The Nervous Housewife

wife And

the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity

aw, entered into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly is becoming the dominant point of view

onflict between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part

elopment of, or a change from, old ideas in the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among

ence teaches that if it is sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a source of conflict for our times, with oppo

he attitude of women and becomes pa

the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live apart, have no children and meet occasi

ologically and humanly, giving peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of youth

ot by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in t

appiness and especially which bring the neurosis of the housewife

as follows from the standpoint

se from the sex r

from conflicts of

rise from the t

(This has already been considered under the

ese various factors we must repeat what ha

, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been the case and still is in some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an unendurable insult, then brutali

uggestion is more provocatory than frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy

e of being more regulated by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no marriage is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first year or y

ne would expect therefore knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to deal with

the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,-but others follow in a repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of

t follow them into absurdity, but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the ce

fter marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of boy

ty exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bri

re it is least expected, in the sex attachment. Demureness of appearance, refinement of manner, noble ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is no rea

ntinent until such time as children were desired. The biological reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. Needless t

e well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the part of the man to bring about that adjustment. This part of the adjustment need not here be

single chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life pa

of the race. We are not concerned here with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dign

lieved when her monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk almost outweighing its pleasure.

e and disgust and some are left excited and unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the neurologists when examining a married ma

omen tend to take up the work formerly exclusively belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, collars and ties, and tailor-made cl

been a decrease in female chastity,-that the entrance of women in industrial life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobi

e designed for sex allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the day would be called mere b

e daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. She too tugs at her moor

e, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is being changed. The danger