Part 12 (1/2)
Of course there is the great and inestimable help that comes from the mere fact that she is your wife. After all, that is the very greatest help any woman can be to any man. The care of home, the upbringing of children, the strengthening of a husband's character here and there, the detection of those thousand little vices of manner and speech and thought which develop in every man--in short, the living of a natural woman's life--is the only method of real helpfulness of a woman to a man. And it is a priceless helpfulness.
Particularly is this true of political life and career. A man who must be lifted to distinction by his wife's ap.r.o.n-strings, does not deserve distinction. In the end, he does not get it--the ap.r.o.n-strings usually break, and they ought to break. It may be stated as a general truth that a man is never helped by the active partic.i.p.ation of the wife in his political affairs.
There are notable exceptions, just as there are to every rule. But as a generalization this statement is accurate. Men resent that kind of thing in politics. They want a man who aspires to anything to be worthy of that thing on his own account. They want their leader to be a leader; and no leader is ”managed” in politics by his wife. They are right about it, too. But whether they are right or wrong, that is the way they feel.
So the only help which a woman can be to a man in politics is just to be a wife in all that that term implies. And what greater help than that could there be? She who impresses the American millions with the fact that she is the ideal wife and mother has made the strongest, subtlest appeal to the nation. But she cannot do this by ”mixing up in politics,” by trying to plan and manage her husband's campaigns, and so forth. For the people's instinct is unerring. We Americans are a home-making and a home-loving people; and as a people we adore the American wife and mother--the maker and keeper of the American home.
So you attend to your politics or your business and let your wife attend to hers; and she will be happy and glad to make your home the exclusive scene of her activities if you will only be man enough to do a man's full part in the world and leave no room for a woman of spirit to see that you are not doing a man's full part, and, therefore, to try to help you out.
I sometimes think that the propaganda that woman is the equal of man, and that it is all right for her to take on man's work in business and the professions, is due not so much to an abnormal development in her character as it is to a decadence in our manhood. At least I have always observed that the wife of a really masterful man finds her greatest happiness in being merely his wife, and never attempts to take any of his tasks upon her. And why should she a.s.sume his labor?
Her natural work in the world is as much harder than his as it is n.o.bler and finer.
Speaking of politics, I have always thought men, young and old, ought to consult their wives and families about how they cast their ballot.
What right has any man to vote as he individually thinks best? He is the head of the family, it is true, but he is only one of the family, after all. This Republic is not made up of individuals; it is made up of families. Its unit is not the boarding-house, but the home.
The Senate of the United States is the greatest forum of free debate on earth; but the counsel of the American fireside is far more powerful. Wife and children have a vital interest in every ballot deposited by father and husband--an interest as definite and tangible as his own. Every voter, therefore, ought to discuss with wife and children, with parents, brothers, and sisters, all public questions, and vote according to the composite family conviction.
No greater method of public safety can be imagined than for the American family to ”size up” the American public man, and then have the voters of that family sustain or reject him at the polls, according to the verdict of the household. If such were the rule, only those men who are of the people when they are first placed in public office, and who keep close to the people ever after, would be elected to anything.
Such a method, too, would insure a steadier current of national policy, subject to fewer variations. There would not be so many fads to deflect sound and sane statesmans.h.i.+p. So by all means, young man, begin your career as a citizen by making your wife a partner in every vote you cast.
n.o.body denies that men and women should have equality of privilege and equality of rights; but equality of duties and similarity of work is absurd. The contrary idea was beautifully satirized in the now famous toast:
”Here's to our women: G.o.d bless them! Once our superiors, now our equals.”
The truth is that it is impossible to compare men and women. They are not the same beings. They have different characteristics, different methods, different capacities, and different view-points of life. Each supplements the other. Doubtless the woman has the choicer lot. Surely this is true abstractly speaking. Suppose we should all stand disembodied souls, or rather unembodied souls, on the edge of the forming universe; and suppose that, to these abstract intelligences, the Creator should say:
”I am forming the universe. I am creating a wonderful place called Earth. I am going to clothe you each in human form, marvelously and beautifully made, the highest work of my hands. Some of you shall be men. To these men I will give the task of labor in the fields, of warfare with wild beasts. It shall be your duty to subdue wildernesses, and to construct and defend a dwelling-place for this other one whom I am going to make a woman. Therefore I shall give you men large bones to deal strong blows, and a heavy skull to withstand the like. I shall give you courage and physical power and audacity and daring.
”The woman's mission shall be different. _It shall be for her to create and preserve human happiness._ She shall do this in the dwelling-place which the man constructs for her, and which will be called home. There shall she bind up his wounds and give him rest and comfort. I will give into her keeping also the making of the race, and thus the control of the destiny of the world. And so this woman shall be given delicate bones and a deft touch and voice of music and eye of peace and heart of tenderness and mind of beautiful wisdom.”
Does this comparison not make it clear that woman has by far a more exalted mission than man? But the mission of both man and woman is sufficiently grand and n.o.ble if each performs it, and within its limitations is content.
Have plenty of friends. Cultivate them. You cultivate your business.
You cultivate vegetables. But friends are more precious than either business or vegetables. Cultivate friends, therefore. Call on them and let them call on you. And do it in the good old-fas.h.i.+oned, hearty, American way.
But be sure you make your friends for the sake of the relation itself.
Do not misuse that sacred relation for your personal advantage. Do not make friends for the purposes of success. Make friends for the purposes of friends.h.i.+p. Be true to them, therefore. Don't neglect them when they can no longer serve you. And serve you them. And let your service to your friends be a glad service, a service which is its own reward.
He who seeks another's friends.h.i.+p because he needs it in his politics or business, will throw that friends.h.i.+p away like a worn-out glove when his ends have been accomplished. Make friends and nourish friends.h.i.+p because friends and friends.h.i.+ps are life itself. Remember that you do not live in order to achieve success; you achieve success in order to live.
It is the twentieth century you are living in--don't forget that. Keep up, therefore; keep abreast of things. Keep in the current of the world's thought and feeling. Newspapers are literally indispensable to you; and you should take two of them--the morning paper and the evening paper. Get up fifteen minutes earlier in the morning, so that you may have time to look over the morning paper carefully.
Do not read it idly. Read it with discrimination. And do not read it without discussing it with your little family. The war in Manchuria, the character of a public man, the policy of an administration, the state of the Nation's business--all these are mental food which you need as much as you need your breakfast. One thoroughly up-to-date magazine also is helpful. Build you a library also. You do not want the new home to be a mere physical habitation. You want it to be a home for the mind as well as the body, do you not?
I heard of a young lawyer who put aside a little of every fee as a sinking-fund for a library. He and his wife bought books with that--not books for the office, but books for their home. He succeeded--”won out”--”won out” with his cases, which was his profession's business, and ”won out” with his happiness and hers, which was his life's business.