grow up with a burning ambition to be a cook. Whether the ever-present
kitchen business was run by the mother or by a servant, it was not run
joyously and proudly; nor was it run in such wise as to really teach
the child the principles of hygiene in food-values and preparation. If
the family is a wealthy one the child is not allowed in the kitchen
perhaps, but is the more impressed by the complicated machinery of the
dining-room, and that elaborate cult of special "manners" used in this
sacred service of the body. Thus and thus must he eat, and thus handle
his utensils; and if the years and the tears spent in acquiring these
Eleusinian mysteries make due impression on the fresh brain tissue,
then we may expect to find the human being more impressed by the art of
eating than by any other.
And so we do find him. The children of the kitchen are differently
affected from the children of the dining-room. These last, of our
"upper classes," receive the indelible stamp of the tri-daily ritual,
and go through the rest of life thinking more highly of "table manners"
than of any other line of conduct, for the reason that they were more
incessantly, thoroughly, and importunately taught that code than any
other. To handle a fork properly is insisted upon far more imperatively
than to properly handle a temper.
The principal business of the home being the care of the body, and this
accomplished through these archaic domestic industries, the unending
up-current of young life, which should so steadily purify and uplift
the world, in every generation is steeped anew in this exaggeration of
physical needs and caprices.
Beyond the overwhelming cares of the table the other home industries
involve the care and replenishment of furniture and clothes. Hour after
hour, day after day, the child sees his mother devoting her entire life
to attendance upon these things--the daily cleaning, the weekly
cleaning, the spring and fall cleaning, the sewing and mending at all
times.
These things must be done, by some people, somewhere; but must they be
done by all people, that is by all women, the people who surround the
child, and all the time? Must the child always associate womanhood with
house-service; and assume, necessarily assume, that the main business
of life is to be clean, well-dressed, and eat in a proper manner?
If the mother is not herself the house-servant--what else is she? What
does the growing brain gather of the true proportions of life from his
dining-room-and-parlour mamma? Her main care, and talk, is still that
of food and clothes; and partly that of "entertainment," which means
more food and more clothes.
Can we not by one daring burst of effort imagine a home where there was
still the father and mother love, still the comfort, convenience, and
beauty we so enjoy, still the sweet union of the family group, and yet
no kitchen? Perhaps even, in some remote dream, no dining-room? Where
the mother was a wise, strong, efficient human being, interested in and
working for the progress of humanity; and giving to her baby, in these
sweet hours of companionship, some true sense of what life is for and
how it works. No, we cannot imagine it, most of us. We really cannot.
We are so indelibly kitchen-bred, or dining-room-bred, that mother
means cook, or at least housekeeper, to our minds; and family means
dinner-table.
So grows the child in the home. In the school he learns something of
social values, in the church something, in the street something; from
his father, who is a real factor in society, something; but in the home
he learns by inexorably repeated impressions of every day and hour,
that life, this deep, new, thrilling mystery of life consists mainly of
eating and sleeping, of the making and wearing of clothes. We are
irresistibly reminded of the strange text, "Take no thought of what ye
shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." A
little difficult to follow this command when mother does nothing else!
XIII
THE GIRL AT HOME
What is the position of the home toward us in youth? We have seen
something of its effect upon the child, the wholly helpless child, who
knows no other place or power. We have seen something of its effect
upon the woman in her life-long confinement there. Between childhood
and maturity comes youth; holding what is left of the child's pure
heart and vivid hopes, and what begins to stir of man's or woman's
power. The gain of a race, if there is a gain, must make itself felt in
youth--more strength, more growth, more beauty, a larger conscience, a
sounder judgment, a more efficient will.
Each new generation must improve upon its parents; else the world
stands still or retrogrades. In this most vivid period of life how does
the home meet the needs of the growing soul? The boy largely escapes
it. He is freer, even in childhood; the more resistant and combative
nature, the greater impatience of pain, makes the young male far harder
to coerce. He sees his father always going out, and early learns to
view the home from a sex-basis, as the proper place for women and
children, and to push incessantly to get away from it.
From boy to boy in the alluring summer evenings we hear the cry, "Come
on out and have some fun!" Vainly we strive and strive anew to "keep
the boys at home." It cannot be done. Fortunately for us it cannot be
done. We dread to have them leave it, and with good reason, for well we
know there is no proper place for children in the so long unmothered
world; but even in danger and temptation they learn something, and
those who struggle through their youth unscathed make better men than
if they had been always softly shielded in the home.
The world is the real field of action for humanity. So far humanity has
been well-nigh wholly masculine; and the boy, feeling his humanity,
pushes out into his natural field, the world. He learns and learns,
from contact with his kind. He learns about all sorts of machinery, all
manner of trades and businesses. He has companions above him and below
him and beside him, the wide human contact in which we grow so rapidly.
If he is in the city he knows the city, if he is in the country he
knows the country, far more fully than his sister. A thousand
influences reach him that never come to her, formative influences, good
and bad, that modify character. He has far less of tutelage, espionage,
restraint; he has more freedom by daylight, and he alone has any
freedom after dark. All the sweet, mysterious voices of the night, the
rich, soft whisperings of fragrant summer, when the moon talks and the
young soul answers; the glittering, keen silence of winter nights, when
between blue-black star-pointed space and the level shine of the snow
stands but one living thing--yourself--all this is cut off from the
girl. The real intimacy with nature comes to the soul alone, and the
poor, over-handled girl soul never has it.
In some few cases, isolated and enviable, she may have this common
human privilege, but not enough to count. She must be guarded in the
only place of safety, the home. Guarded from what? From men. From the
womanless men who may be prowling about while all women stay at home.
The home is safe because women are there. Out of doors is unsafe
because women are not there. If women were there, everywhere, in the
world which belongs to them as much as to men, then everywhere would be
safe. We try to make the women safe in the home, and keep them there;
to make the world safe for women and children has not occurred to us.
So the boy grows, in the world as far as he can reach it, and the girl
does not grow equally, being confined to the home. In very recent
years, within one scant century, we are letting the girls go to school,
even to college. They pour out into the larger field and fill it at
once. Their human faculties have some chance to grow as well as the
over-emphasised feminine ones; and in our schools and colleges youth of
both sexes finds the room, stimulus, and exercise it could not find at
home.
The boy who does not go to college goes to business, to work in some
way. To find an able-bodied intelligent boy in a home between breakfast
and supper would argue a broken leg. But girls we find by thousands and
thousands; "helping mother," if mother does the work; and if there are
servants to do the work, the girl does--what?
What is the occupation of the daughter of the house? Let us suppose her
to be healthy. Let us suppose her to have a fair share of ability and
education. She has no longer the school or the college, she has only
the home. Not that she is physically confined there. She may go out by
daylight, giving careful account of her steps, and visit other girls in
their homes. She may receive visits, both from girls and boys; and she
may go out continually to all manner of entertainments. Perhaps she is
expected to dust the parlour, to arrange the flowers, to "keep up her
music." She has enough to eat, enough and more than enough to wear; but
what exercise has she for body or brain? Perhaps in games and dances
she keeps her body active--but what sort of occupation is that for a
young human creature of this century, a creature of power? The young
woman has the same race inheritance of ability, the same large
brain-growth, as the man. The physical improvement of our times is
reflected in them too; fine stalwart girls we see, tall, straight,
broad-shouldered. She has had, in specific education, the same mental
training as the boy.
How would her brother be content with a day's work of dusting the
parlour and arranging the flowers; of calling and being called on?
Amusement is good, sometimes necessary; best and most necessary to the
tired, unhappy, and overworked. But youth--healthy, happy, and
vigorous, full of the press of unused power and the accumulating
ambition of all the centuries--why should youth waste its splendour in
such unsatisfying ways?
If you ask the father, he will merely say that it is the proper
position for a girl; he is "able to support her," she does not "have to
work," she can amuse herself, and as for a field for her abilities--she
will find that in her own home when she is married. Ask her mother--and
she will tell you, making a sad confession all unknowingly--"let her
enjoy herself now; she will have care enough later." There is a tacit
agreement that girls shall have all the "good time" possible while they
are girls, that they may have it to remember! Does this "good time"
satisfy the girl? Is she happy in her father's home, just passing the
time till she moves into her husband's?
Sometimes she is. Her education has been strong to make her so. The
home atmosphere of predominant clothes and food has been about her from
the cradle, and she still has clothes and food, and may elaborate them
without limit. She may devote as much time to the adornment of the
table as she wishes; and if her inclination take her also to the
kitchen, perhaps even to the cooking school, that is more than well.
She may also devote herself to the parlour and its adornment; but most
naturally of all to the adornment of her own young body--all these are
proper functions of the home. She may love and serve her immediate dear
ones also, to any extent; that is the basic principle of it all, that
is occupation enough for any girl. Yes, there is occupation enough as
far as filling time goes; but how if it does not satisfy? How if the
girl wants something else to do--something definite, something
developing?
This is deprecated by the family. "Work" is held by all to be a thing
no mortal soul should do unless compelled by want. We speak sadly,
tenderly, of the poor girl whose father died and left her unprovided
for, wherefore "she had to work." We have not learned to see that some
kind of work is necessary to all human creatures to use their powers;
not mere tread-mill repetition of small, useless things, but such range
of action as shall exercise all the faculties. And least of all have we
learned to see that a human soul, to be healthy, must love and care for
more than its own blood relations.
What the girl, as a normal human being, wants is full exercise in large
social relation; things to think about, feel, and do, which do not in
any way concern the home. Race-babyhood may be content at home--it was
first made for babies. But as we grow up into our modern human range of
power, no home can or ought to content us. We need not, therefore,
cease to love it, need not neglect or ignore it. We simply need
something more. That is the great lack which keeps girlhood
unsatisfied; the call of the human soul for its full field of action,
the world. We try to meet this lack by a surfeit of supplies for lower
needs.
Since we first began to force upon our girl baby's astonished and
resisting brain the fact that she was a girl; since we curbed her
liberty by clothing and ornament calculated only to emphasise the fact
of sex, and by restrictions of decorum based upon the same precocious
distinction, we have never relaxed the pressure. As if we feared that
there might be some mistake, that she was not really a girl but would
grow up a boy if we looked the other way, we diligently strove to
enforce and increase her femininity by every possible means. So by the
time her womanhood does come it finds every encouragement, and the
humanhood which should predominate we have restricted and forbidden.
Moreover, whatever of real humanness she does manifest we persist in
regarding as feminine.
For instance, the girl wants friends, social contact. She cannot
satisfy this want in normal lines of work, in the natural contact of
the busy world, so she tries to meet it on the one plane allowed--in
what we call "Society." Her own life being starved, she seeks to touch
other lives as far and fast as possible. Next to doing things one's
self is the association with others who can do them. So the girl
reaches out for friends. Women friends can give her little; their lives
are empty as her own, their talk is of the same worn themes--their
point of view either the kitchen or the parlour. Therefore she finds
most good in men friends; they are human, they are doing something. All
this is set down to mere feminine "desire to attract"; we expect it,
and we provide for it. Our "social" machinery is largely devoted to
"bringing young people together"; not in any common work, in large
human interests, but in such decorated idleness, with music, perfume,
and dance, as shall best minister to the only forces we are willing to
promote.
Is the girl satisfied? Is it really what she wants, all she wants? If
she were a Circassian slave, perhaps it would do. For the daughter of
free, active, intelligent, modern America it does not do; and therefore
our girls in ever-increasing numbers are leaving home. It is not that
they do not love their homes; not that they do not want homes of their
own in due season; it is the protest of every healthy human soul
against the-home-and-nothing-else.
Our poorer girls are going into mills and shops, our richer ones into
arts and professions, or some educational and philanthropic work. We
oppose this proof of racial growth and vitality by various economic
fallacies about "taking the bread out of other women's mouths"--and in
especial claim that it is "competing with men," "lowering wages" and
the like. We talk also, in the same breath, or the next one, about "the
God-given right to work"--and know not what we mean by that great
phrase.
To work is not only a right, it is a duty. To work to the full capacity
of one's powers is necessary for human development. It is no benefit to
a human being to keep him, or her, in down-wrapped idleness, it is a
gross injury. If a man could afford to put daughters and wife to bed
and have them fed and washed like babies, would that be a kindness?
"They do not have to walk!" he might say. Yes, they do have to, else
would their muscles weaken and shrink, and beauty and health disappear.
For the health and beauty of the body it must have full exercise. For
the health and beauty of the mind it must have full exercise. No normal
human mind can find full exercise in dusting the parlour and arranging
the flowers; no, nor in twelve hours of nerve-exhaustion in the
kitchen. Exhaustion is not exercise.
"But they are free to study--to read, to improve their minds!" we
protest. Minds are not vats to be filled eternally with more and ever
more supplies. It is _use_, large, free, sufficient use that the
mind requires, not mere information. Our college girls have vast
supplies of knowledge; how can they use it in the home? Could a college
boy apply his education appropriately to "keeping house"--and, if not,
how can the girl? Full use of one's best faculties--this is health and
happiness for both man and woman.
But how about those other people's wages?--will be urged. Productive
labour adds to the wealth of the world, it does not take away. If
wealth were a fixed quantity, shared carefully among a lot of
struggling beggars, then every new beggar would decrease the other's
share.
To work is to _give_, not to beg. Every worker adds to the world's
wealth, increases everyone's share. Of course there are people whose
"work" is not of value to anyone; who simply use their power and skill
to get other people's money away from them; the less of these the
better. That is not productive labour. But so long as we see to it that
the work we do is worth more than the pay we get, our consciences may
be clean; we give to the world and rob no one. As to the immediate
facts that may be alleged, "overcrowded labour market," "over-production,"
and such bugaboos, these are only facts as watered stock and stolen
franchises are facts; not economic laws, but criminal practices. A
temporary superficial error in economic conduct need not blind us to
permanent basic truth, and the truth which concerns us here is that a
human creature must work for the health and power and pleasure of it;
and that all good work enriches the world.
So the girl need not stay at home and content her soul with chocolate
drops lest some other girl lose bread. She may butter that bread and
share the confections, by her labour, if it be productive. And by wise
working she may learn to see how unwise and how unnecessary are the
very conditions which now hold her back. At present she is generally
held back. Her father will not allow her to work. Her mother needs her
at home. So she stays a while longer. If she marries, she passes out of
this chapter, becoming, without let or change, "the lady of the house."
If she does not marry, what then? What has father or mother, sister or
brother, to offer to the unmarried woman? What is the home to her who
has no "home of her own"?
The wife and mother has a real base in her home: distorted and
overgrown though it may have become, away in at the centre lies the
everlasting founder--in the little child. Unnecessary as are the
mother's labours now, they were once necessary, they have a base of
underlying truth. But what real place has a grown woman of twenty-five
and upwards in anyone else's home? She is not a child, and not a
mother. The initial reason for being at home is not there. What
business has she in it? The claim of filial devotion is usually
advanced to meet this question. Her parents need her. And here comes
out in glaring colours the distinction between girl and boy, between
man's and woman's labour.
Whatever of filial gratitude, love, and service is owed to the parent
is equally owed by boy and girl. If there is a difference it should be
on the boy's side, as he is more trouble when little and less
assistance in the house when big. Now, what is the accepted duty of the
boy to the parents, when they are old, feeble, sick, or poor? First, to
maintain them, that is, to provide for them the necessaries of life and
as much more as he can compass. Then, to procure for them service and
nursing, if need be. Also himself to bestow affection and respect, and
such part of his time as he can spare from the labour required to
maintain them. This labour he performs like a civilised man, by the
service of other people in some specialised industry; and his ability
to care for his parents is measured by his ability to perform that
larger service.
What is the accepted duty of the girl to the parents in like case? She
is required to stay at home and wait upon them with her own hands,
serve them personally, nurse them personally, give all her time and
strength to them, and this in the old, old uncivilised way, with the
best of intentions, but a degree of ability measured by the lowest of
averages.
It is the duty of the child to care for the infirm parent--that is not
questioned; but how? Why, in one way, by one child, and in so different
a way by another? The duty is precisely the same; why is the manner of
fulfilling it so different? If the sick and aged mother has a capable
son to support her, he provides for her a house, clothing, food, a
nurse, and a servant. If she has but a daughter, that daughter can only
furnish the nurse and servant in her own person, skilled or unskilled
as the case may be; and both of them are a charge upon the other
relatives or the community for the necessaries of life. Why does not
the equally capable daughter _do more_ to support her parent when
it is necessary? She cannot, if she is herself the nurse and servant.
Why does she have to be herself the nurse and servant? Because she has
been always kept at home and denied the opportunity to take up some
trade or profession by which she could have at once supported herself,
her parents, and done good service in the world. Because "the home is
the place for women," and in the home is neither social service nor
self-support.
There is another and a darker side to this position. The claim of
exclusive personal service from the daughter is maintained by parents
who are not poor, not old, not sick, not feeble; by a father who is
quite able to pay for all the service he requires, and who prefers to
maintain his daughter in idleness for his own antiquated masculine
pride--and by a mother who is quite able to provide for herself, if she
choose to; who is no longer occupied by the care of little children,
who does not even do house-service, but who lives in idleness herself,
and then claims the associate idleness of her daughter, on grounds past
finding out. Perhaps it is that an honourably independent daughter,
capable, respected, well-paid, valuable to the community, would be an
insupportable reproach to the lady of the house. Perhaps it is a more
pathetic reason--the home-bound, half-developed life, released from the
immediate cares, which, however ill-fulfilled, at least gave sanction
to her position, now seeks to satisfy its growing emptiness by the
young life's larger hope and energy. This may be explanation, but is no
justification.
The value and beauty of motherhood depend on the imperative needs of
childhood. The filial service of the child depends on the imperative
needs of the parent. When the girl is twenty-one and the mother is
forty-five, neither position holds. The amount of love and care needed
by either party does not require all day for its expression. The young,
strong, well-educated girl should have her place and work, equally with
her brother. Does not the mother love her son, though he is in
business? Could she not manage to love a daughter in business, too? It
is not love, far less is it wisdom, which so needlessly immolates a
young life on the altar of this ancient custom of home-worship. The
loving mother is not immortal. What is to become of the unmarried
daughter after the mother is gone?
What has the home done to fit her for life. She may be rich enough to
continue to live in it, not to "have to work," but is she, at fifty,
still to find contentment in dusting the parlour and arranging the
flowers, in calling and receiving calls, in entertaining and being
entertained? Where is her business, her trade, her art, her profession,
her place in life? The home is not the whole of life. It is a very
minor part of it--a mere place of preparation for living. To keep the
girl at home is to cut her off from life.