Enlarging Your Sphere

Published August 19, 1982. Education can do interesting things to people. Particularly educational pursuits on the college or university level. Usually academic endeavors broaden one’s perspective of life, enrich it, and often provide new knowledge and skills for living a more productive and fulfilling life.

But for other students, college can be a time of confusion, re-orientation, and transition from one type of life to another. Such has been the case with many of the students in my marriage classes as they prepare for marriage, one of the major transitions they will make in life. This is particularly true for the young women I teach.

The vast majority of young women in my classes are marriage oriented. They desire to marry and most of them will. In addition, they are very committed to having children of their own and raising a family.

Sometimes the young coeds begin to wonder about combining education, careers, marriage, and motherhood. They want it all, but can they have it? And, they constantly ask, should their college education lead toward graduation, toward employment and/or a career if they plan to marry and have children? They and I have struggled with these concerns, and still do.

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss these issues in more detail with one of my students. She is a math major here on a scholarship, very intelligent, and attractive. And she plans to obtain her master’s degree in her field of specialty, mathematics. But she asked me a question I could not answer. “Dr. Barlow, do I need a master’s degree in math to be a good wife and mother?  She knew I am solidly behind marriage and family life because of the courses I teach. But she also knows I am on record in favor of advanced education or training beyond high school for both young men and young women. So her concern has become mine, and we have not yet resolved it.

Then a few days ago, she brought me two quotes by Brigham Young that have helped her with her dilemma. These thoughts should be of interest to all young women in the Intermountain area and particularly to those who, like my student, have an interest and proficiency in mathematics.

Brigham Young stated, “As I have often told my sisters in the Female Relief Societies, we have sisters here who, if they had the privilege of studying, would make just as good mathematicians or accountants as many men; and we think they ought to have the privilege to study these branches of knowledge that they may develop the powers with which they are endowed. We believe that women are useful, not only to sweep houses, wash dishes, make beds, and raise babies, but that they should stand behind the counter, study law or physics, or become good bookkeepers and able to do the business in any counting house, and all this to enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society at large. In following these things, they but answer the design of their creation.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 61)

On another occasion, Brigham Young noted, “The ladies can learn to keep books as well as the men; we have some few already who are just as good accountants as any of our brethren. Why not teach more of them to keep books and sell goods, and let them do this business, and let the men go to raising sheep, wheat, or cattle, or go and do something or other to beautify the earth and help make it like the Garden of Eden, instead of spending their time in a lazy, loafing manner?” (Journal of Discourses, Volume 12, pp. 374-375.)

I believe that education can and should help young women become better wives and mothers. And perhaps, as Brigham Young noted, it can also help them “develop the powers with which they are endowed,” and “enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society.” In addition, it may assist them to “answer the design of their creation.”