A second result of investigation and discussion must be the working out of ways and means for taking both work and worker out of the house of the employer. This must result in a simplification of household management and a greater flexibility in household employments. It simplifies the household because it takes out of it a cumbersome, unwieldy machine long since become antiquated. It is possible to arrange a series of mechanical contrivances operated by electricity that will enable a person to open any window or door in his house without rising from his chair, but it is as a rule easier to open a window without such assistance than it is to keep the batteries in running order. A retinue of employees in a household becomes like a complicated mechanism used to attain simple ends. Taking the employee out of the house of the employer brings flexibility into household employments, since it results in greater personal independence and in openings for specialized work. An ambitious and energetic office boy is pushed on by his employer into more responsible positions, but the domestic employee is held back by impassable barriers. Industrial promotion is impossible as the occupation at present exists. “I suppose there must be a screw loose somewhere, or a man of his age would not be my coachman,” said a lawyer recently in reply to a question concerning a new employee. The industrial barriers within the occupation must be removed before domestic service will attract large numbers of capable, efficient persons; this can be at least partially accomplished by taking the employee out of the house and allowing him or her to become a self-reliant, independent, business person.
Another direction in which progress lies is in the effort to put the employment on a business basis. This must be accomplished if any improvement is to come. No man takes his watch to a blacksmith to be repaired, or employs a mason as bookkeeper, or a longshoreman as superintendent of a mill, or a hod-carrier as floor-walker, yet practically the same thing is done when a housekeeper employs an inexperienced young woman as seamstress, installs a girl just from Ireland as cook, takes a tenement-house woman into her home to care for her table linen and bric-à-brac, and then adds to the incongruity of the situation by paying high wages for this unskilled labor. Some agreement must be reached by employers in regard to standards of work and wages before domestic service can be classed as skilled labor.[331]
The suggestion of profit sharing is in line with the effort to put the occupation on a business basis. Only where there is absolute equality, when employer and employee stand on the same business level, can amiability of manner and a spirit of helpfulness on the part of the employee be prevented from being interpreted as springing from a desire to curry favor with the employer. Not until the domestic employee feels he has no reason to court the favor of his employer for the sake of possible perquisites will he be self-respecting, and therefore entitled to respect from others. The practice in many private houses of subsidizing employees by numerous and valuable gifts is as subversive of the best interests of all concerned, as is the giving of fees in large establishments. It fosters subserviency rather than responsibility, and creates dissatisfaction among the employees in families where the custom does not and perhaps cannot prevail. Profit sharing appeals not to selfishness but to intelligence, and has in it elements that tend to make the employee a self-respecting and therefore a better man.
Improvement in all these directions, or in other ways far better, can come only through the investigation of all household affairs by both men and women. Travellers in other countries often lament the sight, still so common in some places, of a woman harnessed to a cart with a dog, or dragging the cart by her own efforts, or weighed down by the heavy burdens placed upon her back. But a more unfortunate condition in such countries than the woman harnessed to a cart is the fact that wherever this is found the highest opportunities for education are not open to women. The woman and the cart will remain in every country where university education is not made possible for her. Until university investigation of domestic affairs is made possible for every one having the proper qualifications, the woman and the cart—the overburdened, ignorant, and hopeless worker—will remain in the household.
If progress is to be made in the same direction that it has been up to this time, it must bring a still further readjustment of the work of both men and women. It must result in attracting every man and woman to the work for which he or she is best fitted. Just as other forms of work once held in low estimation have been elevated by scientific advancement, so the time will come when it will be honorable to do housework of any kind for remuneration. A woman with no talent for art has been known after four lessons in oil painting to offer for sale the products of her work without blushing for her audacity or incompetence. But though ignorant of art, she may have been competent in cooking, and if the way had been open to gain an honorable support by the exercise of this talent, she might have been saved the attempt to secure a living by means from which nothing but failure ought to result. The mistress of a large and costly establishment said recently, “One of the most difficult things about housekeeping is to dispose of old fancy work.” Much of this work represents idle labor in boarding houses, done by women in various walks of life who will not keep house under present conditions, but who would be glad to do so if the conditions could be made more favorable.
It is in many ways difficult to deal with woman as an economic factor, since many elements of uncertainty enter into her life which do not hamper men. A young man is reasonably sure of two things in his future life,—that he will have to support himself and that he will marry. But many young women are not certain of either marriage or the necessity of self-support. If a young woman marries, she is not permitted by the conventions of society to be a breadwinner; on the other hand, she may she may obliged, without preparation for it, to provide support, not only for herself but also for her family. If she marries and boards, she probably finds herself obliged to become a drone, and leads an aimless life. If, without deference to convention, she engages in business, her occupation may be broken up through the removal of her husband’s business to another locality. For economic reasons it is impracticable for the married woman to engage in any industry involving the use of capital that cannot be readily transferred, unless this business is the same as that of her husband, or unless she bears the entire burden of support and has unrestricted control of the business enterprises of the family. A thorough knowledge of some one line of domestic work which would yield compensation would often lessen many of the perplexities surrounding a married woman. Moreover, it seems not unreasonable to consider marriage on its practical side as a business partnership to which the woman as well as the man is to contribute. If she contributes a practical knowledge of housekeeping, the business agreement is a fair one; if she does not contribute this knowledge, but brings a knowledge of other things as valuable, it is also a fair arrangement; but if she brings no knowledge of household affairs, and no equivalent for it, the partnership on its business side is unfair. There should be a definite understanding when a woman marries whether she is to keep house or not, and if so, that she knows how. The time ought to come when, in case she marries and boards, she will be willing and able, and society will allow her, to contribute her share in a business capacity to the life partnership.
Thousands of ambitious and talented women in the upper and middle classes are crying for work, as women in a lower walk cry for bread. It is impossible for society to maintain the former in idleness and at the same time to pay full wages for work to the army of working women. The pay of wage-earning women will never rise above the starvation point while the women of the upper and middle classes are permitted to live without work. The boycotting of dealers in ready-made clothing whose names are not on the “white list” is but a sop thrown to Cerberus,—until the cause of the evil is removed, until women now living in idleness become co-operators in the work of the world, all women who work for remuneration must do their share of the work for half-pay. Women want work for all the reasons that men want it, but as long as so many of them, when they do work, persistently give their work for nothing, just so long will women’s work in general be undervalued.
This readjustment of work and the willingness of larger numbers of women to work for remuneration would be as productive of improvement in all household affairs as division of labor has been elsewhere. A more far-reaching benefit is suggested by Maria Mitchell when she says: “The dressmaker should no more be a universal character than the carpenter. Suppose every man should feel it his duty to do his own mechanical work and all kinds, would society be benefited? would the work be well done? Yet a woman is expected to know how to do all kinds of sewing, all kinds of cooking, all kinds of any woman’s work, and the consequence is that life is passed in learning these only, while the universe of truth beyond remains unentered.”[332]
In seeking for some measure of relief from the present oppressive conditions, it must be said in conclusion that little can be accomplished except through the use of means which already exist, developing these along lines marked out by industrial progress in other fields. In the foregoing suggestions,—that the historical study of the subject points to relief through the removal of the social stigma; that the specialization of household employments in consequence of the removal of as much work as possible and the removal of the domestic employee as well from the home of the employer leads to a simpler and better manner of life for both employer and employee; that the introduction of profit sharing is one means of placing household employments on a business basis; that the establishment in connection with one of our great universities of a school of investigation open only to graduates of the leading reputable colleges is the only opportunity for the scientific advancement of the household and all questions connected with it; and that together with the last, a recognition of the necessity for the readjustment of the work of both men and women must result in making any form of housework for remuneration honorable for any person, man or woman,—in these suggestions nothing either novel or original has been presented. Progress has been made through such means; it seems not unreasonable to believe that further progress will be made through their use.