Woman

(woom'an.) [From A.S. wiman.] The female of the human race, grown to an adult age. Among the Greeks and Romans, women were employed in spinning, weaving, embroidery, and all sorts of needle-work; their education being wholly confined to their domestic duties. "In every age and country (says Gibbon), the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the two sexes has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of succe ion, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the smallest employment, civil or military." Inour treatment of the sex there is a just medium to be observed as far removed from their humiliation as it is from that extravagant homage which stops at nothing short of their deification. Woman is the equal and companion ofman -not the plaything of his caprice, nor the slave of his pa ions. [s. 967]