#OriginalPurityCulture

William M. Cox, Presbyterian Quarterly 9.4 (1895):

"Amid all the innovations of radical democracy there is one institution that must stand. The family, as springing from the life union of one man with one woman in pure and honorable wedlock, is a social necessity. It is the strongest social bond, the surest guaranty of social order. It is the nursery of every grace that adorns, and of every virtue that dignifies, human life. It is the indispensable condition of social purity, of genuine religion, and of high civilization. It is necessary not only to woman's happiness, but also to the development of all the finer qualities of her womanhood. It affords the sole relations in which she can dwell with man without at once forfeiting his respect, and sacrificing her own purity, delicacy, sweetness, and womanly dignity. As long as the family remains our most important social institution, woman's relations to the world must be determined by her relations to the family and her offices and functions therein. Whatever restraints these impose, whatever disabilities these involve, are natural, not arbitrary, are essential, not conventional, are social necessities, not the oppressive impositions of superior power. Woman's chief relation in the family is that she bears her child. Her grand office and function is motherhood...The God of nature has honored woman above all earthly creatures in giving to her, chiefly, the guardianship and tutelage of immortal intelligences. He has committed to her keeping the life of humanity in the weakness, tenderness, the helplessness, the utter dependence of infancy. In this she finds a work that demands her supremest affection, her unwearying devotion, her utter self-effacement, and which calls into constant exercise all her mental faculties, and all the high instincts and sentiments of her heart."