Part 3 (2/2)
So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration.
But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical possibilities of his offspring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really needs what only the rich can have,--servants, variety, frequent vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man.
Essential in the study of ”nervousness” is the physical examination, and we here pa.s.s to the physically ill housewife.
It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, or kidney disease, or with derangements of the s.e.xual organs, may act precisely like a nervous housewife,--may have pains and aches, changes in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deenergized.
It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large experience and high authority.
In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first birth.
Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, athletic girl who falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, old-fas.h.i.+oned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point.
A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes of ill health to be ruled out before ”nervousness” (or its medical equivalents) is to be diagnosed.
It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women do not readily fall into ”types.” A woman may be hyperaesthetic in one sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for her chief a.s.sociate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house but be willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike men.
One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, and we shall so consider them in a later chapter.
Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book that great forces of society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible.
From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider them frankly and fully.
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS
One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless advancement of desire,--and consequently the never-ending search for contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to further weary climbing.
This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm water it _feels_ warm only for a short time, and you must add still warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand.
The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires.
This is to be emphasized in the case of the housewife, but with this additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to discontent.
What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework.
What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status of the house work.
It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is greater and greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the so-called servant cla.s.s dislikes the work. No amount of argument therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the dusting, the dishwas.h.i.+ng, the clothes was.h.i.+ng and ironing, the work that is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be begun. To say nothing of the care of the children!
I do not cla.s.s as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a butler, and a chauffeur,--the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid with whom she wrestles to do her share,--who relieves her somewhat but not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, only one woman in ten has any help at all!
It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of child-culture; one may strike a lofty att.i.tude and speak of the Home (capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable.
”Fine words b.u.t.ter no parsnips.” There are some rare souls who lend to the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person frets and fumes under similar circ.u.mstances. In its aims and purposes housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods.
All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one to quarrel with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel hides nuts,--on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family feeling demand it.
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