A mother’s province

“‘. . . indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband. Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his province. A sick child is always the mother’s property: her own feelings generally make it so.'”

Anne Elliot, on Charles’s wanting to go to dinner at the great house in spite of the fact that little Charles was still recovering from his bad fall
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 7