material things which we are in the habit of associating with the home
are the tools of the expression. Roofs and walls, furniture and dishes,
may or may not be part of home. They are such only when they represent
some one’s affectionate desire to secure for another the good things of
life. Since home is an expression of affection, and not a means of
making one’s self comfortable and happy, it follows that it approaches
the ideal in proportion as love is strong and is successfully expressed.
When one loves another very much, he desires that that other person may
attain to completeness of life, and seeks to assist him to make full use
of all the means at hand and to overcome, as far as possible, all those
obstacles which are due to his natural endowment, or to his environment,
and which lie between him and success. Men especially seem to forget
that by means of their homes they can do more than protect their wives
and shield them from hardship; that they can give them positive
assistance in making the most of themselves and of their powers. This is
what the intimate association that the home offers is for. If the home
does not offer the opportunity for mutual understanding, it is a
failure; but if it does not add mutual helpfulness, in the broadest
sense, to mutual understanding, it is a worse failure; and it is
frequently upon the external form of the home that its possibilities for
such helpfulness depend.
Since the chief factor in determining the form of home is the need of
the opportunity for close and intimate and helpful association, we may
disregard the popular fear that the home will finally take upon itself
the characteristics of a public institution, and will cease to offer
facilities for private family life. Human intelligence, which suits
means to ends, and which is ever coming to the aid of human affection,
will prevent that. So long as affection lasts it will seek satisfactory
expression in home life, and so long as intelligence endures it will
stand in the way of the extension of the borders of the home beyond the
possibilities of the mutual helpfulness to its members.
If home is to be a perfect expression of affection, it must not only
provide the opportunity for close association, but it must also from
time to time adjust itself and its activities to the opportunities which
society offers to men and to women in fields unconnected with the
household. If the home-making of either man or woman is to be
satisfactory, it must not interfere unnecessarily or arbitrarily with
the outside work that is offered to the other partner in home-making
enterprise. This rule affects man’s home-making at present more than it
does woman’s, for her opportunities are multiplying more rapidly than
his, and they must be taken into account by him. At present, woman’s
life differs from man’s not so much in the variety of occupations that
are open to her as in the extent to which the home interferes with these
occupations. Part of this interference is, of course, inevitable, being
connected with the bearing and rearing of children; but part is
avoidable, being connected with details of housekeeping which might be
entrusted to specialists. If all women except professional housekeepers
were relieved of the tasks of cooking and cleaning, or of the
superintendence of such work, the external form of the average home
would be somewhat radically changed. Much less of its space would be
given to kitchen and laundry, and it would be planned to accommodate
fewer industries. In this form, however, it might offer even more
facilities for family life than it does now, and even larger
opportunities for close association and mutual helpfulness. It might,
too, offer to man a better chance than he has at present to express his
love for his wife by helping her to take advantage of the opportunities
offered to her outside of the home, and to add the pleasures of the
cultivation and use of special talents to the joys of home and of family
life.
But we have said that the home must at any given time provide those
material and creature comforts which the individual cannot secure
through other channels. Because of their recognition and acceptance of
this fact, women are doing and will probably continue for a long time to
do work of which they might be relieved. It is common to think of this
work as necessary because of the mechanical difficulties lying in the
way of public housekeeping for the benefit of private home-making. As a
matter of fact, most of the difficulties of this kind have been removed.
Food can be prepared satisfactorily in much larger quantities than it is
in private houses. This is proved by the quality of the food that is
served in first-class hotels, restaurants, and clubs. There is a
greater cleanliness than that of private homes. This is proved by the
fact that surgeons insist upon performing operations in hospitals, where
the cleaning is done by specialists under expert direction. A few
problems, those involved in the satisfactory transportation of cooked
food, for example, remain to be solved, but these seem small when
considered in connection with the inventive skill shown in other
industrial enterprises. The real difficulty in the way is, of course,
social rather than mechanical. There seems no doubt that by general
agreement among the housekeepers of a given community to avail
themselves more largely than at present of the results of modern
industrial development, radical changes could be made in the form of the
home and in its activities without decreasing the comfort and enjoyment
of home life.
Perhaps the only real danger to the home lies in the fact that women,
who are its natural protectors, are not free to control the industrial
changes which affect it, and that these changes are being determined
too largely by commercial interests. Experience has shown that women
have had only a passive part in the removal of industries from the home,
and that business enterprises have had a very active part. It has shown,
also, that these changes have not been followed as speedily as they
should have been by legislation necessary for the control of the
industries under their new conditions. How slowly, for example, the Pure
Food Law followed the factory method of preparing foods! Women must be
freer to work in the interest of the home and of the children. They must
be free from unnecessary labor and care within the home, and able to
work for it in public; they must be free economically, and able to
control their own incomes and to make experiments for themselves in new
methods of housekeeping; they must be free politically, and able to
control, by means of the ballot, public methods of preparing and
transporting food, of caring for streets, of educating children, and of
doing other work which affects the welfare of the home.
Present conditions in the home seem to demand that women must have
greater and not less freedom in its service, greater and not less power
for use in its protection; and so long as love and intelligence last,
they may be expected to use added freedom and added power for the
benefit of family life. They may be expected to do more and not less
work for the home by adding to their work for it in private a public
work demanded by its changed position.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
to make a little revaluation=> to make a little reëvaluation {pg 60}
if the maufacturer so desires=> if the manufacturer so desires {pg 127}