It was the scene Mr. Kipling once reported:
“The man didn’t begin to be tame till he met the woman. She picked out a nice dry cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail down, across the opening of the cave; and she said: ‘Wipe your feet, dear, when you come in, and now we’ll keep house.’”
As we looked, we saw the man fit an arrow to his bow, take aim, and bring down a deer. He carried it to the cave. The woman rose to meet him, the mat in her hand. He pushed her away savagely, took the mat from her, and threw the deer on the ground. She picked herself up and began to skin the deer with a knife which she slipped from her belt. He lay down on the mat and went to sleep.
I heard my companion say: “I did all the housekeeping of that camp. It was woman’s work. But now——”
She waved her hand and restored the city to my gaze.
“Now, of this camp you are the real housekeeper. The arranging of it, the cleaning of it, the decorating of it, on the big scale, as a total, all masculine, all yours! How you have expanded your duties, you who were once just hunter and fighter, principally fighter! How your sphere is swollen! You do not realize it. You are familiar enough with the commonplace fact that most primitive industry in its origin owed little to you except (a big ‘except’) the protection of your sword against enemies. You 183 are familiar with the fact that the plaiting of mats and the tanning of hides and every other industrial feature of housekeeping has passed from my control to yours in precise proportion as it has ceased to be individual and has become collective. You dominate everything collective. You understand that. What you don’t understand is this:
“It is not only the industrial features of housekeeping which tend to become collective. It is also its administrative features. I will give you just one illustration. I cannot now keep my premises clean, beautiful, livable, except through the collective control of smoke, garbage, billboards, noise. And that control is yours.
“Further!
“Even the tenderer phases of housekeeping, those which are more subtle than mere administration, move steadily toward becoming yours. I will give you an illustration of that. The very children, now no longer always at their mothers’ knees, but spread abroad through school and park and playground and street and factory, are now much in your hands, for school 184 and park and playground and street and factory are essentially controlled by you. You are increasingly housekeeper, and even mother. You not only control Working. You also control Living. But who are you, you that now control Living? You are——”