34                                  Patricia A. Cahill

As this last work so plainly demonstrates, the voice of patriarchal
culture often makes itself heard in conduct books. As I have endeav¬
ored to show in this survey, however, these texts registered many
other voices as well. To read Plimpton's conduct books, in short, is
to realize that their representations of womanhood have been com¬
plicated and contradictory. Moreover, to read these neglected books
and to listen to these "lost" voices is to be reminded of just how
little we know about their original readership; and it is to be
reminded that, until we know more about how girls and women
read these texts, whether in submission or in rebellion, we will in a
fundamental way be missing their meaning.