Home Problems from a New Standpoint

by Caroline Louisa Hunt

THE changes which are enlarging woman’s educational privileges and are giving to her an opportunity to prepare herself for work not directly connected with the home, and which by simplifying housekeeping methods are making it possible for her to carry on such work in connection with home-making, may be said to be bringing more life to man, providing we understand the word life in its broad and not in its narrow sense, and providing we mean by man no particular individual nor class of individuals, but composite man.

The individual man may be inclined to dispute this statement. If so, it is probably because of one of two facts. Either he does not see life whole, and thinks only of what he has lost by woman’s progress and not of what he has gained, or he forgets that he is only a small part of composite man, and, as such, may fall below the average with respect to his joy in living.

If he likes homemade bread and is compelled to eat baker’s bread because his wife likes to study Dante better than to cook, he may think that he is not so well off as he would have been if he had lived a half century ago, when Dante classes for women and baker’s bread were practically unknown. But if he considers the advantages of eating his supper under the eaves, as it were, of the Dante class, and of having his baker’s bread flavored with drippings of information concerning the great poet and his times, he may conclude that baker’s bread with Dante sauce is more to him than homemade bread without it.

Or it may be that his doubt of the statement is due to the fact that his quota of life is below the average. Perhaps his wife goes off to her class and does not bring back to him the information and inspiration which she has received. If so, the trouble is not with the times, but with human nature. Selfishness always has existed and always will exist. If a man has a selfish wife, the only thing he can do to assure himself that men are really better off than they used to be is to look abroad and to see if, for every one like himself, there are not two others who are profiting by woman’s broadened life and who bring up the average of life for modern man above that of his middle-of-the-nineteenth-century brother.

To live, what is it? To be healthy, to enjoy the pleasures of the senses, to taste good tastes, to hear sweet sounds, to see beautiful sights, to learn, to do (if we object to the word “work” because it is sometimes applied to drudgery), and to love. The last is most important of all. It modifies all the rest, and they at times must be sacrificed to it. It is interpreted by all the rest, for only by knowing what we consider real life for ourselves can we know what our love should seek for others.

Taking the desire to love first, woman’s expanding life is making possible for man the expression of an ever better and higher form of affection. To see how this comes about, we must read the present in the light of the past.

There was a time when man’s work as well as woman’s was almost all directly connected with the home. He raised wheat, kept cows, pigs, and chickens, hewed timber, built his own house and barn, and gathered his own fuel, while she spun, dyed, wove, sewed, cooked, and cared for the house. Neither was then a specialist. Then came division of labor, which, however, affected man’s work more than woman’s. This made it possible for him to become a farmer, a carpenter, or a coal merchant, and to provide for the needs of his home by the fruits of his specialized labor instead of by direct labor, as he had done in earlier times. To woman there has never come any such privilege. Although her duties are much lightened, she must still be a housekeeper if she would be a home-maker.

One explanation that has been given for the differences in the courses that man’s and woman’s activities have taken is that woman is less progressive than man and more opposed to change. Another is that her work is so closely connected with personal needs and has associated with it so much of sentiment that it cannot be delegated to outsiders. Whatever the cause may be, the average married man’s work today has certain distinct advantages over the average married woman’s. It is more varied and more likely to call special talents into play, and it takes him out among people and gives him a broad outlook.

If we view the situation in a bargaining spirit, it may seem fair that when man earns the money woman should care for the house. If, however, we consider the amount of life that each is securing from work, the inequalities of the situation become apparent. There is always, to be sure, an occasional man who, recognizing the disabilities under which his wife labors, seeks to equalize matters by accepting a share in home responsibilities and work. The discovery of the necessity for such action, to which neither tradition nor custom points, is a mark of intelligence. The acceptance of the responsibility after it is recognized is the result of an unselfishness of the highest form, to which society does not direct him as it does to activities for the purpose of supporting the family, nor instinct prompt him as it does woman to her self-sacrifices in caring for the family. His recognition of the unequal distribution of life and his efforts at equalization are triumphs of wisdom and love over nature, tradition, and custom.

Unselfish man has in the past been woefully handicapped. Fifty years ago he could not have said to his wife, as he can now, “Do no cooking today, but buy some baked beans or boiled ham for supper and you go to the art exhibition.” Fifty years ago there was little object in trying to relieve his wife of her household cares, for then there was little else upon which she could profitably spend her time. Now, when he wishes to be unselfish, his opportunities for accomplishing something worth while thereby are great. Of course he is always encountering his wife’s desire to be unselfish also, and to stay at home and cook the food he likes and otherwise to provide for his comfort, but the two must settle that between themselves, with due regard on the part of each for preserving the proper balance in the life of the other. In this struggle the greater possibilities in the way of development and increase of life lie with man. To woman it is given to accept a self-sacrifice which nature has mapped out for her by specializing her for childbearing and which society has mapped out for her by specializing her for housekeeping. To man it is given to map out for himself a new path into unselfishness and to secure the expansion of powers that comes from pioneering.