"The Life & Age of Woman - Stages of Woman's Life from the Cradle to the Grave", a ca. 1849 U.S. print illustrating 11 chronological stages of virtuous womanhood (with the 30's evidently considered to be the peak years), each accompanied by a descriptive verse couplet. At left is a flourishing green tree, at right a symbolic weeping willow. For another version of this print, see File:Life and age of woman.jpg. (For a similar German-language graphic, see File:Waldenbuch-Stufenalter der Frau52657a.jpg.)

An approximate transcription of the verse couplets in the image (some of the words are quite hard to read):

1) Infant in cradle:

"A wailing infant, first she plays,

Unconscious of her future days."

2) Young girl with doll:

"Her girlish pastimes reveal for show

The cares which woman's life must know."

3) Late teen girl in grownup clothes:

"Her ripened beauty all confess

And wonder at her loveliness."

4) Bride in white dress and veil:

"A husband's arms, in hope and pride,

"Enclasp her now, a lovely bride."

5) Young mother holding baby:

"A mother's anxious love and care

With toilful heart is hers to share."

6) Dressed to go outdoors (i.e. now that she no longer has babies or toddlers in the house, she can now take an interest in matters outside the home — though in a strictly private and individual charitable capacity, of course):

"Now to the poor her hands dispense

the blessings of benevolence."

7) Middle-aged woman (first declining step):

"Absorbed in household duties now,

The weight of toil contracts her brow."

8) In black bonnet and holding handkerchief (suggesting the latter stages of mourning, perhaps her husband has died):

"She now resigns all earthbound care

And lifts her soul to heaven in prayer."

9) Old, wearing spectacles:

"At eighty years, her well-stored mind

"Imparts its blessings to her kind"

10) Bent over, using cane:

"The hoary head, us all should bless,

Who abound in ways of righteousness."

11) Sitting in chair, knitting:

"The body sinks and wastes away,

The spirit cannot know decay."

Vignette under arch: Funeral scene.

There are smaller vignettes under each of the nine steps of the arch.

Edited from image http://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g03000/3g03600/3g03651u.tif at the Library of Congress website.

Bibliographic information found on the LoC site:

TITLE: The life & age of woman. Stages of woman's life from the cradle to the grave / Kelloggs & Comstock, N.Y. & Hartford, Conn.

CALL NUMBER: PGA - Kelloggs & Comstock--The life & age of woman (A size) [P&P]

REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZC4-3651 (color film copy transparency) LC-USZ62-83539 (b&w film copy neg.)

MEDIUM: 1 print : lithograph, hand-colored.

CREATED/PUBLISHED: Buffalo : Ensign & Thayer, [between 1848 and 1850]

CREATOR: Kelloggs & Comstock.

SUBJECTS:

• Women--1840-1850.
• Human life cycle--1840-1850.

FORMAT: Lithographs Hand-colored 1840-1850.

REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

DIGITAL ID: (color film copy transparency) cph 3g03651 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g03651 (b&w film copy neg.) cph 3b30124 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b30124