Woman and Her Needs.
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Smith, Mrs. E. Oakes. Woman and Her Needs. New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1851.
8vo.; dampstained; cream wrappers, printed in black; spine chipped, removing “Woman”; soiled and edgeworn. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition, wrappered issue, which would have been sent to subscribers through the mail, of this collection of Smith’s articles on women and marriage; published the same year as the first edition; OCLC lists no copies; with four pages of publishers advertisements in the rear.
Smith explains in her Preface:
The following pages were first presented to the public in a series of articles, through the New York Tribune. The writer had thought much and earnestly upon these and kindred subjects; and it had been her design to leave a work to be published after her death, in which the Great Contract, or Marriage, should be fully considered. This plan is probably superseded by the present work, and perhaps it is in better harmony with a courageous and frank character of mind, to present itself to the world while “in the flesh,” and thus abide the issue, giving the public a tangible object upon which to expend its blows, rather than leaving it the discomfort of feeling its strength wasted in “thin air.”
In eleven chapters, and particularly focused on the topics of marriage and religion, Woman and Her Needs urges recognition and reform in regards to women: “The state of things thus appearing in our own day is just the state we might have prophesized would take place at some time. We must meet it, recognize it, and help to direct it wisely. It argues great things for Woman, and through her for the world. We have Needs becoming more and more urgent, and now is the time to consider what they are” (p. 11).
She continues this argument at the beginning of chapter two, denouncing “excessive maternity” as anchoring women to the home, “[conspiring] to induce the belief that the most entire domestic seclusion is the only sphere for a woman” (p. 19). Oakes Smith also encourages every “true woman” to assert her independence (p. 45).
"Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith." Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
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