Smart Government

The indisputable truth is, that there is no other item of superior, or perhaps equal, importance in the happy and profitable management of any farm, great or small, than that every person on it should be made to understand that deference and respect and prompt and faithful obedience should be paid, under all circumstances, to the wife, the mother, and the mistress;...An illustration: A tardy meal infallibly ruffles the tempers of the workmen, and too often of the husband; yet all the wife's orders were given in time; but the boy has lagged in bringing wood; or the girl failed to put her loaf to bake in season, because they did not fear the mistress, and the master was known not to be very particular to enforce his wife's authority. If by these causes a dinner is thrown back half an hour, it means on a good-sized farm a loss of time equivalent to the work of one hand a whole day; it means the very considerable difference between working pleasantly and grumblingly the remainder of the day; it means, in harvest time, in showery weather, the loss of loads of hay or grain.

"Hardship of Farmers' Wives" in Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1862, (462-470) 1863. From Fink's Open Country, Iowa.