Here is a paragraph by Ashley Montague from “The Triumph and Tragedy of the American Woman,” which appeared in the Saturday Review: 

Women have great gifts to bring to the world of men, the qualities of love, compassion and humanity (that is, beauty of spirit). It is the function of woman to humanize, since women are the natural mothers of humanity. Women are by nature endowed with the most important of all adaptive traits, the capacity to love, and this is their principal function to teach men. There can be no more important function. It could be wished that both men and women understood this. Once women know this, they will realize that no man can ever play as important a role in the life of humanity as a mentally healthy woman. And by mental health, I mean the ability to love and the ability to work.

Being a good wife, a good mother, in short, a good homemaker is the most important of all occupations in the world. It surely cannot be too often pointed out that the making of human beings is a far more important vocation than the making of anything else, and that in the formative years of a child’s life, the mother is best equipped to provide those firm foundations upon which one can subsequently build.”

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Note: This is a very old illustration but we have decided to include it. It is worth revisiting what were foundational ideas from the past to measure where we are today. Also, there are many who still believe these to be foundational for their lives today.