Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“My first duty is to develop all the powers given to me and to make the most of myself and my own life.”
- Source
- The Woman's Bible
- Date
- 1898
- Local voice
- Imagined speaker · Jephthah’s daughter (imagined by Stanton)
Meaning of “My first duty is to develop all the…”
The imagined speaker refuses to let another person dispose of her life, grounding dignity in the responsibility to develop her own capacities and possibilities.
Where does it come from?
The Woman's Bible, The Book of Judges, Chapter II, Judges xi, Project Gutenberg #9880. Stanton imagines Jephthah's unnamed daughter rejecting sacrifice: ‘My first duty is to develop all the powers given to me and to make the most of myself and my own life.’ This is Stanton's invented protest voice within her commentary, not a biblical quotation or speech preserved in Judges.
Why the local voice matters
Stanton writes an imagined protest for the unnamed biblical daughter; it is not a biblical quotation.
