The Miller of Old Church by Ellen Glasgow — Read

On the following Sunday, a mild autumn morning, Mr. Mullen preached one of his most impressive sermons from the text, "_She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness_."

Woman, he said in the course of it, was created to look after the ways of her household in order that man might go out into the world and make a career. No womanly woman cared to make a career. What the womanly woman desired was to remain an Incentive, an Ideal, an Inspiration. If the womanly woman possessed a talent, she did not use it -- for this would unsex her -- she sacrificed it in herself in order that she might return it to the race through her sons. Self-sacrifice -- to use a worn metaphor -- self-sacrifice was the breath of the nostrils of the womanly woman. It was for her power of self-sacrifice that men loved her and made an Ideal of her. Whatever else woman gave up, she must always retain her power of self-sacrifice if she expected the heart of her husband to rejoice in her. The home was founded on sacrifice, and woman was the pillar and the ornament of the home. There was her sphere, her purpose, her mission.