Brigham's Advice to Women and Men
As reported by Wilford Woodruff:
Many other remarks were made & while addressing the females Said Sisters if you expect to call me Br Brigham I want you to be Cleanly. Keep your faces, hands & skin Clean from head to foot your Clothes dishes & Houses clean Also your Children & teach them manners, & when you mix up Bread don't have a dozen flies in your tray.I know that the women generally rule there Husbands & the Children their Mothers. But when A woman under takes to rule me I want Her to be so secret about it that I Cannot Catch Her at it. Now I do not want the Brethren from my remarks to abuse there wives but treat them kindly: Do there Heavy luging but dont wash there dishes as some men do."
How are we all doing?
Labels: Brigham Young, women's issues
posted by Bored in Vernal @ 2:07 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Hmmm... wonder what his standard of cleanliness was... Might not be able to address him as Brother Brigham most of the [I can't express myself without swearing]time.
I'd like to think I've adopted the wheat and dismissed the chaff of his advice here--no flies in my bread, no sirree!
Dagnabbit! Gotta get those blasted flies out of the dough. And for the love of all the fluffy puppies in the universe, if my husband stopped doing the dishes, we would never eat again. Because I can't cook if all the dishes are dirty.
And I'm sorry, but if I tried to keep my children in a constant state of cleanliness, it would require all the water in the well that I'd have to dig, since I feel a moral compunction to not waste water in this desert.
About what dear Brigham said, let me quote a dear friend, "I just cannot dill!"
I think if Brother Brigham came to my house, I would smile sweetly and serve him bread with LOTS of flies in it and tell him they were raisins.
Hahaha Jo. Now that's the way to be "so secret he cannot catch you at it."
But doing the dishes is a man's job!
He was speaking of a different time and place. Today, he would he shot for saying such things.
My husband said he'd be happy to ride any heavy luges I have lying around...
(Sorry, shouldn't really make fun of the spelling their)
(hee hee, I just did it again)
(I need to repent before Brigham catches me obnoxiously mocking more homophones)
(I should also cut back on my parantheses use)
well, looking at the state of my dishes right now, my kitchen, my car, my desk at work.. heck, my hair is probably a bit greasy sweating from this dang utah heat.. so i guess i couldn't call him br. brigham.
mark - i hope people wouldn't say this today, but how many men do the dishes? how many men help with domestic tasks (not yard work or taking out the garbage) at the end of their work day? i would bet that after 8 hours of work inside or outside the home, the bulk of the other 16 hours still tends to fall to the woman in the relationship. it's something i've seen in the most liberal / feminist of households and the most conservative households.
so, though it may not be spoken about, it still happens. gender oppression still happens, it's just gone underground. heck, it was such a problem in the eugene, ore. peace community a couple of years ago that women were leaving the work. i ended up putting on a workshop called "sexism in the progressive community" that 40 people attended and only 1 person (a man) couldn't understand that sexism is still very much in practice.
Yes, Brooke, sexism is still actively practiced by both sexes. Men do it and women let them. I'm sorry to hear it's even happening in old Eugene, my hometown, where I wish I could live.
In my house I have my chores, which I mostly do, and I have my wife's chores, which I sometimes do. If I don't cook or do the dishes it doesn't happen for a long time. Now, my wife isn't a slob, she just holds her ground on 'assigned' tasks. (Well, sometimes she's a little lazy too, but I'm allowed that slack at times as well.)
I think the spirit of what Brigham was saying, if we get past the non-PC stuff, is that there must exist a mutuality in the home and in relationships. We need to agree on who rules who on what. He wasn't speaking about fairness or keeping score. It's up to each of us to work out what we're willing to live with and keep those boundaries alive and well.
Brooke,
My hubby does the dishes, always. I figure I do all the shopping and cooking, so that is his part of it. Of course sometimes the dishes are in the sink for a week, but if I cared enough, I suppose I would do them. He also does all the laundry folding. I don't work, he does, so I think we are pretty fair around here, but only because I put my foot down.
Geckoman, I LOVE your rendition and I agree with you that the spirit of the message is right there. At least Br. Brigham knows who rules the roost, he just prefers to pretend otherwise.
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