Little Women challenged assumptions about women in nineteenth-century America. Marmee tells her daughters that they should not feel obligated to find husbands, but should seek fulfillment on their own. In chapter 9, she tells Meg and Jo:
My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have
you make a dash in the world—marry rich men
merely because they are rich, or have splendid
houses, which are not homes because love is wanting.
. . . [B]etter be happy old maids than unhappy
wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to have
husbands. . . . Leave these things to time; make this
home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your
own, if they are offered you, and contented here if
they are not.
Through her example, Marmee.....
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