Part 4 (1/2)
This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are essentials, in the housework,--monotony, daydreaming, and introspection.
Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on itself is pleasurable only in rare s.n.a.t.c.hes, for short periods of time or for rare and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes uneasy when confronted by itself.
The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and fickle pleasure lover who pa.s.ses from the normal to the abnormal, exotic in his vain search for what is logically impossible,--lasting novelty.
Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of interest and concentrated purpose as well.
People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this is often a const.i.tutional matter as well as a matter of education. What is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, taught to expect certain things, may find no need of other newer things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it.
The most important stimuli are other _persons_, capable of setting into action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham Wallas calls ”face to face a.s.sociations of ideas”,--ideas called into being by words, moods, and deeds of others.
It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks.
”She has no one to talk to,” especially in the modern apartment life. It is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to talk _at_; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the flavor of companions.h.i.+p, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly disastrous to others.
If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements of her life.
But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest disgust and deenergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and weariness of life often results.
One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, and all are bright, energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,--the hearth. But for the housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her husband does.
Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing number of women to settle down to home-keeping.
The housewife is _par excellence_ a sedentary creature. She goes to work when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery.
It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, seem the logical way of resting up.
Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism.
Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result.
Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before civilization made necessary and pleasurable.
With this sedentary life comes loss of appet.i.te or capricious appet.i.te.
Frequently the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite every now and then and never develops a real appet.i.te. Nor is this a female reaction to ”food close-at-hand”; watch any male cook, or better still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent enough result to find him ”logy” on Monday.
Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The dishes _must_ be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that peace of mind so necessary for good digestion.
An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of oilcloth,--then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous waste of human energy and happiness.
An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under the best of circ.u.mstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is ”a constipated biped.”
While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as a mood depressant, as ill.u.s.trated by the Voltaire story. For others it destroys the appet.i.te and brings about an uneasiness that affects the efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia.
These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of sedentary life bear with especial weight upon the woman of little means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth.
There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and deenergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as inflicting injury on the personality.
Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. ”It's h.e.l.l to be poor” is the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without conveniences and necessities.
That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would be a wreck morally, physically, and mentally if he coped with his wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in the home would disappear.
Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only in spots cooperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which they enjoy in their clubs.