CHAPTER III
THE MOTHER’S RELATION TO THE HOME
Husband and wife equal partners.—In the partnership of building a home, the wife is, in the truest and fullest sense, an equal partner with her husband. Equal rights and privileges should characterize their financial, social and moral relations. They are complements of each other. Neither is ever completed until the other half is found. They are essential to each other’s highest development. Neither can build a home without the other. Their relations to the home are of equal importance.
How they differ.—They differ in their functional relations to the building of a home. While their interests are mutual and their duties often overlap each other, yet they differ in some respects in their relations to the home. The husband is the producer; nature and God place on him the responsibility of feeding, clothing, sheltering and educating the family. The wife is the housekeeper; nature and God place on her the duty of motherhood and the love and care of children. Both husband and wife need special preparation before and after marriage for their respective relations to the home.
Marriage means motherhood.—Unless a woman loves little children and desires to teach and train boys and girls to become ideal men and women, she should not think of accepting a marriage proposition. Marriage is for the purpose of offspring. All girls should train and develop themselves with a view to the sacred functions of motherhood. Those who are mentally opposed to and physically incapable of motherhood should decline marriage. Such women can and should find some other occupation better fitted to their tastes, or physical condition, where they can be contented and help make the world better.
A farce.—In apartment houses, hotels and lodging places are to be found men and women living together under a form of legal matrimonial alliance, where the true idea of home is not contemplated, children are not wanted and no domestic happiness anticipated. These are human abodes, where the echo of birth is never heard; where the thrill of joy, caused by cooing babies, is never felt; and where conversation is never disturbed by romping children. This is a home only in name. This is a place of lodging where two miserable selfish beings are waiting for death to step in and end the farce.
A good substitute for a home.—I was once entertained in a home where the husband and wife had crossed over the half century line of life. During my first day in that home, every few hours, the husband or wife would bring in from two to six boys and girls introducing them to me as their boys and girls. When the number had run up in the neighborhood of twenty, that home got interesting. When I inquired how often they had been married and how many children they had, I was informed that they were only borrowing them from the neighbors. I never saw a home with a greater influence for good. Though childless, their home was a heaven; for the neighboring children resorted, played games, and received instructions of the highest order there. The children were trained to hunt up the old, the sick and the poor and to daily carry them flowers gathered from the yard and garden of this old couple. This was an ideal imitation of the real thing—a model home. I wish every childless home could be converted into such an ideal imitation, or a real home.
A good housekeeper.—One of the qualifications a wife should have is a reasonable practical knowledge of how to keep house. It may not be necessary for her to do all her house work, but she should understand how it should be done. A man has as much right to demand that his wife know how to wash clothes, bake bread, sweep a room, and make a bed, as she has to expect him to be industrious, know how to form or conduct his business or profession. She must know how to do these things in order to properly manage a well-ordered home.
She should know the value of a dollar.—The wife should know the value of a dollar and how to invest it in food, clothing and household comforts. To do this, she must make these things a study. Unreasonable extravagance of wives has caused many unhappy homes.
She should keep herself attractive.—She could never have won her husband had she not made herself attractive. Marriage does not lessen man’s interest in his wife’s attractiveness. The wise woman will not permit her husband to become ashamed of her.
She should be industrious.—A reasonable amount of physical exercise is just as essential to a woman’s health as it is for a man. The indolent wife who settles down in an easy chair and reads novels all day, satisfied with the fact that she is married and unconscious or indifferent to the fact that she must keep her husband’s respect, is likely to lose his respect and love.