But during all this period of preparation we should never forget that, as Madame Gnauck-Kühne so admirably points out, "women's work has to a large extent an episodic character."[39] All women confront romantic love, marriage and children; and any woman who misses them misses the crowning joy and glory of her life. Vicarious realization may save the soul, but it can never fill the place of reality. The man fronts these same experiences, but they are not related to his work as they are related to the work of women. Surely there can be no doubt that the ideal solution, in this period, is a man and woman so deeply bound together by love that there is no question of self-protection, either in terms of work or money; and the man being freed from the burdens of maternity, should mainly earn the income. We shall discuss the new type of home and family in a later chapter, but in any home where there are children there is need of an intelligent mother's very constant care.
[39] Madame Gnauck Kühne, Die Deutsche Frau.
If a happy home were the universal destiny of women, our problem would be greatly simplified; but this is far from being the case. Not more than one-half of all women over fifteen are married at any one moment. From the ages of twenty to thirty-five, one-half are married; but it is only from thirty-five to fifty-five that as many as three-fourths are married; over fifty-five there are less than one-half married, and most of the others are widows.[40] Most of these women who are not married must work outside the home, and no girl, rich or poor, should be allowed to reach maturity without being prepared to face this possibility. Work is not a curse but a blessing; it is an indispensable part of every well-ordered life; and without it, the individual and the group will certainly degenerate. Rich and foolish parents, who cannot realize this basal fact, should nevertheless see that, even as insurance, their daughters must be able to pay their way in life, if need comes, without selling themselves either in marriage or out. Even if the woman marries happily, she is never sure that she may not some day have to face self-support, and possibly for more mouths than her own.
[40] B.L. Hutchins, Woman's Industrial Career in The Sociological Review, October, 1909.
But the woman who marries during her adolescent period, between the ages of twenty-five and fifty, must also work, and here we meet the hardest problem of all. More money is often needed than the man can earn; the wife may bring an industrial or professional equipment which is too valuable to discard; often the demands of the home, especially where there are no children, do not call forth the best energies of the woman, and she needs the larger life of outside work. Hence many married women must continue to work away from the home. In any of these cases, the problem is difficult. Bearing and rearing a child should retire a mother from fixed outside occupation for at least a year. Arguments born out of conflict cannot change this primitive fact.[41] Women should not do shop or factory work during the last months of pregnancy, and babies should be nursed from seven to nine months. A baby should be nursed for twenty minutes, every two or three hours of its waking time; and since it does not always waken regularly, the nursing mother is debarred from most continuous work, even if it does not interfere with her effectiveness as a milk producer.
[41] Dr. Ethel Vaughan-Sawyer, speaking before the Fabian Women's Group, in 1910, said: "Fortunately, after the first two or three months, most children will thrive equally well when artificially fed, so long as the milk is good and reliable, and is properly prepared." All of our facts go to disprove this statement.
The question of maternal care for children after they are weaned is more difficult to settle, but notwithstanding certain statistics gathered in Birmingham,[42] in February, 1910, which showed that the infant mortality among working mothers was one hundred and ninety per thousand, while, among those not industrially employed, it was two hundred and seventy per thousand, it seems sure that infant mortality is extremely high in foundling asylums and in factory homes. In Fall River, where out of every one hundred women, forty-five are at work outside the home, three hundred and five babies, out of every one thousand born, die before they are a year old; while even in New York City, but one hundred and eighty-nine out of a thousand die. The natural location of Fall River should make it a very healthy city. One remembers, too, the classic statement that deaths among little children fell off steadily in Paris during the siege of 1870. Little children seem better off even in time of war, with the mothers at home, than in time of peace with their mothers in the factory.
[42] Pamphlet entitled Report on Industrial Employment of Married Women and Infant Mortality, signed by Dr. John Robertson, the Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.
A few years ago, we turned to sanitary day nurseries, and to pasteurized milk and other prepared baby foods, as the solution for neglected or unhygienic feeding. To-day we know that even a dirty and ill-conditioned mother secretes better milk for her baby than can be prepared in any laboratory. We must wash the mother and feed her the milk, and then let her give it to her baby, instinct with her own life. It is quite possible that our recent talk of ignorant mother love and of the necessary substitution of sanitary nurseries, canned care and pre-digested affection must all go the same way. We shall probably get our best results by cleaning up the home, enlightening the mother, and then letting her love her child into the full possession of its human qualities.
Economically, too, at least with factory workers, it is questionable if their wages will support sanitary day-nurseries, with intelligent nurses for small groups of children, and at the same time pay some one to cook and scrub at home. If the mother must still cook and care for her house, in addition to her factory work, the burden is too great; and if money for nurses must come from the state, or from charity, then we all know the danger of such subsidies to industry, in its effect on wages.