| Per cent working | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Ten hours | 37.66 | 40.79 |
| Less than ten hours | 25.88 | 20.24 |
| More than ten hours | 86.96 | 38.97 |
Many of these differences are inherent in the composition of the family, and can never be removed; many of them are accidental and their number could be lessened were employers so inclined; many of them grow out of necessarily differing standards of living. This is seen where one family of ten employs one general servant and another family of ten employs eleven servants; one family of four employs nine servants, while seventy-eight other families of the same size each employ only one servant; one family of eight has sixteen servants, while each one of eight other families consisting of eight persons employs one servant; twenty-three families numbering seven each have one general servant, while another family of seven has thirteen employees; in another instance, three employees serve a family of one. These contrasts could be multiplied indefinitely. They simply indicate in one way the hopeless confusion that must exist at present in the matter of hours of service required. The irregularities in even a well-regulated family are always great. Many of these are apparently necessary, and the employee must expect to meet them—they are often not so great as those that perplex the mistress of the house in her share of the household duties, but the fact cannot be ignored that they exist and have weight. The one afternoon each week with generally one or more evenings after work is done is not sufficient compensation.[261] It is the irregularity in the distribution of working time rather than the amount of time demanded that causes dissatisfaction on the part of employees. No complaint is more often made than this, and the results of the investigation seem to justify the complaint. To a young woman therefore seeking employment the question of working hours assumes the aspect of a lottery—she may draw a prize of seven working hours or she may draw a blank of fourteen working hours; she cannot be blamed for making definite inquiries of a prospective employer regarding the size of the family and the number of other servants employed.
A sixth disadvantage closely connected with the preceding is the matter of free time evenings and Sundays. This objection to housework is frequently made;[262] it is one that can never be wholly obviated, since the household machinery cannot stop at six o’clock and must be kept in order seven days in the week, but were society so inclined the objection could be lessened.
A seventh difficulty is presented to the American born girl when she realizes that she must come into competition with the foreign born and colored element.[263] Although much of this feeling is undoubtedly unreasonable, it is not peculiar to domestic service. The fact must be accepted, with or without excuse for it.
Another disadvantage that weighs with many is the feeling that in other occupations there is more personal independence. This includes not only the matter of time evenings and Sundays, which they can seldom call unconditionally their own, but there is a dislike of interference on the part of the employer, either with their work or with their personal habits and tastes. This interference is often hard to bear when the employer is an experienced housekeeper—it is intolerable in the case of an inexperienced one. The “boss” carpenter who himself knew nothing about the carpenter’s trade would soon have all his workmen arrayed against him; in every occupation an employee is unwilling to be directed except by his superior in knowledge and ability.[264] It seems unreasonable to expect domestic service to be an exception to this universal rule. But even experienced housekeepers often do not realize how difficult it is for one person to work in the harness of another, and by insisting on having work done in their own way, even by competent servants, they sometimes unconsciously hinder the accomplishment of their own ends.[265] There is also connected with this the preference for serving a company or a corporation rather than a private individual. It is hard to explain this feeling except on general grounds of prejudice, but the belief undoubtedly exists that there is more personal independence connected with work in a large establishment than there in serving an individual. There is often a similar feeling of independence in working in families employing a large number of servants, or in those occupying a high station in life.[266]
The industrial disadvantages of the occupation are best summed up by a young factory operative who was for a time in domestic service. In answer to the question, “Why do girls dislike domestic service?” she writes:
“In the first place, I don’t like the idea of only one evening a week and every other Sunday. I like to feel that I have just so many hours’ work to do and do them, and come home and dress up and go out or sit down and sew if I feel like it, and when a girl is in service she has very little time for herself, she is a servant. In the second place, a shop or factory girl knows just what she has to do and can go ahead and do it. I also think going out makes a girl stupid in time. She gets out of style, so to speak. She never reads and does not know what is going on in the world. I don’t mean to say they all get stupid, but it makes gossips of girls that if they worked in shops or factories would be smart girls. Then I think shop or factory girls make the best wives. Now I don’t mean all, but the biggest part of them, and the cleanest housekeepers. The domestic after she gets married gets careless. She don’t take the pride in her home that the shop-girl does. She has lived in such fine houses that her small tenement has no beauty for her after the first glow of married life is over. She don’t try either to make her home attractive or herself, and gets discouraged, and is apt to make a man disheartened with her, and then I think she is extravagant. She has so much to do with before she is married and so little to do with after she don’t know how to manage. She can’t have tenderloin steak for her breakfast and rump roast for her dinner, and pay the rent and all other bills out of $12 a week—and that is the average man’s pay, the kind of man we girls that work for a living get. Of course I don’t mean to say the domestics don’t have a good time, they do; some of them have lovely places and lay up money, but after all, what is life if a body is always trying to see just how much money he or she can save?”
The industrial disadvantages of the occupation certainly are many, including as they do the lack of all opportunity for promotion, the great amount of mere mechanical repetition involved, the lack of organization in the service, irregularity in working hours, the limitation of free time evenings and Sundays, competition with the foreign born and the negro element that seems objectionable to the American born, and the interference with work often by those less skilled than the workers themselves. The industrial disadvantages, however, form but one class of the two that weigh most seriously against the occupation. The social disadvantages will be discussed in the following chapter.