how lustily we sing “Heaven is my home,” none of us is in a hurry to
go there. We prefer to stay in a world in which we are acquainted and
acclimated. Likewise, we all dread old age. It fills us with horror to
think of becoming bent and tottering old men and women, our vigor of
mind and body gone, sans hair, sans teeth, sans everything. So from
time immemorial humanity has been on the still hunt for some magic that
will stay the devastating hand of time and enable it to hold on to the
youth it prizes so dearly. The ancients sailed the world over seeking
fabled islands and miraculous fountains of perpetual youth. We moderns
pin our faith to the surgeon’s knife and the druggist’s bottles, to
monkey glands, and face liftings, and paints, and powders, and hair
dyes.
All in vain. The black oxen of the years march over us, treading out
our youth and beauty, our strength and high spirits, and nothing that
we can do will stop them. So it seems a pity that we should waste so
much thought, so much struggle, and effort, and energy, and money in
essaying an impossible task. For do what we may, we cannot keep young,
and when we try to camouflage age as juvenility the only people in the
world that we fool are ourselves.
We can dye our hair the gold, or the black, or the jet of girlhood, but
we cannot put under it the fresh face of sixteen. We can have our skin
gored and tucked until all of our wrinkles are taken out, but there
still remain the tired, old eyes that have seen fifty or sixty years.
We can starve ourselves until we get the figures of flappers, but we
are not lithe and graceful. We are living skeletons. We can roll our
stockings and borrow our granddaughter’s clothes, but it doesn’t make
us look like debutantes. It makes us look like those afflicted with
senile dementia. The truth is, the more we fight age the harder it
fights back and the sooner it conquers us. None grow old so quickly as
those who work themselves into premature age trying to keep young.
Once I was standing behind a jaunty little figure perched on the
runningboard of a car. She wore the gayest and sportiest of sport
suits. She had the thin figure of a girl of fifteen. Her bobbed
henna-colored hair curled under the brim of a rakish little hat.
Presently she turned around and disclosed a face that was like a mask,
it was so plastered over with cosmetics. “Heavens! Did you ever see
such an old hag?” exclaimed a man near me.
Now, this woman was not more than fifty years old. She was in the prime
of life, at an age when many women are handsomer than they ever were
in their lives. No one would have thought of her as being old at all,
if she had been willing to appear her own honest age; if she had had
the pleasing plumpness that belonged to her time of life; if her soft,
gray hair had waved about her face, and if she had been appropriately
dressed. It was her effort to appear kiddish that called attention to
what an old goat she was.
If bobbing and dyeing their hair, and dieting themselves to emaciation,
and wearing knee-length skirts made elderly women look young and
girlish, they would not only be justified in doing so, it would be a
virtue to do it, for thereby they would make themselves easy on the
eyes. But just the reverse is true. Their affectation of youth only
calls attention to what a long distance they have traveled from youth.
Old mutton never seems so old, and tough, and stringy as when it is
dressed as spring lamb.
And the folly of trying to act young after you are old is just as great
as that of trying to look sixteen when you are sixty. Women have been
told so often they must keep their spirits young, they must never think
old thoughts, they must never speak of age, or admit to themselves they
are getting older, that they have come to believe that, simply by
forgetting their birthdays, they can maintain perpetual girlhood.
We all know women who begin every reminiscence by saying that they were
very young at the time it happened, and who give us to understand their
husbands were cradle snatchers, who married them when they were mere
infants. We know old women who are always teasing themselves about men,
and talking about their best beaus, and pretending to have flirtations
with boys young enough to be their grandsons, and repeating compliments
about their eyes or their fascinations they allege men paid them,
but that even an idiot would know that they made up themselves. How
ridiculous the poor souls make themselves! How infinitely older they
appear than the women who do not try to pose as vamps after they have
ceased to look the part, and who regard men just as they do women, as
interesting and agreeable human beings.
Perhaps, after all, we make too big a bugaboo of growing old. The
twilight has its charms no less than the dawn or high noon, and so the
last lap of the journey of life has its compensations and its joys if
we are willing to accept them.
Anyway, the only way we can escape old age is by dying young. But if we
welcome it as a friend, it deals kindlier with us than if we fight it
as an enemy.
XVII
GOSSIP, THE POLICEMAN
A young woman writes me that she considers that she has a right to live
her own life in her own way and do exactly as she pleases. So she has
broken most of the Ten Commandments and snapped her fingers in the face
of Mrs. Grundy. And now that she finds that her reputation is being
torn to tatters, she thinks that she is being most unfairly treated.
“Oh, how I hate the whole tribe of kitty-cats!” she wails. “Oh, how
hard, and cruel, and unjust people are!” Then she asks, “Don’t you
think that gossip is the unpardonable sin?”
Not at all. Gossip is one of the most powerful influences in the world
for good. It is the invisible, omnipresent policeman that enforces law
and order. It is the scourge that keeps the trembling wretch in order
and makes the weak-kneed and the wobbly walk the straight and narrow
path.
We can stifle the voice of conscience, but we can’t silence the voice
of our neighbors. We can dope ourselves into believing that we have
a right to make our own code of conduct, but we can’t force the
community in which we live to take our point of view on the matter, or
to make any exceptions in our behalf to the standards that society has
set up for good behavior. And it is this fear of what “they’ll say”
that makes us curb our appetites and passions and keep up at least an
outward show of decency. For no matter how vain and egotistic we are;
no matter how self-complacent and self-satisfied we are; no matter
how independent we think we are, we are all cowards who grovel in the
dust before public opinion. It is the lifted eyebrow. It is the cold,
measured, appraising look that weighs us in the balance and finds us
wanting. It is the turn of a shoulder away from us and the little hush
that falls on a group as we approach that tells us that we have been
the subject of unfavorable discussion, which we dread more than we do
the wrath of God.
It is the knowledge that she will be gossiped about if she indulges
in any flirtations which keeps many a bored young married woman with
romantic yearnings from indulging in little affairs with good-looking
bachelors. She knows there might really be no harm in her having lunch
with Mr. A. or going to the theater with Captain C., but that she could
never explain it to the woman who lives across the street.
And the next time the Current Events Club meets she knows that she will
be the current event of burning interest discussed. Therefore she turns
down the alluring invitations and stays at home, and minds her p’s and
her q’s and her babies.
And it is the fear of gossip that makes many an indiscreet girl watch
her step and saves her from the stumble that would land her in the pit.
She is easy-going and good-natured, and warm-hearted and affectionate,
and she sees no harm in letting boys that she likes kiss her and
fondle her, but it makes the flesh creep on her bones to think of the
Amalgamated Scandal Mongers’ Union getting out their hammers and going
for her if she does. She knows well enough that the neighbors on either
side keep tab on what hour her beaux go home and what goes on as they
sit on the front porch or stoop of an evening, and she conducts herself
accordingly. There is no chaperon so efficient as Mrs. Grundy.
If we could only do as we pleased and get away with it without any
censorious comments from our fellow creatures, there would be many
more philandering husbands and wives than there are, many more girls
wandering down the primrose path, many more neglected children and
ill-kept houses, many more wife-beating husbands and virago wives. It
is the knowledge that, if they give way to their natural impulses, they
will be talked about, which gives many would-be sinners the strength to
resist the temptation to be as bad as they would like to be.
The people who think it is so wicked to be talked about are only
those who have something to hide, something that reflects on their
character. It is our bad deeds we don’t want discussed. We are tickled
to death to have our good ones broadcasted to the ends of the earth.
No man objects to having it told about that he is a model husband, a
good provider and a tender father. The thing he wants hushed up is that
he half starves his family in order to spend the money on a flapper. No
woman wants to put the soft pedal on the conversation when her friends
are telling what a wonderful wife and mother she is; but she doesn’t
know how women, who call themselves her friends, can be catty enough
to whisper behind their hands that she went out joy-riding with young
Snookums and didn’t get home until 4 in the morning, while the baby was
nearly dying with the croup.
Those who are down on gossip and feel that the world should cover up
their shortcomings with a blanket of silence are unreasonable. Why
should other people be more careful of your reputation than you are
yourself? If you do not care enough for your good name to protect
it, why demand that service of the general public? Foolish and vain
expectation! For the gossipers keep on their good work, and the only
way you can escape being talked about is to be so exemplary that you
are a dull subject for conversation.
XVIII
THE LUCKY WORKING WOMAN
Why do we hold to the theory that work is a blessing to men, but a
curse to women? We know beyond all questioning that the necessity of
earning his bread by the sweat of his brow was the consolation prize
that Adam was handed along with his eviction papers when he was turned
out of Eden. We know that the only happy man is the busy man. We know
that only in constructive labor does a man find an interest that never
palls and a game in which there is a perpetual thrill. We know that
work is the greatest anodyne for sorrow and the best protection against
temptation. We know that, as Stevenson says, “if a man loves the labor
of any trade apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have
called him, and he is of all men most enviable.”
So manifold are the benefits men derive from work, so salutary are its
effects upon them, that we have a contempt for the idle, purposeless
man and feel that, no matter how much money he has, he has no right to
spend his life in loafing. We are eager to get our boys to work, so
that their restless young energy may find a legitimate outlet, instead
of being employed in devising new forms of dissipation. The young man
must have something to do, and if he isn’t bending his back in honest
farming he will be breaking his neck in sowing a wild-oats crop.
Our attitude, however, toward women and work is diametrically opposite.
We do not regard work as a good thing for women. On the contrary, we
consider it a misfortune for a woman to have to work. We have even
coined a phrase for it and speak of the woman who must earn her own
living as a “poor working woman.” Worse still, the woman who works
pities herself. The mother whose daughters go down to business every
morning bewails their fate and feels that destiny has dealt most
unkindly by them. The woman who must do her own housework, and look
after her own babies, and make her own clothes sheds barrels of tears
over her lot.
Men also accept this view of the situation that labor is a curse to
women, and work themselves to death in order that their wives and
daughters may live in parasitic ease, with servants to wait upon them
and have nothing to do but kill time. In fact, the consensus of opinion
seems to be that the ideal state for a woman is that in which she never
performs any useful labor, but merely sits on a silk cushion and feeds
upon strawberries, sugar and cream. All of this is a distorted view of
the situation. Women need to work just as much as men do. Idleness
has just as disastrous an effect upon the feminine character as it has
upon the male, and among women, as among men, the only happy, contented
ones are those who are so much engrossed in some useful labor that they
haven’t leisure in which to consider whether they are satisfied or not.
Mother “poor Marys” and “poor Sallys” her daughters who have to earn
their living, but nowhere else will you see healthier, happier girls
than those holding down good jobs in stores and offices. Nine times out
of ten the girl behind the counter is brighter, more alert, and finds
life a far more entertaining proposition than does her purposeless idle
sister before the counter.
Nor is the domestic woman who has to do her own housework entitled to
shed any tears of self-pity on our necks. There is no more reason why
a husky young woman shouldn’t do her share of the work of the domestic
partnership than there is why her husband should not do his. It is no
more of a hardship for her to have to work than it is for him, and many
a rich old woman who sits now with empty hands that ache for occupation
will tell you that her happiest days were the busy, crowded ones when
she got up at five o’clock to cook her husband’s breakfast before
he went to the factory and sat up until eleven o’clock washing and
patching his clothes so that he could make a decent appearance next day.
It is a significant fact that the women who fill sanitariums and
enrich nerve specialists are not the overworked, hard-driven wives and
mothers. They are the middle-aged and elderly women, who have nothing
to do but to canvass their systems for symptoms of every disease they
read about in the magazines. It takes leisure to develop invalidism.
Busy people keep well because they haven’t time to be sick.
Nearly every man’s ambition is to keep his wife in idleness, and he
thinks that he is being a good husband when he can boast that she
hasn’t a thing on earth to do but to amuse herself. It is pathetic
that the thing that so many good husbands strive for is their undoing.
For it is the idle women who are the peevish, fretful, discontented
wives. It is the idle women who run off with all sorts of fool fads
and fancies. It is the idle women who decide that their good, honest,
hard-working husbands are not their real soul-mates, and who get into
scandals with jazzhounds and elope with romantic-looking sheiks they
have picked up in hotel lobbies.
The idle woman is never a happy woman. Having nothing to do but to
think about herself, she is sure to prod around in her mind until
she finds a grievance. Having nothing to do, she is sure to get into
mischief. Having no interesting occupation, she begins to hunt for
thrills. And the net result is that she works harder trying to amuse
herself than she would at scrubbing floors, and the only reward is
that life is flat, stale and unpalatable in her mouth.
Let us hope that the time will soon come when we will have enough
intelligence to perceive that work is a woman’s salvation even as it is
a man’s, and when we will congratulate the woman with a job instead of
pitying her.
XIX
AN INDOOR SPORT
This is a sad world, mates, with too little sunshine in it, so far
be it from me to abridge, abate or curtail any innocent pleasure. But
it does seem to me that there are certain diversions that should be
indulged in only in the privacy of home. One of these is the family
spat. Apparently a large number of men and women get married for the
sole purpose of providing themselves with a sparring partner, with whom
they can put on the gloves at a moment’s notice with, or without, the
slightest provocation. Life has no dull moments for them, because they
are always saying something that draws blood, or framing a retort that
will cut to the quick, and the excitement of a battle to the death is
perpetually thrilling their nerves.
Without doubt, it is a merry and adventurous existence for the doughty
domestic warriors who enjoy that kind of thing! I would not be cruel
enough to deny them the cheery pastime of going to the mat over every
trivial difference of opinion. But I do contend that conjugal quarrels
are an indoor sport that should be pursued only when the participants
have sought the seclusion that the cabin grants, as they used to say
in “Pinafore,” and when all the shades have been pulled down and the
keyholes stuffed with cotton.
Possibly the lack of an audience might take off a little of the edge of
the bout for the battling husband and spouse; but, oh, how immeasurably
it would add to the comfort and happiness of those of us who are the
innocent bystanders and who are forced to look on, sick with horror,
at these encounters! In all good truth I know of no other situation so
miserable and so embarrassing as to be called upon to referee a fight
between a married couple. Their quarrel is, to begin with, a matter
with which we have no concern; one in which we do not desire to meddle;
one in which we ardently wish to take neither side. It makes us feel as
if we were cowards to keep silent while a man hurls deadly insults at
his wife, and we writhe in vicarious shame while a woman vituperates
her husband.
We have the sense of having assisted in an indecent orgy when a husband
and wife strip every rag of reserve away from their relationship and
fling open the doors of their skeleton closets, and rattle their bones
in public. Nor are we consoled by the knowledge that the people who
make public exhibitions of their tempers must enjoy doing so or else
they would not do it. Yet we all number among our friends, husbands
and wives, otherwise estimable and charming individuals, who always
stage their fights in the most conspicuous place they can find, and
who seem to prefer an audience to privacy. When you meet them for an
evening’s diversion they are having a preliminary set-to. Perhaps the
husband has come home late from the office, or has forgotten to mail
a letter, or possibly the wife has kept her husband waiting while she
did her hair over the second time. During the selection of the dinner
they get warmed up to the work and put in some punches with real steam
behind them. They clinch, and bite, and gouge over the selection of a
play, and they reach for each other’s vital spots and get in dirty jabs
at the supper dance that follows the play.
Doubtless the fighters are enjoying themselves, but a pleasant time is
not being had by all. The abashed onlookers know not what to do. They
do not know whether to rush in and make it a free-for-all fight or to
try to mediate between the warring couple, or whether to pretend to
have been suddenly stricken deaf, dumb and blind. And they wind up by
feeling outraged that they should have been placed in such a mortifying
position, and wishing heartily that husbands and wives would keep their
quarrels for home consumption, and not inflict them on their friends.
The same strictures apply to the woman who henpecks her husband. That
also is one of the quiet home joys that should be strictly confined
to the domestic circle. I raise no voice of protest against the woman
who has wit and strength and determination enough to oust her husband
out of his position as head of the house and assume it herself. It is
a matter between the husband and wife, and if he hasn’t enough spunk
to fight for his rights he deserves to lose them. But why cannot the
bossy women be content with exercising their tyranny quietly and
unobtrusively? Why do they insist upon rattling the chains by which
they lead their husbands until they call public attention to them?
Think of the women you know who always say “MY house.” “MY car.” “MY
children.” Who always walk ahead of their husbands and point out a
seat, and say, “John, sit there,” and who always tell John where to
get on and where to get off! And think how all the rest of us are
embarrassed for poor John! Believe me, dirty linen should be washed at
home, and family quarrels staged there. That is one of the main things
for which homes are designed.
XX
SHOULD WOMEN TELL?
I get a great many letters from women who write that there is a dark
stain on their past life. In the headstrong folly of youth they took
a step down the primrose path, then repented of their sin, and turned
their back upon it, and laid hold upon righteousness.
Sometimes nobody knows of the slip but the girl herself and the man who
was her partner in wrong-doing. Sometimes a woman who had mired her
skirts to the knees has washed them clean with her tears of remorse,
and had the courage to build anew her life in some place where her
early escapades are unknown.
Then love comes to these women. Good men offer them marriage and an
honorable place in society. And the question they ask is, shall they
tell these men the story of their life before they marry them, or bury
the secret in their heart, and leave the matter on the knees of the
gods?
This is a problem no human wisdom can solve, for, so far as the
woman is concerned, it is a case in which she will be damned if she
does, and damned if she doesn’t. Her chances of getting happiness—or
misery—through opening up her skeleton closet and exhibiting its
contents to the man who has asked her to be his wife are about even,
with the odds for happiness slightly in favor of keeping the lid
clamped down good and hard on her secret.
The question of right does not enter into the matter unless you
institute a prematrimonial confessional in which men shall bare their
souls as well as women. There is no more real reason why a woman should
tell a man every detail of her past than there is why he should tell
her of every time that he has strayed off of the straight and narrow
path.
It is true that a couple who knew the worst of each other would start
out their life together on a firm foundation of honest understanding,
but nobody can claim that it would make for their felicity, or increase
their affection for each other. On the contrary, they would have swept
away every illusion. They would have destroyed the faith of each in the
other, and they would have called into being an evil spirit, a ghost
out of the past, that they could not banish, and that would forever
stand between them.
Men have had the wisdom to perceive this. They realize that what a
woman doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her, but that the thing that she does
know she worries herself to death over, and so few men are foolish
enough to furnish a wife with a working diagram of their past lives
with which she can torture herself, and them. They draw a discreet
veil over episodes that are best forgotten, anyway, and deal only
in glittering generalities in referring to their gay bachelor days.
Moreover, women are sensible enough to let it go at that. No woman
wants her husband to tell her things that stab her every time she
thinks of them, and that eat like a canker into her memory.
It is only when the case is reversed, and when it is the woman who has
a blot upon her past, that she wonders if it is the right thing, the
honorable thing, to tell the man who wants to marry her about it. Of
course, the woman is bound in this by the double code of morals, which
makes one standard for the woman and another for the man, and that,
humorously enough, makes a husband feel that he has been exceedingly
ill-used if he discovers that his wife has a past that matches his own.
Therefore, because she is afraid that in future years her husband may
find out about her past life, or else driven by her conscience, or for
the sheer relief of sharing her burden with another, the woman nearly
always tells everything to the man before marriage. Sometimes it drives
him from her. Sometimes he loves her enough to marry her, in spite of
her revelations.
But, while he forgives, he never forgets. Always he is haunted by the
memories of what she has revealed. He never trusts her, never wholly
believes in her, and he has to be a bigger-souled man than most men
are if he does not reproach her with her past, and use it as a whip of
scorpions to scourge her with when he is angry with her.