Apparently, there has been much to say and write lately upon
domestic economy. From the time, indeed, that the question of the
possibility of marriage upon three hundred a-year was mooted, the
subject has never fairly been dropped.
Men, with incomes of less than three hundred a-year, do not seem to
like the idea that they are bound in consequence to renounce all
thoughts of matrimony, and inquiries respecting the matter from
aggrieved bachelors are constantly cropping up in those corners of the
weekly papers devoted to correspondence. They have even gone so far
lately as to suggest, since it seems impossible in this century of
riots and rinderpest to curtail one’s expenses, whether it may not be
both lawful and feasible to curtail one’s family.
The question of, on how much, or on how little, a certain number of
persons can exist, is certainly one which affects the mass, but which,
to be answered with fairness, must be put individually. There are
women and women. What one housekeeper can accomplish on three hundred
a-year, another cannot effect on three thousand, for it is not
incompatible with many luxuries to possess very little comfort; and
comfort is, after all, the essence of domestic felicity.
Yet, it is not fair to lay the whole blame of the impossibility of
marriage in these days upon a moderate income, on the extravagance of
women, for the difficulty is just as often attributable to the
disinclination of men to resign the luxuries to which they have been
accustomed. For every really extravagantly disposed female mind there
may be found two thriftily disposed ones; and had such minds but been
endued with the proper knowledge to carry out their efforts to do
well, existence might not be found so difficult a matter as it appears
to be at present.
It is true that the “girl of the period” (not the _Saturday
Reviewer’s_ “girl” by any manner of means), is, generally, better
dressed and more accustomed to luxury than her mother was before her.
But it must be remembered that the expenses of a girl before marriage
are regulated by the wishes of her parents, and because they like to
see her sail about in the last Parisian fashion, it by no means
follows that she will always expect to be dressed the same, or that
she will not cheerfully resign some of the luxuries she has been
accustomed to, to meet the means of the man who has taken it upon
himself to support her.
Apropos of which I have far oftener been called upon to remonstrate
with newly-married female friends on their folly in stripping the
trousseaux, which had been prepared for them with such care, of all
their pretty trimmings of lace and ribbon and embroidery, in order to
adorn the little frocks and caps which are scarcely ever noticed but
by the mother herself, than to blame them for out-running their
husbands’ means in order to procure such vanities.
Various reasons may combine to make the parent, who can afford it,
take pleasure in seeing her daughter well dressed. A true mother is
naturally proud of a girl’s good looks; and anxious to show them off
to the best advantage; or the feeling that her child may not long be
with her may make her desirous to please her to the utmost whilst she
remains. Of course, the indulgence may arise from lower and more
mercenary motives, such as have been attributed for many a long year
to the stereotyped “Belgravian mother”; but even in such a case it
does not follow that the girl will never be able contentedly to
accommodate herself to a lower range of comfort. It is not to be
expected that, single-handed, she should put away from her the
luxuries which her parents’ income can command; but it remains to be
proved whether she will not willingly exchange them to become the
mistress of a house of her own, even though it may be smaller than the
one to which she has been accustomed. Naturally parents wish to see
the children, for whom perhaps they have worked and slaved,
comfortably settled in life; and it is folly for men with barely
sufficient money to keep themselves to rave against fathers who refuse
to sanction their daughters’ starving with them.
But the idea as to what constitutes starvation has risen with the
times. A little while ago, it used to be the clergyman with a large
family on eighty pounds a-year: a twelvemonth back it rose to the
celebrated “three hundred;” and but a few weeks since I heard a lady
gravely affirm that any one who contemplated marriage now-a-days with
an income of less than two thousand, must be either a madman or a
fool.
Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this
paper of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to
maintain a family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few
words upon what I consider to be the secret of the economy which has
need to be exercised in these days in the largest household as well as
in the smallest.
The order of her household is a true woman’s battle-field, and the
better she can manage it, the more comforts she can command, and the
more regularity she can enforce upon a small income and with few
servants, the greater is the triumph of her victory. If means are
unlimited the triumph is lost; and the woman who has a thousand a-year
for her housekeeping, and is content to let her husband enjoy no more
luxury upon it than his friend who spends five hundred, allowing the
surplus to be wasted for want of a little thought or supervision, is
not a true woman or a good one. For if prodigality is not a sin in
itself, it arises from the indulgence of a combination of sins,
amongst which selfishness holds chief rank.
Take the care of her household out of a woman’s hands and what remains
for her to do? As a generality she would sit in idleness, for these
are not the days when mothers nurse and look after their own children,
and, thanks to the sewing machine, the toil of needlework is over,
even in the poorest families.
She would probably take up a novel the first thing in the morning,
thereby unfitting herself for any solid work for the remainder of the
day; or she would waste her time on fancy-work, or unnecessary
letter-writing, or on anything but what sensible people who know they
will be called to account hereafter for the use they have made of the
brains God has given them would do.
And, as a rule, I believe few women would like to be lightened of
their trouble in this respect. The sex is uncommonly fond of a “little
brief authority,” and even those who have every aid at their command,
generally choose to dabble in their housekeeping affairs. And it is
just this “dabbling” which does harm, which often increases the
expenses instead of lessening them.
I am not a second Mrs. Warren; I have no ambition to try and teach my
sex how to manage their husbands, houses and children on two hundred
a-year, by wiping out the bread-pan every morning with a clean cloth;
and making one stick of wood do the duty of two by placing it in the
oven to dry the night before.
Mrs. Warren’s plan of economy is the general one; or rather, she
follows the general idea of what economy consists of, namely, in
exercising a constant supervision over servants, and straining every
nerve to make the leg of mutton last a day longer than it does with
other people. And I for my part believe that the women of England will
never know the secret of true economy until they have dropped all such
petty interference with the kitchen, and learned to guard their
husbands’ interests with their _heads_ instead of their _eyes_. There
is no doubt that in order to be thrifty it is necessary in a great
measure to limit one’s expenses, and it is a good plan habitually to
ask oneself before completing a purchase “Can I do without it?”
In nine cases out of ten debts and difficulties are incurred
unnecessarily, for articles which added neither to our respectability
nor our comfort, and which, if seriously asked, we should have
acknowledged we could have done just as well without. Take the
generality of English families, cut off all the superfluities in which
they indulge, all the things which are necessary neither to their
existence nor their position as gentle-people, and, as a rule, it will
be found that such absorb a third at least of their income.
It is not only men who have interested themselves in the questions
which have lately sprung up respecting the general rise in prices, and
the increasing difficulties which assail the householder. Women are
constantly comparing notes with each other; wondering “where on earth”
the money can go to, and lamenting the exorbitant weekly bills they
are called upon to pay.
Some have tried to meet their increased expenses by diminishing their
number of servants; others by curtailing the kitchen fare (the worst
and most unprofitable species of domestic economy); a few have gone
another way to work, and simply tried with how many superfluities they
could dispense; and I think these few have succeeded the best.
It was much the fashion a short time back for women to write to the
papers complaining of the worthlessness of their servants, and it was
not until more than one impertinent letter reflecting on their
mistresses had been published from the pens (or the supposed pens) of
servants themselves, that the correspondence was perceived to be
_infra dig._, and dropped. We all know that we are very much in the
power of our servants, both as regards comfort and economy; and to
regulate their actions, we must sway themselves.
As a class, they are much what they have ever been; their characters
varying with the authority placed over them. If ignorant, they are
bigoted; if educated, presumptuous; they regard their superiors as
their natural enemies, and not one in fifty of them is to be entirely
trusted. They no longer look upon the house they enter as their home;
they think of it more as a boarding house which they can vacate at
their convenience, and themselves as birds of passage, here to-day and
gone to-morrow.
To deal with and to control such minds effectually, it needs to show
them that ours is infinitely the superior. If we let them perceive
that we have no means of keeping watch over them except we do it
personally, we lower ourselves to their level, and fail to gain their
respect.
Make your servants admire you; make them wonder at the clearness of
your perception, the quickness of your calculations, and the
retentiveness of your memory, and inwardly they will acknowledge
themselves the inferior, and be afraid to disobey.
You will always hear servants speak with admiration of a mistress who
has (to quote their own phraseology) “eyes in her back;” the fact
being that it requires a mind not only educated in the popular sense
of the word, but sharpened by friction with the world, to enable one
to _perceive_ without _seeing_; and that is a state to which the
lumpish minds of the mass never attain, and which consequently
commands their wonder and respect.
The “excellent housekeeper” who trots round her kitchen every morning
as a rule, opening each dresser-drawer, and uncovering the soup-tureen
and vegetable-dishes, to see that no “perquisites” are concealed
therein, may occasionally light on a piece of unhallowed fat, but she
loses a hundredfold what she gains. While she imagines she has made a
great discovery, her servants are laughing in their sleeves at her
simplicity; for they have a hundred opportunities of concealing to her
one of finding, and are doubtless as cunning as herself. And for such
a mistress--for one who is for ever prying and trying to find out
something--the lower classes have the greatest contempt; they will
neither obey nor save for her; they will even go the length of wasting
in order to annoy.
But, by this, I have not the least notion of maintaining that the
members of that community, of whom I said, but a page before, that not
one in fifty is to be trusted, are to be left to do the housekeeping
by themselves.
A lady of my acquaintance, married to an extremely obstinate man, was
asked how she managed to influence him as she did. “Because I never
let him know I do it,” was the reply. “I always have my own way, but I
make him think my way is his.”
Something of the same sort of management is necessary with servants.
Have your own way, but make them imagine that your way is theirs. They
are truly but “children of a larger growth.”
But, in order to do this, you must prove yourself cleverer than they
are.
Let no one grumble at the stir which has been made lately regarding
the improved education of women, nor that public schools and colleges
are being organised for their benefit. If the knowledge thus acquired
is never needed for the female doctors, and lawyers, and members of
Parliament, which, as fixed institutions, England may never see, it
will be only too welcome in domestic life; for the usual style of
conducting a woman’s education is sadly detrimental to her interests
in housekeeping.
What is the use of their being able to play and sing and imperfectly
splutter German and Italian, when they are puzzled by the simplest
bookkeeping? Hardly a woman of modern times thoroughly understands
arithmetic, either mental or otherwise; and many have forgotten, or
never properly acquired, even the commonest rules of addition,
subtraction, and division. How is it to be expected then that they are
fit to be trusted with money, or having it in their hands to lay it
out to the best advantage.
But to return to “head-economy,” as it should be exercised with regard
to servants.
We will suppose that a mistress, desirous of keeping within her
allowance without curtailing the real comfort of her husband and
children, has asked herself that simple question--“Can we do without
it?” on more than one occasion, and found it answer, in so far that,
though several superfluities, such as dessert after dinner, and
preserves and cakes for tea have disappeared, all the solid
necessaries remain, and the weekly bills are no longer higher than
they ought to be. How should she act in order to keep down her
expenditure to a settled sum; to be sure that as much, but no more
than is needful, is used in the kitchen, the dining-room, and the
nursery; and yet to prevent her servants resenting her interference,
or exclaiming at her meanness?
It is really very easy, far easier than the other plan, if women would
only believe it to be so. It needs no store-room full of hoarded
goods, with the key of which the servants are more familiar than
yourself; no stated times for measuring out half-pounds of sugar and
dispensing tea by ounces; no running down to the lower regions a dozen
times a day to give out what may have been forgotten; or to satisfy
oneself whether they really _do_ cut joint at the kitchen supper, or
revel in fresh butter when they should be eating salt.
But it does require the knowledge necessary to keep the housekeeping
books properly. A thorough acquaintance with the prices of articles,
and the different quantities which a household should consume; and
above all, to have what is commonly called “one’s wits about one.”
If every tradesman with whom you deal has a running account with you;
if nothing in his book is paid for but what you have written down
yourself; if your cook has orders to receive no meat without a check;
has proper scales for weighing the joints as they come in, and makes a
note of any deficiency (the checks being afterwards compared with the
butcher’s book); it is impossible that the tradespeople can cheat you,
and if your money is wasted, you must waste it yourself.
It is an old-fashioned plan to pay one’s bills at the end of each
week; but it is a very good one. Little things which should be noticed
may slip the memory at a longer period. Besides, it is a useful
reminder; it shows how the money is going, and if the tradesmen find
you are careful, it makes them so.
Following this plan, a quarter of an hour every morning sees the
housekeeping affairs settled for the day, leaving the mistress at
leisure to pursue her own avocations, and the cook to do her business
in the kitchen. It is simply a glance at the larder, and then to write
down all that will be required until that time on the morrow; the
dinner and breakfast orders on a slate, and the other articles in the
books appropriated to them. After a little while it will be found that
the labour is purely mechanical; in a quiet family the consumption is
so regular that the weekly bills will scarcely vary, and the
mistress’s eye will detect the least increase, and find out for what
it has been incurred.
At the close of each month the debit and credit accounts should be
balanced, and then, if the allowance is at any time exceeded, it will
generally be proved that it has gone on the superfluities before
mentioned, and not on the actual expense of maintaining the household.
When people talk of the difficulties of “living”, the thoughts of
their listeners invariably fly to the cost of bread and meat, and they
unite in abusing the tradespeople, who send their children to
fashionable schools on the profits which they extort from us. But
there are various ways in which men and women can save, besides
dispensing with unnecessary eatables.
What woman, for instance, in these days, buying a dress, does not pay
twice as much for its being made and trimmed ready for her use as she
did for the original material? And who that has feet and fingers, and
a sewing machine, could not sit down and make it in a few hours for
herself?
But she will tell you, most likely, that she cannot cut out properly,
that she has not the slightest taste for trimming, and that she was
not brought up to dressmaking like a dressmaker. Ah, my dear sisters!
are not these the days when we should all learn? _Men_ may go through
life with the knowledge but of one thing--for if they are acquainted
with the duties of their profession, they succeed--but women need to
know _everything_, from putting on a poultice to playing the piano;
and from being able to hold a conversation with the Lord Chancellor,
to clear-starching their husbands’ neckties.