Now 

 what has the Grange done to ameliorate the condition of the wives and 

 daughters of its male members, if anything, what? If nothing, what is our 

 plain duty in the matter? Must this state of things continue for ever and 

 ever, is there no remedy within our reach ? Have brothers given sufficient 

 thought to the subject, or rather have they given it any thought at all? 

 Finding their house in order, their food well cooked, and being absorbed 

 in the purchase of a self-binding reaper, or the new self-adjusting wind- 

 mill that will save all the labor of watering slocic. What will lighten the 

 wife's labor, or relieve her from the terrible strain that is slowly but surely 

 sending her to the lunatic asylum, or an early grave. They find out too 

 late that the poor wife and mother has given her life for the loved ones 

 with perhaps on our part no sign of appreciation, or sympathy that might 

 have made her lot more tolerable, or lighted her pathway to the shadowy 

 land. 



But you may ask what remedy for these evils would you propose ? 

 Ought not our wives to be content to share our lot, and bear their portion 

 of the burdens of our life? I admit they ought, but the burdens are too 

 heavy for frail women, unnecessary to a very large extent; if we appre- 

 ciated what they were, and could be lightened if we used the means 

 within our reach and applied as much thought to them as we do towards 

 lightening the work on the farm or to facilitate our labors. 



With the improvements in machinery both for farm and household, six 

 hours a day ought to provide for all our wants ; that our time of labor is 

 not shortened proves a wrong somewhere. Notwithstanding all these im- 

 provements labor finds no rest, no time for recreation, or recupera- 

 ing the tired body and mental lethargy consequent upon this constant 

 strain, shows how important the work the Grange has undertaken, how 

 imminent the necessity for combined eff"ort to relieve labor and give to us 

 what those who create nothing are taking every year. Who does not 

 long for the cool retreats of the mountains, the healthful sea breezes, or 

 the healing waters of the springs after the summer's work is ended with 

 the harvest? And why maj' we not take our wives from the hot cooking 

 stove for a brief season at least, giving her a new lease of life, and new 

 and brighter hopes for the future ? Who does not know that she, especially, 

 needs this change of scene, this relaxation from the drudgery she is now 

 forced to endure ? The reason is we have not so willed it; we have sub- 

 mitted to an inequality of compensation, until the wealth we create has 

 been to a large extent absorbed by those who do no work, whose 

 wives and daughters "toil not, neither do they spin," and "yet Solomon 



