The Nervous Housewife

The Home As Fact

ently the never-ending search for contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a ru

armer 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 ou

housewife depends on what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out of life, aside from being

at 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. Dissat

e attended with difficulty? 1

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 thes

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 d

eak of the science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home (capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society.

ge person frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its me

ast some one to quarrel with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel hides nuts,-on a property b

ome 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,

rful 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 l

rom which the mind seeks freedom. It is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exoti

e 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 cert

oughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham Wallas calls "face to face a

n to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to talk at; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that

ge. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children that are

udes 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

on 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,

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

at night, very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many women, especially those who have no help and have childre

r skill or else own a less urgent conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If

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

then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better still take note of the man

e jumps up and down from each course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The dishes

ach course, and various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of oilcloth,-then there is more work, more strain, le

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

by the Voltaire story. For others it destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an autointoxi

usness 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 de?n

mand 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 drud

'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 woul

co?perative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I think likely woul

veins, flat feet, back strain, that render the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to rest, and with recourse either to her overbusy fa

One of the aims of a woman's life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest days this is

may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have usually given up the struggle. For

e achievement,-means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical

raordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something of

the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what really h

its individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt on these. The agreeable phases of the housewif