One cheerful home will radiate, will send out into the world, certain definite, concrete influences which will encourage and stimulate, and strengthen and give new hope to every living thing it reaches. The atmosphere of cheerfulness will exert a specific influence upon every disposition within its zone. The children of a cheerful mother and home will radiate happiness, contentment and love. The husband of a cheerful wife will carry into life's struggle a more just, a more equitable, a more humanizing influence as a direct, concrete result of that cheerfulness, and who can tell into how many other homes the spirit of cheerfulness will be carried as a consequence of the justice, and equity, and charity of that husband and father? To return after a day's work and worry to a fireside, to a home, in which cheerfulness is the radiating element is to inspire contentment and peace and thankfulness. Out of the joy of thankfulness, out of the satisfaction of peace, and the fulness of contentment, the kingdom of Heaven is born, and when human hearts feel like this they are living near the borderland of great possibilities. The cheerful wife and mother needs little advice. She does, however, need our love and the knowledge that we are true to ourselves and that we are fighting an honest fight. She will be happy in that knowledge.
The Indifferent Wife and Mother.—The home over which an indifferent wife and mother presides is a "happy-go-lucky" home. There is something radically wrong in the make-up of a woman who is wife and mother and who is indifferent. It is not a natural condition, and it is frequently a product of simple ignorance. Such a woman may be exceedingly amiable and charitable; she may take an active interest in church and social affairs, and may be regarded as a kind and model housewife. Her interests are outside the home, however, and since the home is a place of apathy and indifference she feels she must "keep busy" elsewhere. She is out of touch with her husband and his affairs, and the children "get along somehow." If they come in for meals and report for bed that is all "any one can expect." There is seldom any acute friction, because every one is indifferent and selfishly attends to his own affairs.
Such a home is devoid of the domestic atmosphere. The mother touch is lacking: sentiment and love have long ago taken wings: the temperature of the place is cold and forbidding. The children "exist" and may be healthy animals, but their souls are empty and there is no comradeship or affection in their make-up. They do not know what human sympathy means, and they either grow into successful machines, or indifferent citizens. As human beings they are failures. It would be astonishing to know how many of this type of mother and wife the present strenuous age is producing. They are certainly on the increase, and the unrest, which is a growing characteristic of the sex, is tending to still further increase this type of womanhood. The mother element is being subverted and in its place we find "Justice" with her scales, but with a marble heart.
These women do not realize that the citadel of motherhood is a sacred, holy citadel, and that its responsibilities cannot be met by a negative allegiance. A child's character, its training, its physical equipment, its mental development, its body and soul, its heredity and acquired instincts, its virtues and its vices, its environment, are all mothers' cares, mothers' duties, mothers' responsibilities, and if they are neglected part of the eternal scheme is frustrated and recompense will be exacted. When a woman marries she assumes responsibilities which she cannot and dare not neglect. If she does, she will have to give an accounting of her stewardship.
The indifferent mother and wife does not fit. She is incompetent, she is one of nature's sarcasms. She is a mistake as a wife, as a mother, and as a member of society. She is not sincere or she would not be guilty of such fundamental injustice. As a human being she is a parasite, and in the Master's vineyard she is a weed.
Husband and Home.—As sponsor for the welfare and efficiency of the family and the home, the wife and mother should occasionally give some thought to the husband and father.
William Muldoon, one of the greatest physical efficiency experts in this or any other country, who has intimately known hundreds of our great men in every walk of life, recently stated that American men to-day do not appear to have the same amount of physical endurance and nervous energy that men of forty years ago possessed. In other words, as a race we are degenerating. In his opinion the condition is due to the fact that commercialism has taken such a firm hold upon the American people that everything else is cast aside to make a success in business or profession.
This is a serious indictment coming from such a source and should be of intense interest to the wife and mother of to-day.
The over-worked business man, when he gets into the hands of the physician, is a neurasthenic. He has gone just as far as his vitality will take him. His mind is fagged and worn out and will not concentrate. He is nervous, irritable, and wretched. His appetite is capricious, and he sleeps fitfully. For a few days he pulls himself together and plunges into work, but the effort exhausts him and he falls back further than before. He is unhappy and despondent, his viewpoint changes and the future looks uninviting and he loses his courage and his faith in himself. He hides all this from his family, he does not want wife and children to know that he is losing his hold. He even makes desperate efforts to keep fit while at home, and for a time he succeeds.
All this has been brought about by tremendous concentration of effort to do ten times as much work as he should do, and it has all been done in order to acquire riches and independence, not so much for his own sake as for his family's sake.