conditions of the present century have made some people believe that the
family is a thing of the past, but this is a mistake. The family life of
the future will be different from that of the past, but the finest
traits in it will still be the same. Loyalty of each to all and all to
each is one of the greatest assets in this tumultuous, changing world.
In times of distress, whether it is financial or mental, the most
pitiable person is the one without family ties. A family of children may
be a handicap at such times, but often it is the very thing that keeps
people from failure. Moreover, in adversity and old age a family group
of loyal brothers and sisters, even if each has several children, gets
along much better than does the man or woman who fends only for himself.
It pays to be married and to be married into a large family.
Let us turn back again to the question of whether family life is going
to die out. In the old days of unrestricted families children just came
because it couldn't be helped. Today, regardless of race or religion,
intelligent people limit their families. Abundant statistics make it
clear that the size of families has dropped greatly among all except two
groups. One is a large group of less intelligent, isolated, shiftless,
or incompetent people, among whom families of eight to fifteen children
may still be found. The other is a small group of intelligent,
high-minded, well-established, well-to-do families with many relatives
and with a very assured position. Their children usually number from
four to eight. Most of us belong to a huge intervening group in which
the average number of children, including those who die young, is less
than three, instead of seven, as was the case a century or two ago. This
great middle group is the one that will determine what kind of people
live in this country in the future.
Well, then, from what part of this middle group will most of the
children of the future be derived? A little arithmetic will help us.
Suppose we have two sets of parents, numbering a thousand each and
having children old enough to be married. In one set each pair of
parents has two children; in the other five. The children of each set
behave like their parents in this respect. In both sets 15 percent of
the children die before reaching the age of marriage, and 10 percent of
those who grow up fail to marry. These are normal percentages. Among
those who marry, however, 20 percent of the two-child group, and only 10
percent of the other set, fail to have children. How many parents will
there be in each group at the end of three generations? If we make no
allowance for the fact that more boys than girls are born, there would
be 136 parents in the two-child group a century hence, and they would
have 136 children. On the other hand, there would be 8744 parents and
21,860 children in the five-child group. Over a hundred and sixty times
as many!
Now that we have done the arithmetic, what does it mean? Of course in
actual life the two-child and the five-child groups will intermarry. And
even if each marries its own kind, the number of children will
fluctuate. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence of three great
tendencies. First, certain kinds of families tend to be small or large
as the case may be. Second, each kind tends to marry into its own kind
more often than into the other. And finally, people who grew up in large
families generally like large families and want to have them. Hence the
result of the present limitation of families must be to make large
families and family life in general more popular in the future than at
present.
This is the way it works in the great middle group to which most of us
belong. Families of four to six children are found mainly among people
who love children and are willing to make sacrifices in order to provide
homes for them. So as long as our present limitation of families
continues, the children of each successive generation will tend in
larger and larger numbers to be the descendants of people who believe in
family life and are willing to make sacrifices for it. A few of them are
disappointed because their children do not turn out well, but the great
majority feel well rewarded. Ask parents of three or more children how
they feel about it. Nine out of ten will say that nothing in their lives
has been worth more than their children. So long as people of that kind
have children, and those of the other kind fail to have children, family
life will not die out. It will become more and more the great center of
society. It will change, but the change will be growth, not decay.
Now for the third question, "Is it my duty to marry?" Future generations
may say that the better your physique, the greater your beauty and
strength, the finer your mind, the more lovable your temperament, and
the more highly you are endowed by nature and training, the more
certainly it is your duty to marry and have a family. At present,
however, the answer to "Is it my duty to marry?" is very much like the
answer to a question which you might ask if you were a guest at a
delightful summer resort. "Is it my duty to go swimming, play tennis,
go yachting, and have a good time?" Assuming that you are physically
fit, it certainly is your duty if your presence will cause your hosts
and the rest to enjoy themselves. But why ask such a silly question? You
will do all those things just because you want to. You would be an awful
fool to pass up the chance of having all sorts of fun when everything is
just right for it. And you would be an awful fool to give up marriage if
the conditions for that were equally favorable.
Of course there is a very important personal element in all this. Some
minor crudity in him or her, some ideal diverse from yours, some
unfortunate habit or tendency, may be more than you can adjust yourself
to. You alone can decide that. All that we can do here is point out what
the marriages and families of thoughtful, conscientious people mean to
the world.
The essence of the whole matter, as has been said a thousand times, is
the extremely rapid fall of the birthrate, especially among intelligent,
farsighted, industrious, progressive people whose ideals of family life
are high. The majority of the young people who read this article
probably belong to this class. Therefore you represent a type of family
whose loss or diminution is a very serious matter. Unless your type of
family averages more than three children, the country suffers two great
losses. It suffers these losses because under the present conditions it
takes more than three children per family on an average to provide two
who become parents and thus replace their father and mother. So unless
your grandparents have at least ten grandchildren, your family stock is
dying out, and the country is suffering two great losses. One loss is
your good biological inheritance. This does not mean that you are
anything wonderful. It simply means that you belong to a group which on
the whole inherits more than the average capacity. Therefore, unless you
have more than three children, the biological inheritance of America
will be lowered.
The second great loss is cultural. It is all very well to talk about
sending every competent boy and girl to college, and giving every one
the fullest chance to develop, but this does not solve the problem. No
other institution comes anywhere near the home as a place in which to
establish the ideals and habits that determine whether our lives shall
be a mere flash in the pan or a fire that warms and cheers. The finer
things of life wither and die if there are not enough children in the
families of people who know how to make real _homes_. If you came from
such a home, and especially if your relatives also have such homes, you
can make one yourself. Few things are more needed in America today than
just such homes.
Ought I to marry? I wish that every reader could answer in the
affirmative.
_Eleanor Roosevelt_
CHAPTER FOUR
_Should Wives Work?_
Is it possible for a woman to marry and still have a career? This
question has been asked of me so many times that I am glad at last to
sit down and write some of the things which always come to my mind.
To begin with, the question is foolishly worded, for there are very few
women who have careers. Those with real careers are a little group by
themselves needing separate consideration. Most women marry and work,
and the work will not be a "career." The question put this way also
seems to imply that marriage in itself is not a career. Anyone who
believes that has no real understanding of marriage.
There is no general answer which any one individual can give to this
question, no matter how it is worded, for it is one of those questions
that depends for its answer largely upon the individuals involved, both
men and women.
The question should really be phrased in this way: Are you able to
carry on two full-time jobs? Have you the physical strength and the
mental vigor to do this day in and day out--particularly when you are
young, first married, adjusting yourself to a stranger's personality,
and perhaps bearing children, which is an added physical strain?
I can hear you ask, "Why do you say, 'adjusting yourself to a stranger's
personality'?" The answer is quite simple: no two people really know
each other until they have been married for some time, and one of the
most exacting duties of family life is the adjustment of the various
personalities that make up the family circle. The mother adjusts herself
not only to her husband, but to each of her children and to the other
near relatives, and she tries to explain and to adjust them to one
another. It is not always an easy task.
More and more households are being managed by the housewife alone,
particularly among the young people. That means pretty nearly constant
attention to household tasks, if a good job is to be done, in the same
way that it would be done in an office or wherever the woman might be
employed for pay. This housekeeping job can be as scientific and as
engrossing as any office job, or it may be a slipshod, haphazard affair
with everything at sixes and sevens. It all depends upon the woman
whether she makes this side of marriage a career or not.
There is another important aspect to this career. Any woman who means to
make marriage a successful career will study her husband, his
capabilities, his interests, even his peculiarities. She should know
about his business and about his pleasures. It is possible for her to be
a great factor in his success, not by thrusting herself forward as an
advisor, but by understanding so well his character and his career that
she can supplement his shortcomings, bring out the best that is in him,
and expand his interests by adding her own. Thus she can have a
vicarious career by virtue of what she has put into her husband's.
Perhaps the woman who does this is the happiest and most successful
woman, but she has to have the kind of temperament that can do it and do
it well, and in addition the circumstances of married life have to make
it possible. We might as well face the fact that today circumstances are
making it more and more difficult for a woman to lead what two
generations ago was considered the normal and natural life for any
woman. In those days even a woman who did not marry tried to find a
niche that she could fill in somebody's home. A maiden aunt or cousin
often took the place of a nurse or governess or even a hired servant and
was looked upon with pity, and expected to work early and late for her
room and board, and to be as devoted to the children of the family as
though they were her own.
Women today would not accept this situation so calmly, and the fact that
they can be and are largely self-supporting changes their economic
condition. It also changes their relationship to men and marriage.
The economic situation is such today that few young people can marry at
the age when their grandparents did. Many young people, rather than put
off their marriage indefinitely, get married with the realization that
both of them will have to continue working and that children are out of
the question until they have laid enough money aside or the man has had
enough increase in salary to take care of all the family expenses.
This is not a case of whether you prefer marriage or a career. It is a
case of marriage and work together, or no marriage and work alone. Work
must go on in either case. For most women there is something so
satisfying in creating a home that they do it frequently by themselves.
It seems to fulfill a deep inner need to do the little homely things of
everyday living, and I think that is one reason why so many young people
get married and set up homes of their own long before their financial
resources warrant it.
If they want to have children as soon as they are financially
established, they usually do so, but a craving for a home of her own is
the first stirring of maturity in a woman. To many women, however, a
home is not wholly satisfying unless she is making it for someone else,
and nature has made most women yearn for a man to mother.
I know one young couple who were married when the boy was getting
twenty-five dollars a week and the girl was getting the same as a
stenographer. Both of them went on working. Everything seemed to be
going very well, and she managed her two jobs quite successfully. The
most successful part of it was the fact that she induced her husband to
feel an equal responsibility for the house. I remember that when I dined
with them, he put on an apron after dinner and helped wash the dishes as
naturally as if that were the normal occupation for a man. When a
marriage works out this way, it is very successful, especially if the
man has a knack for doing things about the house, because it keeps him
busy when his wife is busy.
Children can be postponed if two young people have a home and a mate. If
a woman has to work to have a home and husband, she will do it happily,
but I do not think that always means that she longs to work. It is
unfortunate that so often she is forced to for material security.
Where circumstances verge on poverty, marriage is even more of a career,
for then more depends on the woman's ability to manage. Of course, when
it comes to the mothers of families who work in mills, factories, and
stores, we know quite well that there is no question of choice--poverty
drives them, and they work because they have to, and only a few would
hesitate if they were offered an opportunity to stay at home and look
after their home and their children.
I remember visiting a mill town once, and as the women came off the
night shift--for there were no laws at that time in that particular
state against women's working on night shifts--they met their husbands
going to work on the day shift. We followed one woman home. Tired from
the hours in the mill, she nevertheless had to set to work immediately
to get the children fed and off to school. Then she had her house to set
to rights, washing and ironing to do, and dinner to get for the children
and supper to be left for the man when he came back from work as she
went on. In the afternoon she snatched a few hours of sleep, and the
children who were not in school played unwatched and uncared for. She
knew that her home life was not satisfactory, and she did not work long
hours in the mill because she wanted to, but simply because there was
not enough food to go around unless her earnings supplemented those of
her husband.
There are women, however, who work for the love of working. They may
love their homes and their children and still crave the satisfaction of
doing a job themselves. Sometimes it is just because they love the kind
of work they do; sometimes it is because they must have the independence
which being able to earn money gives them.
I know one young woman who has managed to develop for herself work which
she can do in her own home. She feels that her children need her at
home, and yet she was very unhappy without some outside interests. She
had a musical talent which she shared with her husband, and together
they developed a unique project which involved research and execution,
giving them a joint interest and allowing her to earn a little extra
money.
Very occasionally it is possible for a man and a woman to work together
and to have an even closer tie than they would have if the woman
remained the man's helpmate only in the home.
The happiness of husband and wife is often wrecked by too little
dependence on each other, for to be happy two people must need each
other in everything they do. I could tell you many stories of young
people who have drifted apart partly because the man was too absorbed by
his business and the woman did not have enough to do. One story I
remember, however, is a little different, because it was a case in which
both the man and his wife had interests which were so divergent that
neither of them took any pleasure in being with the other or in hearing
about what the other was doing. The man wanted to lead a rather quiet
life, and the woman was young and pretty, active-minded, physically
energetic. She wanted to do something which would bring in money and
make it possible for her to have some of the luxuries and pleasures that
she coveted and to which her husband was completely indifferent. They
stuck to their own interests, and while they lived in the same house and
while they had children and while they were never separated in a formal
way, they could not have been further apart if they had lived at the two
poles. I question if the children ever knew what it was to feel a
community of interests in that home.
It would be well if men realized the need that some women have for a
little financial independence. Occasionally marriage is wrecked because
the woman feels that her work at home is as much a financial
contribution as is the man's work out in the world. She finds no
recognition of this in their relationship or in their environment and
becomes more and more restless and dissatisfied.
I remember one woman saying rather bitterly to me once that she made
more money by saving and good management than her husband did, but that
he seemed to think the generosity of giving was all on his side,
forgetting that she gave her strength and her time. The work which she
did she might have paid someone else to do; and her careful buying
actually put in the bank money which her husband could use in his
business.
As a rule, the woman spends the major part of the family income, but if
it is given her for the house and she has to resort to subterfuge to get
any personal pocket money out of it, it is not a happy arrangement. Of
course, when two people are planning together every penny of
expenditure, the case is different; but when a man has any money which
he calls his own, a woman should have some also in recognition of the
services she performs for the home. She is more apt to make her
housekeeping a good job and to be happy in her family relations.
In many cases a woman who holds a job feels that she is a better
companion for her husband because she has more individuality and comes
to him more full of different interests when they meet. She may not have
the kind of temperament which makes it possible for her to bring up her
children herself. She may find that even with less time to give them,
she can really do more for them. All these things are subjects for the
individuals to consider and decide together.
"Why do you work?" I once asked a friend of mine who seemed very weary.
She smiled and said: "I work because I found that when Stephen came home
at night, I had nothing to talk to him about. He is out in the world and
meets people and does things. I was in a little backwater and lost the
habit of thinking about the same things that are on his mind. I had to
go back to work to regain the same atmosphere and to be a companion."
"But," I said, "you have to pay some one to take care of the children.
"Wouldn't it be cheaper to do it yourself?"
"Far cheaper," she said, "but even the children are better off. Now,
when I come home, I am full of interests I can share with them, and I am
nowhere nearly so impatient as I used to be when I answered their
questions all day long and directed every minute of their lives. I do
not mind now saying, 'Johnny, wash your hands,' or, 'Sara, don't bite
when you fight.' I have to do it only between 6 and 8 P.M. But if I do
it from 6 A.M. until 8 P.M., many a harsh word is spoken, and
many a hasty gesture passes between us, much to my regret afterward."
One thing is certain: Any woman who decides to work after she is married
must have good health and be a fairly well-disciplined person, and her
life must be systematized so that one part does not interfere with the
other, and the man must understand and sympathize with her interests and
desires.
The man's temperament is as important as the woman's, for there are men
who deeply resent their wives' doing any work and who want to feel that
their home is entirely dependent on their own efforts. There are other
men who go even beyond that and want to feel that the woman whom they
have married is dependent upon them for all she has in a material way,
forgetting often that their mental and spiritual contacts count also in
any relationship. Then again there are men who, if their wives are
self-sufficient and capable, will do exactly what so many women are
accused of doing--become parasites and willingly allow themselves to be
taken care of in every way, even in a material way.
I knew one man whose wife mothered him until he completely lost his
initiative. He was sweet to her, but he really felt that life was made
by her and he had to make no effort. Suddenly he met a woman who was
weaker and more clinging than he was, and she awakened in him all his
dormant chivalrous instincts. He asked his wife for a divorce. He
married the weaker woman and became a strong man. The first wife remade
her life, which was not astonishing; but he remade his, which seemed
unbelievable.
All the things I have mentioned and one more enter into this question of
whether a woman who has the ability to do a job outside the home should
do it or not. In the last few years I have been getting many letters
from women whose husbands have fallen ill or died and left them alone or
with dependents. Those who have had no training are the most pathetic,
but those who once worked and then gave up altogether are in almost as
difficult a position.
I doubt that it is ever wise for a woman who has once had a skill to
allow herself to lose it entirely, for, granting that she makes of
marriage a career, there may come a time when she will need work, and
there will certainly come a time when her children are grown. If the
demands on her time are fewer and she is well, she may feel the
necessity of taking up some kind of regular work again, particularly if
in her youth she was trained to keep busy. This may not be a financial
necessity, but merely something to take the place of the duties which
were hers when marriage was her only job.
In my own experience I have found there is one other thing that may
happen to a woman. For some reason she may have to interest herself in
things that have seemed to be more directly her husband's interests and
in which she never expected to take any personal part. She may find she
becomes interested for a variety of reasons. This necessity of
developing interests of her own which take her out of her home will find
her better equipped if she has once done a job for pay and kept on doing
it now and then throughout her life so that she is able to maintain a
professional attitude toward all work, both in her home and out of it.
There are just a few women who have special gifts, who have established
careers before they meet the men they wish to marry. If they give up
these careers, they may find much of the savor of life is removed when
they are not doing something which requires independent thought and
initiative. These are the women who go to work because they are
conscious of a capacity within themselves which cannot be denied, and
they should marry only men who understand this and are willing to make
some compromises. It can be done very happily, but it depends on both
the man and the woman in each case. These "career" women do a job for
the love of it. They may be so gifted that they can cope successfully
with household affairs from the administrative point of view. They may
not be interested in doing any of the homely things of life. They may be
quite helpless at home and need someone else to cope with household
measures. For them it is probably impossible to settle down to a
homemaker's career and watch over somebody else's career and development
and achievement. They are fortunate if they marry the right men!