Woman Enthroned
son. Therefore we beheld the prodigal equipped with a mother and a trusting female cousin, who, between them, put the poor old gentleman out of commission, reducing him to his proper level of purveyor-in-ordinary to the household. It was the prodigal's mother who bade her reluctant husband give their wilful son his portion. It was the prodigal's mother who watched for him from the house-top, and silenced the voice of censure. It was the prodigal's mother who welcomed his return, and persuaded father and brother to receive him into favour. The whole duty of man in that Syrian household was to obey the impelling word of woman, and bestow blessings and bags of gold according to her will.
The expansion of the maternal sentiment until it embraces, or seeks to embrace, humanity, is the vision of the emotional, as opposed to the intellectual, feminist. "The Mother State of
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