Woman's wickedness
Olive Branch
June 5, 1852
June 5, 1852
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"Don't marry a woman under twenty. She hasn't come to her wickedness before then." -- Blackwood's Magazine
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WELL ---! If I knew any bad words, I'm awful afraid I should say 'em!! I just wish I had hold of the perpetrator of that with a pair of sons, I'd bottle him up in sperrits, and keep him for a terror to liars, as sure as his name is "Kit North."
"Set a thief to catch a thief!" How came you to know when that crisis in a woman's life occurs? Answer me that! I'll tel you what my opinion is; and won't charge you any fee for it either! A woman "comes to her wickedness" when she comes to her HUSBAND!! ---and if she knew anything good before, it all "goes by the board," then; it's no more use to her afterwards, than the fifth wheel of a coach! Don't you know, you wicked calumniator, that thunder don't sour milk more effectively than matrimony does women's tempers?
"Come to their wickedness, indeed! Snowflakes and soot! They'd never know the meaning of the word "wicked," if your sex were blotted out of existence! We should have a perfect little heaven upon earth --- a regular terrestrial Paradise --- no runaway matches, no cases of ---c---oncience! no divorces, no deviltry of any kind. Women would keep young till the millennium; in fact, millennium would be merely a nominal jubilee! because it would have already come. The world would be an universal garden of pretty, rosy, laughing women; no masculine mildew to mar their beauty or bow their sweet heads, the blessed year round!
Now you'd better repent of your sins, Mr. What's-your-name; for as sure as preaching, you will go where you'll have nothing to do but think of 'em! and won't find any women there, either; for they all go to the other place!
"Set a thief to catch a thief!" How came you to know when that crisis in a woman's life occurs? Answer me that! I'll tel you what my opinion is; and won't charge you any fee for it either! A woman "comes to her wickedness" when she comes to her HUSBAND!! ---and if she knew anything good before, it all "goes by the board," then; it's no more use to her afterwards, than the fifth wheel of a coach! Don't you know, you wicked calumniator, that thunder don't sour milk more effectively than matrimony does women's tempers?
"Come to their wickedness, indeed! Snowflakes and soot! They'd never know the meaning of the word "wicked," if your sex were blotted out of existence! We should have a perfect little heaven upon earth --- a regular terrestrial Paradise --- no runaway matches, no cases of ---c---oncience! no divorces, no deviltry of any kind. Women would keep young till the millennium; in fact, millennium would be merely a nominal jubilee! because it would have already come. The world would be an universal garden of pretty, rosy, laughing women; no masculine mildew to mar their beauty or bow their sweet heads, the blessed year round!
Now you'd better repent of your sins, Mr. What's-your-name; for as sure as preaching, you will go where you'll have nothing to do but think of 'em! and won't find any women there, either; for they all go to the other place!
Fanny Fern
To cite this project:
Fanny Fern, "Woman's Wickedness," Fanny Fern Archive, Ed. Haley Jones (2019) http://fannyfernarchive.org.
Fanny Fern, "Woman's Wickedness," Fanny Fern Archive, Ed. Haley Jones (2019) http://fannyfernarchive.org.
