Finally, is this check necessary to the well-balanced life? This must be determined for individual cases. In trying to answer the question, we must keep in mind that whenever an activity is necessary to the realization of the ideal of home, it is necessary to the complete life, whether it involves the sacrifice of talents or not; when it is not so necessary and does not provide an outlet for special talents, it is an unjustifiable waste of woman’s life and of society’s resources.
That which is necessary for good home-making can be determined only by holding fast to the highest ideal of home and by having a clear understanding of changing social conditions. The ideal never changes; the best home-making must always be an intelligent, affectionate effort to help others to attain as nearly as possible to completeness of life by securing for them those essentials of good living which they cannot obtain in other ways as well or better; but while the ideal remains always the same, the means by which it must be realized undergo constant change. Once it was necessary for a woman to make candles or to leave her husband and children in darkness. That time passed, for husband and children found a better light than that of homemade candles. And yet the woman continued her candle-making for a long period. She has done this with most of the varied activities of housekeeping, continuing them long after they had become only an obstacle in the way of her own independent development.
The reason for this useless clinging to outgrown activities is to be found in our conception of the purposes of housekeeping. We have thought of its multiple activities as the ends toward which the talents of all women should be bent, no matter how difficult or how wasteful the bending process. A frank recognition of the varied character of women’s talents and of society’s need for the full and free exercise of these talents, and an appreciation also of the value of good home-making, not only to the world at large, but to women themselves as a means of rounding out and balancing their lives, will lead to a different conception. A special trade, craft, profession, business, or form of public work will seem the end toward which the peculiar talent of a given woman should be directed, while housekeeping will appear, not as an end in itself, but as a means, the means which at a given stage of industrial development all women may find it necessary to employ if they would give expression to their love by making homes.
In this spirit of double appreciation we see that when the home-maker continues one of the activities of housekeeping after it has become unnecessary to good home-making, she unbalances her life by over-serving; that when she sacrifices home for the sake of a “career,” she destroys the equilibrium of her life by failing to find expression for the other-regarding desires. In this spirit alone can we view the changes which are going on in society, and separate those which tend to narrow and impoverish woman’s life from those which tend to broaden and enrich it.
Looking in this spirit, we see an advantage in boarding-house life because it reduces the amount of work necessary for cooking and serving food. We see another advantage in the reduction of the amount of superintendence when compared with the amount of work done. Housekeepers today are being nerve-racked by an amount of superintendence out of all proportion to the labor necessary for housekeeping. On the other hand, we see disadvantages in this kind of life because it is incompatible with the retirement that is necessary for mutual helpfulness, for successful child training, and for good fellowship. The adoption of a scientific and up-to-date modification of the “lodgings” system in vogue in England, or some other plan of professional catering for private families, might be the means of preserving the good in boarding-house life without perpetuating the evil.
We see in the increase of prepared foods upon the market a saving of labor but a menace to health. Women’s clubs, made possible partly because of the saving of time through the use of these foods, are largely responsible for the pure food laws that have been passed, and we are looking to them for an educational campaign which will result in further legislation and a better enforcement of present laws.
In the movement toward economic independence for woman, we see advantages and disadvantages. When it leads her to sacrifice home and motherhood and the opportunity to do work in which her soul delights rather than to be economically dependent, it enslaves her and her talents, for economic independence is worthless unless it brings expressional freedom; when it brings her the opportunity to do the work she loves and can do best, it frees her and her powers.
We see in the revival of handicraft tremendous significance to woman, because it opens up to her a great field of industries which offer activities for both hand and brain, and which can be carried on at home without interfering with the care of children. We see why it was necessary for the handicrafts to fall into disuse while we were working out the system of division of labor, which now, upon their revival, makes it possible for women to become more than mere amateurs in them. These and many other interesting movements we see in society, if we have our eyes open, both to the value of woman as a home-maker and to her value as an individual.
More life for woman—not through sacrifice of the joys of motherhood and home-making, but by the addition of the pleasures in satisfactory cultivation of special talents to the privileges of service.