The woman is narrowed by the home and the man is narrowed by the woman. In proportion as man is great, as his interests are world-wide and his abilities high, is he injured by constant contact with a smaller mind. The more ordinary man feels it less, being himself nearer to the domestic plane of thought and action; but the belittling effect is there all the time.
If the boy's mother commanded as wide a range of action as his father; if her work were something to honour and emulate as well as her dear self something to love, the boy would never learn to use that bitter term "only mother." The father is a soldier, and the boy admires and longs to follow in great deeds. The father is a captain of industry--a skilled tradesman, a good physician--the boy has the father to love, and the work to admire as well. The father is something to other people, as well as all in all to him; and the boy has a new respect for him, seeing him in the social relation as well as the domestic. But his mother he sees only in the domestic relation and is early taught by the father himself, that he is "to take care of her!" Think of it! Teaching a child that he is to take care of his mother! A full-grown able-bodied woman will take a child of ten out with her at night--"to protect her!"
The exquisite absurdity of this position has no comparison or parallel. Think of a cow protected by a calf! A bear by a cub--a cat by a kitten! A tall, swift mare by a lanky colt! An alert, sharp-toothed collie by a tumbling, fat-pawed pup! How can a boy respect a thing that he, a child, can take care of! He can love, and does. He can take care of, and does. He can later on support, and does; and even--this in a recent instance of this sublime monstrosity--he can "give away" _his own mother_ in marriage! No wonder he so soon learns to say "only mother!" When she is _not_ only mother, but mother and much besides, a real human being, usefully exercising her human faculties, the boy will make a better man.
Again, if his sister shared every freedom and advantage of childhood; were equally educated, not only in school, but in play, and in the ever-stimulating experiences of daily life, he would feel far differently toward her.