THE OTHER PART OF "WOMAN'S MISSION."--RUFFLES VERSUS READING.--THE
CULTIVATION OF THE FINGERS.
Let us leave for a while this matter of child-training, and consider
the other part of woman's mission,--namely, "making home happy." It
would seem that even for this the wife should be at least the equal of
her husband in culture, in order that the two may be in sympathy. When
a loving couple marry, they unite their interests, and it is in this
union of interests that they find happiness. We often hear from a wife
or a husband remarks like these: "I only half enjoyed it, because he
(or she) wasn't there;" "It will be no pleasure to me unless he (or
she) is there too;" "The company were charming, but still I felt
lonesome there without him (or her)." The phrase "half enjoy" gives
the idea; for a sympathetic couple are to such a degree one that a
pleasure which comes to either singly can only be half enjoyed, and
even this half-joy is lessened by the consciousness of what the other
is losing. In a rather sarcastic article, taken from an English
magazine, occur a few sentences which illustrate this point very well.
The writer is describing a honeymoon:--
"The real difficulty is to be entertaining. The one thirst of the
young bride is for amusement, and she has no idea of amusing herself.
It is diverting to see the spouse of this ideal creature wend his way
to the lending library, after a week of idealism, and the relief with
which he carries home a novel. How often, in expectation, has he
framed to himself imaginary talks,--talk brighter and wittier than
that of the friends he forsakes! But conversation is difficult in the
case of a refined creature who is as ignorant as a Hottentot. He
begins with the new Miltonic poem, and finds she has never looked into
'Paradise Lost.' He plunges into the Reform Bill; but she knows
nothing of politics, and has never read a leading article in her life.
Then she tries him, in her turn, and floods him with the dead chat of
the town and an ocean of family tattle. He finds himself shut up for
weeks with a creature who takes an interest in nothing but Uncle
Crosspatch's temper and the scandal about Lady X. Little by little the
absolute pettiness, the dense dulness, of woman's life, breaks on the
disenchanted devotee. His deity is without occupation, without
thought, without resources. He has a faint faith in her finer
sensibility, in her poetic nature: he fetches his Tennyson from his
carpet-bag, and wastes 'In Memoriam' on a critic who pronounces it
pretty!"
In cases of this kind, the half-joy is strikingly apparent. We see
that a husband possessing culture is likely to be lonesome among his
poets and his poetry, his works of reform, and his lofty ideas,
unless--she is there too.
If it be said that learned women are prone to think lightly of home
comforts and home duties, to despise physical labor, to look down on
the ignorant, let us hasten to reply that learning is not culture, and
that we want not learned mothers, but enlightened mothers, wisely
educated mothers. And let us steadfastly and perseveringly assert that
enlightenment and a wise education are essential to the accomplishment
of the mother's mission. When the housefather feels the truth of this,
then shall we see him bringing home every publication he can lay his
hands on which treats intelligently of mental, moral, or physical
training. Then shall we hear him saying to the house-mother, "Cease, I
pray you, this ever-lasting toil. Read, study, rest. With your solemn
responsibilities, it is madness thus to spend yourself, thus to waste
yourself." In his home shall the true essentials assume that position
which is theirs by right, and certain occupations connected with that
clamorous square inch of surface in the upper part of the mouth shall
receive only their due share of attention. For in one way or another,
either by lessening the work or by hiring workers, the mother shall
have her leisure.
And what will women, what will the house-mothers, do when they feel
this truth? Certainly not as they now do. Now it is their custom to
fill in every chink and crevice of leisure time with sewing. "Look,"
said a young mother to me: "I made all these myself, when holding the
baby, or by sitting up nights." They were children's clothes,
beautifully made, and literally covered with ruffles and embroidery.
Oh the thousands of stitches! The ruffles ran up and down, and over
and across, and three times round. Being white, the garments were of
course changed daily. In the intervals of baby-tending, the mother
snatched a few minutes here and a few minutes there to starch, iron,
flute, or crimp a ruffle, or to finish off a dress of her own. This
"finishing off" was carried on for weeks. When her baby was asleep, or
was good, or had its little ruffles all fluted, and its little
sister's little ruffles were all fluted, then would she seize the
opportunity to stitch, to plait, to flounce, to pucker, and to braid.
Wherever a hand's breadth of the original material was left visible,
some bow, or band, or queer device, was fashioned and sewed on. This
zealous individual, by improving every moment, by sitting up nights,
by working with the baby across her lap, accomplished her task. The
dress was finished, and worn with unutterable complacency. It is this
last part which is the worst part. They have no misgivings, these
mothers. They expect your warm approval. "I can't get a minute's time
to read," said this industrious person; and, on another occasion,
"I'll own up, I don't know any thing about taking care of children."
Swift, speaking of women, said that they "employ more thought, memory,
and application to become fools than would serve to make them wise and
useful;" and perhaps he spoke truly. For suppose this young mother had
been as eager to gain ideas as she was to accomplish a bias band, a
French fold, or a flounce. Suppose that, in the intervals of
baby-tending, instead of fluting her little girls' ruffles and
embroidering their garments, she had tried to snatch some information
which would help her in the bringing up of those little girls. The
truth is, mothers take their leisure time for what seems to them to be
first in importance. It is easy to see what they consider essentials,
and what, from them, children are learning to consider essentials. The
"knowingness" of some of our children on subjects connected with dress
is simply appalling. A girl of eight or ten summers will take you in
at a glance, from topmost plume to boot-tap, by items and
collectively, analytically and synthetically. She discourses, in
technical terms, of the fall of your drapery,--the propriety of your
trimmings, and the effect of this, that, or the other. She has a
proper appreciation of what is French in your attire, and a proper
scorn of what is not. She recognizes "real lace" in a twinkle of her
eye, and "all wool" with a touch of her finger-tips. Plainly clad
school-children are often made to suffer keenly by the cutting remarks
of other school-children sumptuously arrayed. A little girl aged six,
returning from a child's party, exclaimed, "O mamma! What do you
think? Bessie had her dress trimmed with lace, and it wasn't real!"
The law, "No child shall walk the street in a plain dress," is just as
practically a law as if it had been enacted by the legal authorities.
Mothers obey its high behests, and dare not rebel against it. Look at
our little girls going to school, each with her tucks and ruffles. Who
"gets time" to do all that sewing? where do they get it, and at what
sacrifices? A goodly number of stitches and moments go to the making
and putting on of even one ruffle on one skirt. Think of all the
stitches and moments necessary for the making and putting of all the
ruffles on all the skirts of the several little girls often belonging
to one family! What a prospect before her has a mother of little
girls! And there is no escape, not even in common sense. A woman
considered sensible in the very highest degree will dress her little
girl like other little girls, or perish in the attempt. How many do
thus perish, or are helped to perish, we shall never know. A frail,
delicate woman said to me one day, "Oh, I do hope the fashions will
change before Sissy grows up, for I don't see how it will be possible
for me to make her clothes." You observe her submissive, law-abiding
spirit. The possibility of evading the law never even suggests itself.
There is many a feeble mother of grown and growing "Sissys" to whom
the spring or fall dressmaking appears like an avalanche coming to
overwhelm her, or a Juggernaut coming to roll over her. She asks not,
"How shall I escape?" but, "How shall I endure?" Let her console
herself. These semi-annual experiences are all "mission." All sewing is
"mission;" all cooking is "mission." It matters not what she cooks,
nor what she sews. "Domestic," and worthy all praise, does the
community consider that woman who keeps her hands employed, and is
bodily present with her children inside the house.
But her bodily presence, even with mother love and longing to do her
best, is not enough. There should be added two things,--knowledge and
wisdom. These, however, she does not have, because to obtain them are
needed what she does not get,--leisure, tranquillity, and the various
resources and appliances of culture; also because their importance is
not felt even by herself; also because the community does not yet see
that she has need of them. And this brings us round to the point we
started from,--namely, that the present unsatisfactory state of things
is owing largely to the want of insight, or _unenlightenment_,
which prevails concerning what woman needs and must have in order
rightly to fulfil her mission.