G.K. Chesterton likened wifely duties to those of a monarch, a powerful merchant, and a teacher of theology, manners and morals---all performed simultaneously.

"I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it," said Chesterton. "How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

---So Much More by Elizabeth and Anna Sofia Botkin