What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?

The line is spoken in Louisa May Alcott’s novel *Little Women* (1868–69), in which the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—come of age with their father away and their mother, Marmee, serving as their chief moral and emotional guide. The question arises amid the girls’ everyday crises and growing pains, when the presence (or absence) of maternal counsel feels decisive. Alcott, drawing on her own family life and the domestic ideals of mid-19th-century New England, repeatedly frames the home as a training ground for character, with Marmee’s steady influence contrasted against the vulnerability of young women who must navigate hardship without such support.

The question underscores how central maternal care is to the novel’s moral universe: a mother is not only a comforter but a practical guide through social, emotional, and ethical dilemmas. Read more broadly, it expresses a fear of facing womanhood without mentorship—an anxiety that gives weight to the March sisters’ reliance on Marmee and to the book’s emphasis on community, surrogate families, and self-discipline. The italicized “do” heightens the urgency: it is not a philosophical query but a plea for a workable strategy. In Alcott’s hands, the line also invites readers to consider resilience—how girls without mothers must improvise support systems and inner resources.