O the soap vat1 is a common thing!
The pickle-tub is low!
The loom2 and wheel have lost their grace
In falling from the dwelling-place
To mills where all may go!
The bread-tray needeth not your love;
The wash-tub wide doth roam;
Even the oven free may rove;
But bow ye down to the Holy Stove,
The Altar of the Home!
C. P. Gilman.
In the great majority of households the wife and mother is also the housewife. In the great majority of households this arrangement is the most economical and suitable in every sense. So long as families live each in a separate home there will be a vast amount of domestic work to be done in the home, and a great deal of this work being suited to women’s strength and capacities, it seems more appropriate, as well as more economical, that each woman should do the domestic work of her own home, and do it to her liking3 among her own children and her own possessions, rather than go out and[90] do another woman’s work for wages. Further, a woman who is attending to the needs of young children is perforce a great deal in the home with the children, and therefore it is again economical that whatever work she does, in addition to caring for the children, should be work that can be done in the intervals4, and that does not require her to waste time and strength in leaving the home. A large part of the function of child nurture5 is merely to be there, on guard and for emergencies. The child is both better and happier that is not too much interfered6 with; that lies kicking and crowing on a mattress7, making acquaintance with its toes, and as it grows older, finds its own games and delights, in copying the arts and crafts of its elders. In sickness the whole of the guardian8’s attention may be taken, but in health it is a fact that a woman can best develop the child by being herself occupied, so long, be it well understood, as the occupation does not take the whole of her attention. Babies must be talked to and sympathised with, and as they grow older the busy guardian must not be so busy that she cannot play their plays with them. The sort of work which occupies the hands and only a portion of the head is obviously the sort of work which is appropriate to the child-minder. A floor can be scrubbed, a grate blacked, bread made, and clothes mended with a baby on a mattress in the room, and a couple of tinies playing shop in a corner. It is not an easy life, and the mother may often feel she “doesn’t[91] know which way to turn”; but if children were not too many and houses were more convenient, and all housekeeping tools more adequate, and the housekeeping money sufficient, the life of the mother who is also the housewife would be a happy and healthy life; she could hope to do her work really well, and most women would prefer it to any other.
What are the causes of the present discontents among housewives? Many indeed. They feel that the woman who is not only bearing and rearing the children, but also buying and cooking and washing and cleaning and mending for the whole family, should have some of that independence which comes from handling the money she has earned and saved. I remember a man at a street-corner meeting once heckling me with the question whether a woman had not all that she required if she had “love an’ her keep.” He was a candid10 fellow, and when I asked him whether “love an’ his keep” would satisfy him, and whether he did not like to have some of the money he had earned as “spending money,” to do what he pleased with, go to a football match,—or even make his wife a present,—he laughed and said, “Well it takes a woman to think of such things! Of course I do,—I never looked at it in that light before.” The mother while she is bearing children should be “kept” in health and strength; the woman who is making wealth by personal services just as much as any other worker, should be paid for her services. If this[92] is not done, if a woman only gets her keep as any other domestic animal does, it is likely that, in modern times, she will be tempted11 to go out to work, when it would be better for all concerned that she should stay at home and work. Very often, of course, she is not merely tempted, but forced to go. The result is that we see women with the treble burden of child-bearing, wage-earning out of the home, and housework within the home. Small wonder when each of these is ill-done. The marvel12 is how well done they often are.
Sometimes, again, by the conditions under which the men choose to work, a monstrous13 burden is piled upon the housewife. The men who have been most persistent14 and most successful in obtaining an eight-hour day for themselves, have been those who have laid the heaviest burden upon the women. In the cottage of a miner you will sometimes find men working on each of the three shifts, and one housewife to do for them all. This means four sets of meals (where there are young children as well), and three sets of hot baths, and that condition of things which a good housewife detests16 more than any other, of never being “tidied up.” A canvasser17 reports how she found a housewife of this class looking so worn out over her ironing that the visitor remarked on it, and the patient housewife replied, “You see, I’ve not been rightly to bed for a fortnight.” It is these men, too, some of them, who were so outraged[93] at the suggested “indignity” of compulsory18 baths at the pithead. The freeborn Briton reserves to himself the right to bring his coal dust home to the scrubbed boards and washed pillows of his domestic drudge19, and when he secures his eight-hour day, does not dream of employing some other woman to help his wife with her extra shifts, so that she, as well as he, may go “rightly to bed.”
Those who are intimate with the lives of poor people know how desperately20 hard on the women are the quick-coming children and the dreadful inadequacy21 of the money she gets for housekeeping. The increase in drugging as a preventive is a matter for very serious consideration. It is not only hard work and under-feeding that makes so many of our working women look old at thirty.
The dissatisfaction that is caused by all the defects of housing is purely22 to the good. It is to be wished that the women would all strike against the vile23 houses and the antiquated24 and decrepit25 implements26 and arrangements. Unhappily the women, having known no other, are often sunk in indifference27. When people criticise28 the “folly” of teaching girls to cook on convenient stoves and to housekeep9 under reasonable conditions, because everyone knows they never will have convenient stoves or reasonable conditions, and it will only make them dissatisfied, I for one hail this dissatisfaction as the one star of hope for the housewives of the future. For it is[94] quite certain that if the women are not dissatisfied, the men never will be, and things will never improve. It is difficult to find the beginning of the vicious circle in which domestic affairs now are. You are no craftsman29 if you do not take pride and joy in your tools, and is it not mockery to ask the English cottager to take pride in her tools? Think of the crowded condition of the rooms, so that the Sunday clothes must be kept in the parlour, and there is no room whatever for storing perishable30 food, to say nothing of groceries! Think of the extravagant31, ramshackle grates on which these women are expected to cook appetising food, without which the men will go to the public-house! Think of the washing on a wet day! The man gets out of the place as soon as ever he can, and we do not wonder nor blame him. It seems to me indecent to blame the woman if she succumbs32 to such conditions. When she revolts from them, she ought to have the hearty33 help and sympathy of every reformer in the land.
So it is not housework that so many women are revolting from. It is largely the horrible conditions under which so much housework has to be done. But it is also this: that it is not wise to put all women under one harrow, and particularly it is foolish to insist on mixing up the notions of motherhood and housewifery into an inextricable tangle34. Because, in individual homes in the past the woman who bore the children had to cook and clean and housekeep, it does not follow at all that[95] this must always be so for ever and ever. Some women who are by no means clever at child nurture, and who detest15 housewifery, are capable of bearing excellent children, beautiful and strong. It would be to impoverish35 the race to say such women should not have children (and they and the men who love them would laugh at you if you did). It would be stupid to sacrifice the welfare of the children to the incompetent36 rearing of such women, and one can only pity the men who have to eat the dinners they cook. Why not admit frankly37 that women differ, and always will differ? Why try to press them all into the same mould? If a woman has been a highly trained and very competent class-teacher before her marriage, is it wisdom or economy to declare that, after her marriage, she must abandon all her special training, her natural and acquired gifts, and black her husband’s boots and cook his dinner? Even if she has babies, is that any reason why she should become a general servant?
Slowly, very slowly, because everything to do with women is so hedged round with fears and tabus of all kinds, there is arising the possibility of co-operative housekeeping and co-operative nurseries. To some intensely individualistic women these will be a terror; they would rather slave themselves to death than have a common kitchen or a common dining-room; and some would not for the world miss one cry of the baby, one clutch of its little grasping hands. Let these women have their babes and their households to themselves;[96] why not? But why should the other women not also have what they want, and do what they can? No one, looking round the world of men and women, can honestly say that men do as a matter of fact choose their wives from the girls who love baby-minding, cooking and cleaning beyond all things. Young men are not thinking about such things at all when courting, and they go for nothing in the sex-attraction a girl possesses. We women, if we have lived a good while, have all known scores of girls left unwed who would have made better mothers and better housekeepers38 than those who have married, and in some cases “could have married a dozen times” as the saying goes. The fact is that the perfect wife, mother, nurse, teacher and housekeeper39 is very rarely one person.
Girls are less domesticated40 now, largely because the development of industry has made them less so. Bread, jams, pickles41, candles, hams, yarn42, cloth and clothes that used to be made in the home are now made in the factory. It seems to me perfectly43 clear that by degrees much of the cooking and laundering44, even of the poor, will be done on a large scale by those who receive wages for doing it. The discomfort45 and unhealthiness of laundry work in a small cottage, and the waste of time and fuel in cookery, are manifest to everyone who has ever seen them. There will be a development of the crèche or day nursery in all towns, and eventually those who love the individualist life will find it best in country districts, while the towns will be given over to the[97] men and women of co-operative and gregarious46 temperaments47.
These developments will, of course, bring with them their characteristic dangers and disadvantages. Neither progress nor stagnation48 is safe; but the one is life, the other is death. What is necessary is to face things as they are and not go on eternally pretending that the world is what it is not: that women all have sheltered happy homes, if only they would stay in them; that it is only idleness or perversity49 which prevents women from making their own bread (without a suitable oven) and stocking their own jam (without even a shelf to put it on). We have seen enough of the very serious disadvantages of modern industrialism to have a shrewd idea of what the dangers of further development will be, and it would be the wisest thing for sociologists not to attempt to sweep back the tide, but to direct its channels for the future.
The divorce of the producer and the consumer has had many bad effects as well as some good. While people prepared their own food and made their own clothes and furniture, there was a direct personal incentive50 to make them good. This incentive must be replaced by one as strong, or quality will drop. The modern producer finds it difficult to know what his enormous public wants, and it profits him to assert, by advertisement, that what he makes is what the public wants. The consumer is confused and helpless, disorganised and very open to suggestion. Moreover, the power of finance, of trusts and[98] combinations, to beat out competitors and to rig the market, acts more often than not in direct opposition51 to the real interests of the consumer. Hence enormous waste of material wealth, adulteration and shoddy, and the ugliness that comes from bad material and bad workmanship overlaid with vulgar ornament52.
The fact is that, like everything else, housewifery is becoming a matter of much greater specialisation on the one hand, and on the other the modern state of affairs requires a modern mind. Collective effort and political action are in these complicated conditions necessary, and the purely individualistic attitude of mind is hopelessly old-fashioned. If woman is to be the housewife of the future, it is the woman of the future and not of the past who must tackle these questions, and men must give the woman of the future her head.
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1
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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2
loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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3
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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4
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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5
nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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6
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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7
mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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8
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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9
housekeep
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| vi.自立门户，主持家务 | |
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10
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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11
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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12
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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13
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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14
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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15
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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16
detests
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17
canvasser
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| n.挨户推销商品的推销员 | |
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18
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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19
drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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20
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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21
inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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22
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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23
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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25
decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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26
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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27
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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28
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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29
craftsman
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| n.技工，精于一门工艺的匠人 | |
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30
perishable
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| adj.（尤指食物）易腐的，易坏的 | |
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31
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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32
succumbs
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的第三人称单数 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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33
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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34
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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35
impoverish
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| vt.使穷困，使贫困 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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38
housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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39
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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40
domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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42
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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43
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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44
laundering
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| n.洗涤（衣等），洗烫（衣等）；洗（钱）v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的现在分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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45
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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46
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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47
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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48
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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49
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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50
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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51
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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52
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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