The home: its work and influence

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In broad analysis, we find in the representative homes of to-day a condition of unrest. The man is best able to support it because he is least in it; he is part and parcel of the organised industries of the world, he has his own special business to run on its own lines; and he, with his larger life-basis, can better bear the pressure of house-worries. The wife is cautioned by domestic moralists not to annoy her husband with her little difficulties; but in the major part of them, the economic difficulties, she must consult him, because he pays the bills.

When a satisfactory Chinaman is running a household; when the money is paid, the care deputed, the whole thing done as by clock-work, this phase of home unrest is removed; but the families so provided for are few. In most cases the business of running a home is a source of constant friction and nervous as well as financial waste.

Quite beyond this business side come the conditions of home life, the real conditions, as affecting the lives of the inmates. With great wealth, and a highly cultivated taste, we find the members of the family lodged in as much privacy and freedom as possible in a home, and agreeing to disagree where they are not in accord. With great love and highly cultivated courtesy and wisdom, we find the members of the family getting on happily together, even in a physically restricted home. But in the average home, occupied by average people, we find the members of the family jarring upon one another in varying degree.

That harmony, peace, and love which we attribute to home life is not as common as our fond belief would maintain. The husband, as we have seen, finds his chief base outside, and bears up with greater or less success against the demands and anxieties of the home. The wife, more closely bound, breaks down in health with increasing frequency. The effect of home life on women seems to be more injurious in proportion to their social development. Our so-called "society" is one outlet, though not a healthful one, through which the woman seeks to find recreation, change, and stimulus to enable her to bear up against a too continuous home life.

The young man at home is almost a negligible factor—he does not stay in it any more than he can help. The young woman at home finds her growing individuality an increasing disadvantage, and many times makes a too hasty marriage because she is not happy at home—in order to have "a home of her own," where she still piously believes all will be well.

The child at home has no knowledge of any other and better environment wherewith to compare this. He accepts his home as the unavoidable base of all things—he cannot think of life with a different home. But the eagerness with which he hails any proposition that takes him out of it, his passionate hunger for change, for novelty; the fever which most boys have for "running away"; the eager, intense interest in stories of anything and everything as far removed from home life as possible; the dreary ennui of the child who is punished by being kept at home—or who has to stay there continuously for any reason—standing at the window which can give sight of the world outside and longing for something to happen—all this goes to indicate that home life does not satisfy the child. There was a time when it did, when it satisfied every member of the family; but that was under far more primitive conditions.

The home has not developed in the same ratio as its occupants. The people of to-day are not content in the homes of a thousand years before yesterday. Our present home conditions are being changed—very gradually, owing to the stiffness of the material, but are slowly changing before our eyes. As a matter of fact, we are ready—more than ready—for the homes of the future; as a matter of feeling, we are clinging with all our might to the homes of the past; and, in their present conditions, our homes are not by any means those centres of rest, peace, and satisfaction we are so religiously taught to think them.

Suppose for an instant that they were. Suppose the trouble, the weariness, the danger and evils of outside life were all laid aside the moment we entered the home. There all was well. No financial trouble. No industrial trouble. No physical trouble. No mental trouble. No moral trouble. Just a place where everything ran on wheels; and where the world-worn soul could count on peace and refreshment.

Vain supposition! Whatever the financial troubles of the world, the place where they are felt most is in the home. Here is where the money is spent, and most wastefully misspent as we shall see later. Here is where there is never enough, where the demand continually exceeds the supply.

As to industrial trouble, the labour question is a large one everywhere. The introduction of machinery has brought its train of needless disadvantages as well as its essential advantages. There are dishonesty and inefficiency to meet and cope with. But compare the conversation of a hundred business men with that of a hundred housekeeping women, and learn respect for the magnitude of the industrial troubles of the home.