| | | | | | This is a question which one half the world is asking the | other half, with very wild answers as the result. Woman's | work seems to be in these days everything that it was not in | times past, and nothing that it was. Professions are | undertaken and careers invaded which were formerly held | sacred to men, while things are left undone which, for all | the generations that the world has lasted, have been | naturally and instinctively assigned to women to do. From | the savage squaw gathering fuel or drawing water for the | wigwam, to the lady giving up the keys to her housekeeper, | housekeeping has been considered one of the primary | functions of women. The man to provide, the woman to | dispense; the man to do the rough initial work of | bread-winning, whether as a half-naked barbarian hunting live | meat, or as a city clerk painfully scoring lines of rugged | figures, the woman to cook the meat when got, and to lay | out to the best advantage for the family the quarter's salary | gained by casting up ledgers, and writing advices and bills | of lading. | Take human society in any phase we like, we must come | down to these radical conditions; and any system which | ignores this division of labor, and confounds | | these separate functions, is of necessity imperfect | and wrong. We have nothing whatever to say against the | professional self-support of women who have no men to | work for them, and who must therefore work for | themselves in order to live. In what direction soever they | can best make their way, let them take it. Brains and | intellectual gifts are of no sex and no condition, and it is far | more important that good work should be done than that it | should be done by this or that particular set of workers. | But we are speaking of the home duties of married women, | and of those girls who have no need to earn their daily | bread, and who are not so specially gifted as to be driven | afield by the irrepressible power of genius. We are | speaking of women who cannot help in the family incomes, | but who can both save and improve in the home women | whose lives now are one long day of idleness, | ennui, and vagrant imagination, | because they despise the activities into which they were | born, while seeking outlets for their energies impossible to | them both by nature and social restrictions. | It is strange to see into what unreasonable disrepute active | housekeeping ~~ woman's first natural duty ~~ has fallen in | England. Take a family with four or five hundred a year ~~ | and we know how small a sum that is for

"genteel | humanity"

in these days ~~ the wife who will be an | active housekeeper, even with such an income, will be an | exception to the rule; and the daughters who will be | anything more than drawing-room dolls waiting for | husbands to transfer them to a | | home of their own, where they may be as useless as they | are now, will be rarer still. For things are getting worse, | not better, and our young women are less useful even than | their mothers; while these last do not, as a rule, come near | the good housekeeping ladies of olden times, who knew | every secret of domestic economy, and made a point of | honor of a wise and pleasant

"distribution of bread." |

| The usual method of London housekeeping, even in the | second ranks of the middle-classes, is for the mistress to | give her orders in the kitchen in the morning, leaving the | cook to pass them on to the trades-people when they call. | If she is not very indolent, and if she has a due regard for | neatness and cleanliness, she may supplement her kitchen | commands by going up stairs through some of the | bedrooms; but after a kind word of advice to the housemaid | if she is sweet-tempered, or a harsh word of censure if she | is of the cross-grained type, her work in that department | will be done, and her duties for the day are at an end. | There is none of the clever marketing by which fifty per | cent. is saved in the outlay if a woman knows what she is | about, and how to buy; none of the personal | superintendence so encouraging to servants when genially | performed, and rendering slighted work impossible; none | of that

"seeing to things"

herself, or doing the | finer parts of the work with her own hands, which used to | form part of a woman's unquestioned duty. She gives her | orders, weights out her supplies, then leaves the maids to | do the best they know or the worst they will, according to | the degree | | in which they are supplied with faculty or conscience. | Many women boast that their housekeeping takes them | perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour, in the morning, and | no more; and they think themselves clever and | commendable in proportion to the small amount of time | given to their largest family duty. This is all very well | where the income is such as to secure first-class servants | ~~ professors of certain specialities of knowledge, and far | in advance of the mistress; but how about the comfort of | the house with this hasty generalship, when the maids are | mere scrubs who would have to go through years of | training before they were worth their salt! It may be very | well too in large households governed by general system, | and not by individual ruling; but where the service is scant | and poor, it is a stupidly uncomfortable as well as a | wasteful way of housekeeping. It is analogous to English | cookery ~~ a revolting poverty of result with flaring | prodigality of means; all the pompous paraphernalia of | tradespeople, and their carts, and their red-books for orders, | with nothing worth the trouble of booking, and everything | of less quantity and lower quality than might be if personal | pains were taken, which is always the best economy | practicable. | What is there in practical housekeeping less honorable than | the ordinary work of middle-class gentlewomen? and why | should women shrink from doing for utility, and for the | general comfort of the family, what they would do at any | time for vanity or idleness? | No-one need go into extremes, | and wish our | | middle-class gentlewomen to become Cinderellas sitting | among the kitchen ashes, Nausieals washing linen, or | Penelopes spending their lives in needlework only. But, | without undertaking anything unpleasant to her senses or | degrading to her condition, a lady might do hundreds of | things that are now left undone in a house altogether, or are | given up to the coarse handling of servants, and domestic | life would gain infinitely in consequence. | What degradation, for instance, is there in cookery? and | how much more home happiness would there not be if | wives would take in hand that great cold-mutton question? | But women are both selfish and small on this point. Born | for the most part with very feebly developed gustativeness, | they affect to despise the stronger instinct in men, and think | it low and sensual if they are expected to give any special | attention to the meals of the man who provides the meat. | This contempt or good living is one cause of the ignorance | there is among them of how to secure good living. Those | horrible traditions of

"plain roast and boiled"

| cling about them as articles of culinary faith; and because | they have reached no higher knowledge for themselves, | they decide that no-one else | shall go beyond them. | For one middle-class gentlewoman who understands | anything about cookery, or who really cares for it as a | scientific art or domestic necessity, there are ten thousand | who do not; yet our mothers and grandmothers were not | ashamed to be known as deft professors, and homes were | happier in proportion to the | | respect paid to the stewpan and the stockpot. And cookery | is more interesting now than it was then, because more | advance, more scientific, and with improved appliances; | and, at the same time, it is of confessedly more importance. | It may seem humiliating, to those who go in for spirit pure | and simple, to speak of the condition of the soul as in any | way determined by beef and cabbage; but it is so, | nevertheless, the connection between food and virtue, food | and thought, being a very close one; and the sooner wives | recognise this connection the better for them and for their | husbands. | The clumsy savagery of a plain cook, or the vile messes of | a fourth-rate confectioner, are absolute sins in a house | where a woman has all her senses, and can, if she will, | attend personally to the cooking. Many things pass for | crimes which are really not so bad as this. But how seldom | now do we find a house where the lady does look after the | cooking, where clean hands and educated brains are not to | active service for the good of other! The trouble would be | too great in our fine-lady days, even if there was the | requisite ability; but there is as little ability as there is | energy, and the plain cook with her savagery, or the | fourth-rate confectioner with his rancid pastry, have it all | their own way, according to the election of economy or | ostentation. | If by chance one stumbles on a household where the | woman does not disdain housewifely work, and specially | the practical superintendence of the kitchen, there we may | be sure we shall find cheerfulness and | | the pleasures and none of the disagreeables. Her husband | goes to the city, and does monotonous and unpleasant work | there; but his wife thinks herself in very evil case if asked | to do monotonous housework at home. Yet she does | nothing more elevating or more advantageous. Novel-reading, | fancy-work, visiting, letter-writing, sum up her | ordinary occupations; and she considers these more to the | point than practical housekeeping. In fact it becomes a | serious question what women think themselves sent into the | world for, what they hold themselves designed by God to | be or to do. They grumble at having children, and at the | toil and anxiety which a family entails; they think | themselves degraded to the level of servants if they have to | do any practical housework whatever; they assert their | equality with man, and express their envy of his life, yet | show themselves incapable of learning the first lesson set to | men, that of doing what they do not like to do. What, then, | do they want? What do they hold themselves made for? | Certainly some of the more benevolent sort carry their | energies out of doors, and leave such prosaic matters as | savory dinners and fast shirt-buttons for committees and | charities, where they get excitement and | kudos together. Others give themselves up to what | they call keeping up society, which means being more at | home in every person's house than their own; and some do | a little weak art, and others a little feeble literature; but | there are very few indeed who honestly buckle to the | natural duties of their position, and who bear with the | tedium of home work as men | | bear with the tedium of office work. The little royalty of | home is the last place where a woman cares to shine, and | the most uninteresting of all the domains she seeks to | govern. Fancy a high-souled creature, capable of | aesthetics, giving her mind to soup or the right proportion | of chutnee for the curry! Fancy, too, a brilliant creature | foregoing an evening's conversational glory abroad for the | sake of a prosaic husband's more prosaic dinner! He comes | home tired from work, and desperately in need of a good | dinner as a restorative; but the plain cook gives him cold | meat and pickles, or an abomination which she calls hash, | and the brilliant creature, full of mind, thinks the desire for | anything else rank sensuality. | It seems a little hard, certainly, on the unhappy fellow who | works at the mill for such a return; but women believe that | men are made only to work at the mill that they may | receive the grist accruing, and be kept in idleness and | uselessness all their lives. They have no idea of lightening | the labor of that mill-round by doing their own natural | work cheerfully and diligently. They will do everything | but what they ought to do; they will make themselves | doctors, committee-women, printers, what not, but they | won't learn cooking, and they won't keep their own houses. | There never was a time when women were less the | helpmates of men than they are at present; when there was | such a wide division between the interests and the | sympathies of the sexes in the endeavor, on the one side, to | approximate their pursuits. | | There is a great demand made now for more work for | woman, and wider fields for her labor. We confess we | should feel a deeper interest in the question if we saw more | energy and conscience put into the work lying to her hand | at home, and we hold that she ought to perform perfectly | the duties instinctive to her sex before claiming those | hitherto held remote from her natural condition. Much of | this demand, too, springs from restlessness and | dissatisfaction; little, if any, from higher aspirations or | nobler unused energies. Indeed, the nobler the woman the | more thoroughly she will do her own proper work, in the | spirit of old George Herbert's well-worn line, and the less | she will feel herself above her work. It is only the weak | who cannot raise their circumstances to the level of their | thoughts; only the poor who cannot enrich their deeds by | their thoughts. | That very much of this demand for more power of work | comes from necessity and the absolute need of bread, we | know; and that the demand will grow louder as marriage | becomes scarcer, and there are more women left adrift in | the world without the protection and help of men, we also | know. But this belongs to another part of the subject. | What we want to insist on now is the pitiable ignorance and | shiftless indolence of most middle-class housekeepers; and | we would urge on woman the value of a better system of | life at home, before laying claim to the discharge of | extra-domestic duties abroad.