The Nervous Housewife

ife Predisposed

duce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. Our h

h case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essen

round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are alike"-and then follows the specific accusation-"i

ity, has been the masculine ideal of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to tas

all kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative middle-o

ideal the quality most admired. To the young child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The pretty girls, the ones most courted, the

rained. If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taugh

with him to dwell in love and happiness forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible preparation for married life, excepting perhaps

ship-are poor training for the home. They hinder even the

normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the neurosis much more easily and much

essary but agreeable. What we call progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, de

niceties of conduct, that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with thought rather than the means

slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in delicacy is made ill by a fiber o

ble. Intensely pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for the shortcomings. The hyper?sthetic woman is constantly the prey of the most de?nergizing of emotions,-disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an exaggerated expression of her feeling. An

y God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, and a social nature, th

in one of two directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they become, as it were, a sort of misdire

r affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by hyper?

comes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; nothing is good but the best. The

inished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the strain,

f-imposed, becomes the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word drives her to the real neg

red," is his stock remonstrance;

ps cries and says, "Just like a man. It's clea

de?nergized and the man exasperated at the unreasonab

man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, more wedded to decorum. Man loves comf

trip or hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of th

the neurosis of the housewif

s: Emotion may act as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function of the body. What we call ner

ts, turns his attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he gets it. One will manifest anger

ird flares up in what we call a fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a fourth be

e. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great philanthropy

occasion and how exuberant their joy, a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vis

called worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He imp

e commonest ending. How often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she does keep his telep

ark alley. If she is a bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession of her to the exclusion

that I am here depicting. In this extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. Th

e chained by their sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny of some one else's weakness,

ry about, to react to, and since these reactions are

ue, but it is also true that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emotional discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is one of the great objects of

w study is a very modern pro

account with a fraction of its true significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and t

t hang closely together, and a woman may want a husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike

of life and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for some house; or she has dabbled in art or li

e is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and

ilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker worm i

g, really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman,

ombination means either a childless marriage or the turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have children are poor and work in factories, ther

llege, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in exam

dpoint of character and ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress and advancement.

school teacher, social worker, typist, factory hand the rest of her days,-and she has fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really sick," say the latter to the dis

overwhelming majority of cases. He will marry her, is the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil that changes with each emotion, the

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 hered

n 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

is the physical examination, and we he

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

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 c

essors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no reason

his respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem

, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes of ill health to

res in his sleep, but be willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for her chief associate. 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 flo

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 theologi

thesis of this book that great forces of society and the nature of her life situation are mainly resp