developing women to such an extent that by the simple force of
expansion they are cracking the confining walls about them, bursting
out in all directions, rising under the enormous pressure that keeps
them down like mushrooms under a stone. The girl has now enough of
athletic training to strengthen her body, balance her nerves, set her
tingling with the healthy impulse to _do_. She has enough mental
training to give some background and depth to her mind, with the habit
of thinking somewhat. If she is a college girl, she has had the
inestimable privilege of looking at the home _from outside_, in
which new light and proportion it has a very different aspect.
The effort is still made by proud and loving fathers, unconscious of
their limitations, to keep her there afterward, and by loving mothers
even more effectually. They play upon the strings of conscience, duty,
and affection. They furnish every pleasant temptation of physical
comfort, ease, the slow corruption of unearned goods. To oppose this
needs a wider range of vision and a greater strength of character than
the daughter of a thousand homes can usually command.
The school has helped her, but she has not had it long. The college has
helped her more, but that is not a general possession as yet, and has
had still shorter influence. Strong, indeed, is the girl who can decide
within herself where duty lies, and follow that decision against the
combined forces which hold her back. She must claim the right of every
individual soul to its own path in life, its own true line of work and
growth. She must claim the duty of every individual soul to give to its
all-providing society some definite service in return. She must
recognise the needs of the world, of her country, her city, her place
and time in human progress, as well as the needs of her personal
relations and her personal home. And, further, using the parental claim
of gratitude and duty in its own teeth, she must say: "Because I love
you I wish to be worthy of you, to be a human creature you may be proud
of as well as a daughter you are fond of. Because I owe you care and
service when you need it, I must fit myself now to render that care and
service efficiently. Moreover, my duty to you is not all my duty in the
world. Life is not merely an aggregation of families. I must so live as
to meet all my duties, and, in so doing, I shall better love and serve
my parents."
Conscience is strong in women. Children are very violently taught that
they owe all to their parents, and the parents are not slow in
foreclosing the mortgage. But the home is not a debtor's prison--to
girls any more than to boys. This enormous claim of parents calls for
examination.
Do they in truth do all for their children; do their children owe all
to them? Is nothing furnished in the way of safety, sanitation,
education, by that larger home, the state? What could these parents do,
alone, in never so pleasant a home, without the allied forces of
society to maintain that home in peace and prosperity. These lingering
vestiges of a patriarchal cult must be left behind. Ancestor-worship
has had victims enough. Girls are human creatures as well as boys, and
both have duties, imperative duties, quite outside the home.
One more protest is to be heard: "Most girls marry. Surely they might
stay at home contentedly until they leave it for another." Yes, most
girls marry. All girls ought to--unless there is something wrong with
them. And, being married, they should have homes. But, to have a home
and enjoy it, is one thing; to stay in it--the whole time--is quite
another. It is the same old assumption that woman is a house-animal;
that she has no place in the open, no business in the world. If the
girl had a few years of practical experience in the world she would be
far better able to enjoy and appreciate her own home when she had one.
At present, being so much restricted where she is, she very often
plunges from the frying-pan into the fire, simply from too much home.
"Why should she have married that fellow!" cries the father; "I gave
her a good home--she had everything she wanted." It does not enter the
mind of this man that a woman is something more than a rabbit. Even
rabbits, well-fed rabbits, will gnaw and dig to get out--they like to
run as well as eat. Also, the girl whose character has time to "set" a
little in some legitimate business associations, instead of being held
in everlasting solution at home, will be able to face the problems of
domestic industry and expense with new eyes.
No men, with practical sense and trained minds, would put up for a week
with the inchoate mass of wasted efforts in the home; and, when women
have the same trained minds and practical sense, they will not put up
with it much longer. For the home's sake, as well as her own sake, the
girl will profit by experience in the working world.
Once she learns the pleasure and power of specialisation, the benefits
of organisation, the advantages of combination, the whole tremendous
enginery of civilised life, she can no more drop back into her
ancestral cradle than her brother could turn into an Arcadian shepherd,
piping prettily to his fleecy charge.
XIV
HOME INFLUENCE ON MEN
In our peculiar and artificial opposition of "the Home" and "the
World," we have roughly ascribed all the virtues to the first, and all
the vices to the second. "The world, the flesh, and the devil" we still
associate, forgetting that home is the very temple of the flesh, and in
no way impervious to the devil. Sin is found at home as generally as
elsewhere--must be, unless women are sinless and men absolved on
entering the sacred door.
There are different sins and virtues, truly, as we have seen in the
chapter on Domestic Ethics. There is less fighting at home, as there is
but one man there. There is less stealing, the goods being more in
common, only sometimes a sly rifling of pockets by the unpaid wife. A
man pays his housekeeper, or his housemaids, because he has to; and he
pays, and pays highly, the purely extortionate women of pleasure; but
sometimes he forgets to pay his wife, and sometimes she steals. The
home has patience, chastity, industry, love. But there is less justice,
less honour, less courage, less truth; it does not embrace all the
virtues. Such as it is, strong for good and also very weak for some
good, possibly even showing some tendencies to evil, what is its
influence on men?
The boy baby feels it first; and that we have touched on. The home
teaches the boy that women were made for service, domestic service,
that the principal cares and labours of life are those which concern
the body, and that his own particular tastes and preferences are of
enormous importance. As fast as he gets out of the home and into the
school, he learns quite other things, getting his exaggerated infant
egotism knocked out of him very suddenly, and, as he gets out of school
and into business, also into politics, he learns still further of the
conditions of life. Proportion changes, perspective changes; he grows
to have a very different view of life from the woman's view. The same
thing happening to a man and a woman produces a widely varying effect;
what is a trifle in the day's large activities to him is an event of
insistent pressure to her; and, here, in the eternal misunderstanding
between the home-bred woman and the world-bred man, lie the seeds of
ceaseless trouble. The different range of vision of the occupant of the
home and the occupant of the world makes it impossible for them to see
things similarly. We are familiar with the difference, but have always
considered it a distinction of sex.
We have called the broader, sounder, better balanced, more fully
exercised brain "a man's brain," and the narrower, more emotional and
personal one "a woman's brain"; whereas the difference is merely that
between the world and the house. The absolute relation between any
animal's brain and his range of activity is patent to the zoölogist,
and simply furnishes the proof of its law of development. The greater
the extent and complexity of any creature's business, the greater the
mental capacity, of course.
We are familiar with the mental effect of living on small islands--"the
insular mind," "insular prejudice" are well known terms. The smaller
the island, the more deprived of contact and association with the rest
of the world, the greater the insularity of mind. The Englishman is
somewhat affected by the size of his country; the Manxman still more,
and the dwellers on the lighthouse rock most of all. Our homes are not
physically isolated, save on scattered farms and ranches--where the
worst results are found; but they are isolated in their interests and
industries.
The thought used every day is thought about half a dozen people and
their concerns, mainly their personal bodily care and comfort; the
mental processes of the woman must needs be intensified in personality
as they are limited in range. Hence her greater sensitiveness to all
personal events, and that quick variation in attitude so inevitable in
a mind whose daily work involves continual and instant change.
_Varium et mutabile!_ murmurs the man sagely--"A woman's privilege
is to change her mind!" If the nature of his industry were such that he
had to change his mind from cooking to cleaning, from cleaning to
sewing, from sewing to nursing, from nursing to teaching, and so,
backward, forward, crosswise and over again, from morning to night--he
too would become adept in the lightning-change act.
The man adopts one business and follows it. He develops special
ability, on long lines, in connection with wide interests--and so grows
broader and steadier. The distinction is there, but it is not a
distinction of sex. This is why the man forgets to mail the letter. He
is used to one consecutive train of thought and action. She, used to a
varying zigzag horde of little things, can readily accommodate a few
more.
The home-bred brain of the woman continually puzzles and baffles the
world-bred brain of the man; and from the beginning of their
association it has an effect upon him. In childhood even he sees his
sister serving in the home functions far more than he is required to
do; she is taught to "clean up" where he is not; different values are
assigned to the same act in boy or girl, and he is steadily influenced
by it. The first effect of the home on the boy is seen very young in
his contempt for girls, and girls' play or work. When, after a period
of separation wherein he has consorted as far as possible only with
boys and men, he is again drawn towards the girl on lines of
sex-attraction, a barrier has risen between them which is never wholly
removed.
He has immense areas of experience utterly unknown to her. His words
and acts in a given case are modified by a thousand memories and
knowledges which she has not; so word and act differ sharply, though
the immediate exciting cause be the same. The very terms they use have
different weight and meaning; the man must pick and choose and adopt a
different speech in talking to a woman. He loves, he admires, he
venerates; and from this attitude considering all her foolishness and
ignorance as feminine and therefore charming, he is thus taught to
worship ignoble things.
Charles Reade in his "Peg Woffington" describes that strong, brave,
intelligent, and most charming woman as starting and screaming at a
very distant rat--and her lover being therefore more strongly attracted
to her. Every sign of weakness, timidity, inability to understand and
do, is deemed feminine and admired. Yet we all know that the best love
is that which exalts, that which truly respects as well as fondly
enjoys.
The smallness of the home-bound woman is not so injurious as the still
smaller nature of the harem-bound, by as much as the home is larger and
freer than the harem; but just as harem women limit man's growth, so do
home women in slighter degree. The influence of women upon men is
enormous. The home-bound mother limits the child and boy; the
home-bound girl limits the youth; and the home-bound wife keeps up the
pressure for life. It is not that women are really smaller-minded,
weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating; but that whosoever, man or
woman, lives always in a small dark place, is always guarded,
protected, directed, and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed
and weakened by it.
The woman is narrowed by the home and the man is narrowed by the woman.
In proportion as man is great, as his interests are world-wide and his
abilities high, is he injured by constant contact with a smaller mind.
The more ordinary man feels it less, being himself nearer to the
domestic plane of thought and action; but the belittling effect is
there all the time.
If the boy's mother commanded as wide a range of action as his father;
if her work were something to honour and emulate as well as her dear
self something to love, the boy would never learn to use that bitter
term "only mother." The father is a soldier, and the boy admires and
longs to follow in great deeds. The father is a captain of industry--a
skilled tradesman, a good physician--the boy has the father to love,
and the work to admire as well. The father is something to other
people, as well as all in all to him; and the boy has a new respect for
him, seeing him in the social relation as well as the domestic. But his
mother he sees only in the domestic relation and is early taught by the
father himself, that he is "to take care of her!" Think of it! Teaching
a child that he is to take care of his mother! A full-grown able-bodied
woman will take a child of ten out with her at night--"to protect her!"
The exquisite absurdity of this position has no comparison or parallel.
Think of a cow protected by a calf! A bear by a cub--a cat by a kitten!
A tall, swift mare by a lanky colt! An alert, sharp-toothed collie by a
tumbling, fat-pawed pup! How can a boy respect a thing that he, a
child, can take care of! He can love, and does. He can take care of,
and does. He can later on support, and does; and even--this in a recent
instance of this sublime monstrosity--he can "give away" _his own
mother_ in marriage! No wonder he so soon learns to say "only mother!"
When she is _not_ only mother, but mother and much besides, a real
human being, usefully exercising her human faculties, the boy will make
a better man.
Again, if his sister shared every freedom and advantage of childhood;
were equally educated, not only in school, but in play, and in the
ever-stimulating experiences of daily life, he would feel far
differently toward her.
See two children on a journey, the mother holding fast to the girl from
beginning to end, only the car seat and window for her; the boy on the
steps, the platform, running about the station, asking questions of
brakeman and engineer, learning all the time. The boy gets five times
as much out of life as the girl, and he knows it. It is not long before
he is ashamed to play with girls, and one cannot blame him.
Then comes the sweetheart. A new deep love, a great overmastering
reverence for the Woman, rises in his heart. In the light of that love
he accepts her as she is, glorifying and idealising every weakness,
every limitation, because it is hers. This is not well. He could love
her just as well, better, if his reverence were better deserved, if the
dignity of sex were enhanced by the dignity of a wise, strong, capable
human being.
Of course the man feels that he would not love her as well if she were
different. So he felt in past ages when she was even more feminine,
even less human. So he will feel in coming ages, when she is truly his
equal, a strong and understanding friend, a restful and stimulating
companion, as well as the beautiful and loving woman. We have always
been drawn together by love and always will be. The beautiful Georgian
slave is beloved, the peasant lass, the princess; man loves woman, and
she need not fear any change in that.
Our error lies in a false estimate of womanhood and manhood. The home,
its labours, cares, and limitations we have called womanly; and
everything else in life manly; wherefore if a woman manifested any
power, ambition, interest, outside the home, that was unwomanly and
must cost her her position as such. This is entirely wrong.
A woman is a woman and attractive to the men of her place and time,
whether she be a beaded Hottentot, a rosy milkmaid, a pretty
schoolma'am, or a veiled beauty of the Zenana.
We are taught that man most loves and admires the domestic type of
woman. This is one of the roaring jokes of history. The breakers of
hearts, the queens of romance, the goddesses of a thousand devotees,
have not been cooks.
Women in general are attractive to men, but let a woman be glaringly
conspicuous--the great singer, dancer, actress--immediately she has
lovers without number. The best-loved women of all time have not been
the little brown birds at home, by any means. Of course, when a man
marries the queen of song he expects her to settle at once to the nest
and remain there. But does he thereafter maintain the same degree of
devotion that he bestowed before? It is not easy, after all, to
maintain the height of romantic devotion for one's house-servant--or
even one's housekeeper. The man loves his wife; but it is in spite of
the home--not because of it. And wherever the shadow of unhappiness
falls between them, wherever the sad record of sorrow and sin is begun,
it is too often because love strays from that domestic area to follow a
freer bird in a wider field.
It is not marriage which brings this danger, it is domestic service; it
is not the perfect and mutual ownership of love, nor the sanction of
law and religion; it is the one-sided ownership wherein the wife
becomes the private servant, cook, cleaner, mender of rents, a valet,
janitor, and chambermaid. Even as such she has more practical claim to
respect than the wife who does not do this work nor any other; who is
not the servant of the house, but merely its lady; who has absolutely
no claim to human honour, no place in the social scheme, except that of
the female.
Thus we find that the influence of the home upon man, as felt through
the home-restricted woman, is not always for the best; and that even,
as supposedly increasing the woman's charm, it does not work.
What follows further of the influence of the home upon man directly?
How does it modify his personal life and development? The boy grows and
breaks out of the home. It has for him a myriad ties--but he does not
like to be tied. He strikes out for himself. If he is an English boy of
the upper classes he is cut off early and sent to a boarding school;
later he has "chambers" of his own. If an American, he simply goes into
business, and in most cases away from home, boarding for a while. Then
he loves, marries, and sets up a home of his own; a woman-and-child
house, which he gladly and proudly maintains and in many ways enjoys.
So satisfied are we in our convictions regarding this status that we
really and practically worship the home and family, holding it to be a
man's first duty to maintain them. No man does it more patiently and
generously than the American, and he is supported in his position by
all the moral opinion of our world. He is "a good family man" we say,
and can say no more. To stay at home evenings is especially desirable;
the more of life that can be spent at home the better, we think, for
all concerned. Now what is the real effect upon the man? Is the home,
as we have it, satisfying to the real needs of man's nature; and if
not, could it be improved?
The best proof of man's dissatisfaction with the home is found in his
universal absence from it. It is not only that his work takes him out
(and he sees to it that it does!) but the man who does not "have to
work" also goes out, for pleasure.
The leisure classes in any country have no necessity upon them to leave
home, yet their whole range of uneasy activity is to get outside, or to
furnish constant diversion and entertainment, to while away the hours
within. A human creature must work, play, or rest. Men work outside,
play outside, and cannot rest more than so long at a time.
The man maintains a home, as part of his life-area, but does not
himself find room in it. This is legitimate enough. It should be
equally true of the woman. No human life of our period can find full
exercise in a home. Both need it, to rest in; to work from; but not to
stay in.
This we find practically worked out in the average man's attitude
toward the home. He provides it, cheerfully, affectionately, proudly;
at any cost of labour, care, and ingenuity; but if he has to stay in it
too much, he knows it softens and enfeebles him.
So he goes out, to meet men, to work and live as far as he can; and
when he wants "a real good time,"--rest, recreation, healthful
amusement,--he goes altogether with "the boys." The distant camp in the
woods, the mountain climb, the hunting trip,--real rest and pleasure to
the man are found with men away from home.
There is a sort of strain in the constant association with the smaller
life, as there is in the painful keeping step with shorter legs; a
slow, soft, gentle downward pull, against which every active man
rebels. But he is bound to it, for life. The immutable laws of sex hold
him to the woman; and as she is so he must be, more or less.
He is bound to the home by the needs of the child, and by the physical
convenience and necessity of the place. If it were all that it should
be, it would offer to the man rest, comfort, stimulus, and inspiration.
In so far as it does, it is right. In so far as it does not, it is
wrong. The ideal home shines clear and bright, at the end of the day's
work. Peace and happiness, relief from all effort and anxiety, the calm
replenishment of food and sleep, the most delightful companionship. In
some cases it gives all this in fact. In many, many others the man has
to descend in coming home--to come down to it instead of up. In it is a
whole new field of cares, worries, and labours. The primitive machinery
of the place, so imperfectly managed by the inexpert average woman,
jars rudely on his specialised consciousness. The children are his
pride and joy--that is as it should be. But when their lack of
intelligent care robs him of his rest at night; and their lack of
intelligent education, makes them an anxiety and a distress instead of
a comfort; that is as it should not be.
He does not bring his deficiencies in business home to his wife and
expect her to walk the floor at night with them. The systematised man's
work is done for the day, and he comes home to shoulder a share of the
unsystematised inadequate woman's work. When the woman of exceptional
ability keeps the whole house running smoothly, has no trouble with
servants, no trouble with the children, then the influence of the home
on man is pure beneficence. Such cases are most rare. So used are we to
the contrary, so besotted in our blind adoration of ancient
deficiencies, that we exhort the young couple to face "the cares and
troubles of married life" as if they really were an essential part of
it. They have nothing to do with married life. They are the cares and
troubles of our antiquated, mischievous system of housekeeping.
If men in their business were still using methods of a million years
ago, they would need some exhortation too. It is marvellous that the
same man who casts upon the scrap heap his most expensive machinery to
replace it with still better, who constantly adjusts and readjusts his
business to the latest demands of our rapidly changing time, can go
home and contentedly endure the same petty difficulties which his
father and his grandfather and all his receding ancestors endured in
turn.
The inadequacy of the home, the gross imperfections of its methods and
management have anything but a helpful influence on men. Necessary
difficulties are to be borne or overcome, but to suffer with a sickle
when a steam reaper is to be had is contemptible rather than elevating.
There will be some pathetic protest here that it is a man's duty to
help woman bear the troubles and difficulties of the home. The woman
ardently believes this, and the man too, sometimes. Of all incredible
impositions this is the most astounding.