THE MOTHER’S RELATION TO THE HOME
=Husband and wife equal partners.=--In the partnership of building a home,
the wife is, in the truest and fullest sense, an equal partner with her
husband. Equal rights and privileges should characterize their
financial, social and moral relations. They are complements of each
other. Neither is ever completed until the other half is found. They are
essential to each other’s highest development. Neither can build a home
without the other. Their relations to the home are of equal importance.
=How they differ.=--They differ in their functional relations to the
building of a home. While their interests are mutual and their duties
often overlap each other, yet they differ in some respects in their
relations to the home. The husband is the producer; nature and God place
on him the responsibility of feeding, clothing, sheltering and educating
the family. The wife is the housekeeper; nature and God place on her the
duty of motherhood and the love and care of children. Both husband and
wife need special preparation before and after marriage for their
respective relations to the home.
=Marriage means motherhood.=--Unless a woman loves little children and
desires to teach and train boys and girls to become ideal men and women,
she should not think of accepting a marriage proposition. Marriage is
for the purpose of offspring. All girls should train and develop
themselves with a view to the sacred functions of motherhood. Those who
are mentally opposed to and physically incapable of motherhood should
decline marriage. Such women can and should find some other occupation
better fitted to their tastes, or physical condition, where they can be
contented and help make the world better.
=A farce.=--In apartment houses, hotels and lodging places are to be found
men and women living together under a form of legal matrimonial
alliance, where the true idea of home is not contemplated, children are
not wanted and no domestic happiness anticipated. These are human
abodes, where the echo of birth is never heard; where the thrill of joy,
caused by cooing babies, is never felt; and where conversation is never
disturbed by romping children. This is a home only in name. This is a
place of lodging where two miserable selfish beings are waiting for
death to step in and end the farce.
=A good substitute for a home.=--I was once entertained in a home where
the husband and wife had crossed over the half century line of life.
During my first day in that home, every few hours, the husband or wife
would bring in from two to six boys and girls introducing them to me as
their boys and girls. When the number had run up in the neighborhood of
twenty, that home got interesting. When I inquired how often they had
been married and how many children they had, I was informed that they
were only borrowing them from the neighbors. I never saw a home with a
greater influence for good. Though childless, their home was a heaven;
for the neighboring children resorted, played games, and received
instructions of the highest order there. The children were trained to
hunt up the old, the sick and the poor and to daily carry them flowers
gathered from the yard and garden of this old couple. This was an ideal
imitation of the real thing--a model home. I wish every childless home
could be converted into such an ideal imitation, or a real home.
=A good housekeeper.=--One of the qualifications a wife should have is a
reasonable practical knowledge of how to keep house. It may not be
necessary for her to do all her house work, but she should understand
how it should be done. A man has as much right to demand that his wife
know how to wash clothes, bake bread, sweep a room, and make a bed, as
she has to expect him to be industrious, know how to form or conduct
his business or profession. She must know how to do these things in
order to properly manage a well-ordered home.
=She should know the value of a dollar.=--The wife should know the value
of a dollar and how to invest it in food, clothing and household
comforts. To do this, she must make these things a study. Unreasonable
extravagance of wives has caused many unhappy homes.
=She should keep herself attractive.=--She could never have won her
husband had she not made herself attractive. Marriage does not lessen
man’s interest in his wife’s attractiveness. The wise woman will not
permit her husband to become ashamed of her.
=She should be industrious.=--A reasonable amount of physical exercise is
just as essential to a woman’s health as it is for a man. The indolent
wife who settles down in an easy chair and reads novels all day,
satisfied with the fact that she is married and unconscious or
indifferent to the fact that she must keep her husband’s respect, is
likely to lose his respect and love.
=She should take an interest in her husband’s affairs.=--A wife should
know enough of her husband’s business or professional affairs to enable
her to appreciate his ambitions and to sympathize with him in his
trials. In this way, some women help to make their husband’s success.
There is quite a difference between interest and encouragement, and in
interference. One leads to success; the other to failure.
=Home first.=--A good wife or mother will make the interests of her home
first. If her home is first, in her mind and heart, she will not find
time or inclination to gossip about her neighbors, or to contrive new
ways of amusing herself. Her home interests will completely fill her
life, consume her time, satisfy her æsthetic nature and furnish her the
greatest opportunities for Christian service in the world. This does not
preclude membership in a humanitarian society, a reading circle, or
church. Great as this service may be, it is not equal to the home. A
home builder is never justifiable in neglecting her home duties for her
obligations to a club, a lodge or the church. By spending a few hours,
in practical contact with other housewives at a social meeting or
church, she is all the better able to perform her home duties. But these
things should be subordinate to the duties of home building. Christ in
the home will mean Christ in society, the church and the nation.
=The anteroom to heaven.=--When a woman has entered married life with her
prince, determined to make a real wife and mother, she has chosen the
highest and most fascinating career that is possible for a woman. Her
home will be an anteroom to heaven.