HOUSEWIVES
"Frenchwomen are the best housewives in Europe," said a German lady
who knew most European countries well; "the next best are the English;
Germans come third." The lady speaking was one whose opinions were
always uttered with much charm, but _ex-cathedra_; so that you found
it impossible to disagree with her ... until you got home. But to hear
the supreme excellence of the _Hausfrau_ contested takes the breath
away; to see her deposed from the first place by one of her own
countrywomen dazzles the eyes. It was a new idea to me that any women
in the world except the Germans kept house at all. If you live amongst
Germans when you are young you adopt this view quite insensibly and
without argument.
"My son is in England," you hear a German mother say. "I am uneasy
about him. I fear he may marry an Englishwoman."
"They sometimes do," says her gossip, shaking her head.
"It would break my heart. The women of that nation know nothing of
housekeeping. They sit in their drawing-rooms all day, while their
husband's hard-earned money is wasted in the kitchen. Besides ...
_mein armer Karl_--he loves _Nudelsuppe_ and _Küken mit Spargel_. What
does an Englishwoman know of such things? She would give him cold
mutton to eat, and he would die of an indigestion. I was once in
England in my youth, and when I got back we had a _Frikassee von
Hähnchen mit Krebsen_ for dinner, and I wept with pleasure."
"Perhaps," says the gossip consolingly, "your Karl will remember these
things and fetch himself a German wife."
"Poor girl!" says Karl's not-to-be-consoled mother, "she would have to
live in England and keep house there. It happened to my niece Greta
Löhring. She had a new cook every fortnight, and each one was worse
than the one before. In England when a cook spoils a pudding she puts
it in the fire and makes another. Imagine the eggs that are used under
such circumstances."
I remember this little dialogue, because I was young and ignorant
enough at the time to ask what a German did when she spoilt a pudding,
and was promptly informed that in Germany such things could not
happen. A cook was not allowed to make puddings unless her mistress
stood by and saw that she made them properly; "unless she is a
_perfekte Köchin_," added Karl's mother, "and then she does not spoil
things."
A German friend, not the travelled one, but a real home-baked domestic
German, took me one hot afternoon this summer to pay a call, and at
once fell to talking to the mistress of the house about the washing of
lace curtains. There were eight windows in front of the flat, and each
window had a pair of stiff spotless lace curtains, and each curtain
had been washed by the lady's own hands. My friend had just washed
hers, and they both approached the subject as keenly as two gardeners
will approach a question of bulbs or Alpines. There are different ways
of washing a white curtain, you know, and different methods of
rinsing and drying it, and various soaps. Starch is used too at some
stage of the process; at least, I think so. But the afternoon was hot
and the argument involved. The starch I will not swear to, but I will
swear to ten waters--ten successive cleansings in fresh water before
the soul of the housewife was at rest.
"And how do you wash yours?" said one of them, turning to me.
"Oh--I!" I stammered, taken aback, for I had been nearly asleep; "I
send a post-card to Whiteley's, and they fetch them one week and bring
them back the next. They cost 1s. a pair."
The two German ladies looked at each other and smiled. Then they
politely changed the subject.
This trivial story is not told for its intrinsic merits, but because
it illustrates the difference of method between English and German
women. The German with much wear and tear of body and spirit washes
her own lace curtains. She saves a little money, and spends a great
deal of time over them. The Englishwoman, when she possibly can, likes
to spend her time in a different way. In both countries there are
admirable housekeepers, and middling housekeepers, and extremely bad
ones. The German who goes the wrong way about it sends her husband to
the _Kneipe_ by her eternal fussing and fidgeting. She is not his
companion mentally, but the cook's, for her mind has sunk to the
cook's level, while her temper through constant fault-finding is on a
lower one. The Englishwoman sends her husband to the club or the
public house, according to his social station, because she is
incapable of giving him eatable food. But the English belief that
German housewives are invariably dull and stodgy is not a whit more
ignorant and untrue than the German belief that all Englishwomen are
neglectful, extravagant housekeepers. The Englishwoman keeps house in
her own way, and it is different from the German way, but it is often
admirable. The comfort, the organisation, and the unbroken peace of a
well-managed English household are not surpassed, in some details not
equalled, anywhere in the world.
The German ideal (for women) is one of service and self-sacrifice. Let
her learn betimes to serve, says Goethe, for by service only shall she
attain to command and to the authority in the house that is her due.
"Dienen lerne bei Zeiten das Weib nach ihrer Bestimmung,
Denn durch Dienen allein gelangt sie endlich zum Herrschen
Zu der verdienten Gewalt, die doch ihr im Hause gehöret,
Dienet die Schwester dem Bruder doch früh, sie dienet den Eltern;
Und ihr Leben ist immer ein ewiges Gehen und Kommen,
Oder ein Heben und Tragen, Bereiten und Schaffen für Andre;
Wohl ihr, wenn sie daran sich gewöhnt, dass kein Weg ihr zu sauer
Wird, und die Stunden der Nacht ihr sind wie die Stunden des Tages:
Dass ihr niemals die Arbeit zu klein und die Nadel zu fein dünkt,
Dass sie sich ganz vergisst, und leben mag nur in Andern!"
She is to serve her brothers and parents. Her whole life is to be a
going and coming, a lifting and carrying, a preparing and acting for
others. Well for her if she treads her way unweariedly, if night is as
day to her, if no task seems too small and no needle too fine. She is
to forget herself altogether and live in others.
It is a beautiful passage, and an unabashed magnificent masculine
egotism speaks in every line of it. Whenever I read it I think of the
little girl in _Punch_ whose little brother called to her, "Come here,
Effie. I wants you." And Effie answered, "Thank you, Archie, but I
wants myself!" Herr Riehl quotes the passage at the end of his own
exhortations to his countrywomen, which are all in the same spirit,
and were not needed by them. German women have always been devoted to
their homes and their families, and they are as subservient to their
menfolk as the Japanese. They do not actually fall on their knees
before their lords, but the tone of voice in which a woman of the old
school speaks of _die Herren_ is enough to make a French, American, or
Englishwoman think there is something to be said for the modern revolt
against men. For any woman with a spice of feminine perversity in her
nature will be driven to the other camp when she meets extremes; so
that in Germany she feels ready to rise against overbearing males;
whilst in America she misses some of the regard for masculine judgment
and authority that German women show in excess. At least, it seems an
excess of duty to us when we hear of a German bride who will not go
down to dinner with the man appointed by her hostess till she has
asked her husband's permission; and when we hear of another writing
from Germany that, although in England she had ardently believed in
total abstention, she had now changed her opinion because her husband
drank beer and desired her to approve of it. But it was an
Englishwoman who, when asked about some question of politics, said
quite simply and honestly, "I think what Jack thinks."
The truth is, that the women of the two great Germanic races are kin.
There are differences, chiefly those of history, manners, and
environment. The likeness is profound.
"Par une rencontre singulière," says M. Taine, "les femmes sont plus
femmes et les hommes plus hommes ici qu'ailleurs. Les deux natures
vont chacune à son extrême; chez les uns vers l'audace, l'esprit
d'entreprise et de resistance, le caractère guerrier, impérieux et
rude; chez les autres vers la douceur, l'abnégation, la patience,
l'affection inépuisable; chose inconnue dans les pays lointains,
surtout en France, la femme ici se donne sans se reprendre et met sa
gloire et son devoir à obeir, à pardonner, à adorer, sans souhaiter ni
pretendre autre chose que se fondre et s'absorber chaque jour
davantage en celui qu'elle a volontairement et pour toujours choisi.
C'est cet instinct, un antique instinct Germanique, que ces grands
peintres de l'instinct mettent tous ici en lumière!... L'âme dans
cette race, est à la fois primitive et serieuse. La candeur chez les
femmes y subsiste plus longtemps qu'ailleurs. Elles perdent moins vite
le respect, elles pèsent moins vite les valeurs et les caractères:
elles sont moins promptes à deviner le mal et à mesurer leurs
maris.... Elles n'ont pas la netteté, la hardiesse d'idées,
l'assurance de conduite, la précocité qui chez nous en six mois font
d'une jeune fille une femme d'intrigue et une reine de salon. La vie
enfermée et l'obéissance leur sont plus faciles. Plus pliantes et plus
sédentaires elles sont en même temps plus concentrées, plus
intérieures, plus disposées à suivre des yeux le noble rêve qu'on
nomme le devoir...."
I cannot imagine what M. Taine means by saying that Englishwomen lead
a more sedentary and sequestered life than Frenchwomen, but the rest
of his description presents a well-known type in England and Germany.
"Voir la peinture de ce caractère dans toute la littérature anglaise
et allemande," he says in a footnote. "Le plus grand des observateurs,
Stendhal tout imprégné des moeurs et des idées Italiennes et
françaises, est stupéfait à cette vue. Il ne comprend rien à cette
espèce de dévouement, 'à cette servitude, que les maris Anglais, sous
le nom de devoir, out eu l'esprit d'imposer à leurs femmes.' Ce sont
'des moeurs de sérail.'"
Here the "greatest of all observers" seems to talk nonsense, for
marriage in the seraglio does not hinge on the submission of one wife
to one husband, but on a plurality of wives that English and German
women have only endured in certain historic cases. In both western
countries marriage has its roots in the fidelity of one man and one
woman to each other. A well-known English novelist once said quite
truly that an Englishman very rarely distrusts his wife, and never by
any chance distrusts the girl who is to become his wife; and just the
same may be said of the German of the better classes. In both
countries you will find sections of society above and below where
morals are lax and manners corrupt. German professors write sketches
of London in which our busy grimy city is held up to a virtuous
Germania as the modern Sodom and Gomorrah; and the Continental
Anglophobe likes nothing better than to entertain you with pictures of
our decadent society, pictures that really do credit to the vividness
and detail of his imagination. Meanwhile our press assures the
respectable Briton that Berlin is the most profligate city in Europe,
and that scurrilous German novels about the German army will show him
what the rotten state of things really is in that much over-rated
organisation. But these national amenities are misleading. The bulk of
the nation in both countries is sound, and family life still
flourishes both here and there. The men of the race, in spite of Herr
Riehl's prognostications, still have the whip hand, as much as is good
for them in England, a little more than is good for them in Germany.
If you go to Germany you must not expect a man to open a door for you,
or to wait on you at afternoon tea, or to carry a parcel for you in
the street. He will kiss your hand when he greets you, he will address
you as gracious lady or gracious miss, he will put his heels together
and make you beautiful bows, he will pay you compliments that are
manifestly, almost admittedly, artificial. That at least is one type
of man. He may leave out the kisses and the bows and the compliments
and be quite undisguisedly bearish; or he may be something betwixt and
between, kindly, concerned for your pleasure and welfare. But whatever
he is he will never forget for a moment that you are "only a woman."
If you marry him he will expect to rule everywhere except in the
kitchen, and as you value a quiet life you had better take care that
the kitchen produces what pleases him. On occasion he will assert his
authority with some violence and naïveté. No one can be long amongst
Germans, or even read many German novels, without coming across
instances of what I mean. For example, there was once a quarrel
between lovers that all turned upon a second glass of champagne. The
girl did not want it, and the man insisted that she should drink it
whether she wanted it or not. What happened in the end is forgotten
and does not matter. It is the comment of the historian that remains
in the memory.
"Her family had spoilt her," said he. "When they are married and my
friend gets her to himself she will not behave so."
"But why should she drink a second glass of champagne if she did not
want it?" I asked.
"Because he commanded her to," said this Petruchio, beginning to
bristle at once; and he straightway told me another story about a man
who threw his lady-love's dog into a pond, not because the dog needed
a bath, but in assertion of his authority. The lady had wished to keep
her dog out of the water.
"Did she ever forgive the man?" said I.
"Forgive!--What was there to forgive? The man wished to put the dog
in the pond. A man must know how to enforce his will ... or he is no
man."
I nearly said "Lor!" like Mr. Tweddle in _The Tinted Venus_, but in
Germany it's a serious matter, a sort of _lèse majesté_, to laugh at
the rightful rule of man. You must expect to see them waited on hand
and foot, and to take this service as a matter of course. I have known
Englishmen embarrassed by this state of affairs.
"They will get me chairs," complained one, "and at table the daughters
jump up and wait on me. It's horrid."
"Not at all," said I. "It's your due. You must behave as if you were
used to it."
"I can't. The other day I got the daughters of the house to sit still
while I handed about cups of tea, and if some of the old boys didn't
jump down their throats and tell them they'd no business to let me
forget my dignity. Bless my dignity ... if it's such a tender plant as
that...."
"Sh!" I said. "They must have been old-fashioned people. In some
houses young men hand cups."
"They look jolly self-conscious while they're doing it, ... as if they
didn't half like it. You bet, they take it out of their womenfolk when
they get home. Look at that chap Müller!"
"Where is he?"
"In Dresden, where I lived last winter. He stormed the house down
because his wife took up his glass of beer and drank before he did.
Nearly had a fit. Said his dignity as a husband was damaged. Then he
turned to me and asked whether even in England a wife would be so bold
and bad?"
"What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything. I looked sick."
"That's no use. You should say a great deal, and wave your arms about
and hammer on the table. You don't know how to show emotion."
"I should hope not," says the Englishman. "But German women are always
telling me they envy the women in our country."
"That's their politeness," I assure him. "They don't mean it. They're
as happy as the day is long. Besides, Germans don't get drunk and beat
their wives with pokers. You know perfectly well that most
Englishmen----"
But, of course, whatever you say about German women of the present day
can be contradicted by anybody who chooses to describe one at either
end of the scale, for the contrasts there are violent. You will find
in the same street a woman who exercises a profession, lives more or
less at her club, and is as independent as her brother; and women who
are household drudges, with neither leisure nor spirit for any
occupation that would enrich their minds.