XXXVII
WOMAN’S MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY
As a sex women are highly altruistic. There is scarcely a movement in the world for the uplift of humanity or for ameliorating the sorrows of the poor and helpless that does not owe its existence to women. It is women who support the orphan asylums, the homes for old men and women, the reformatories, the houses for the blind, the places of refuge where the man just out of prison can go and gather himself together before starting out on a better life. It is women who nurse in hospitals, and who carry on mainly the work of the Red Cross and the fight against the great White Plague. Joan of Arc is the great feminine heroine. The women that other women envy most are not the great beauties and sirens of history, or the famous actors and writers, but the Florence Nightingales and Frances Willards who have been able to do some great service to their fellow creatures. And deep down in her secret heart, if every woman was granted her one great wish, it would be to be able to help her day and generation to make others happier, and to perform some miracle that would make life easier for all who come after her.
Well, little as she realizes it, that power is possessed by every woman who has children. In her hands lies the remedy for the greatest sorrow that tears at the hearts of men and women. She can wipe away half of the tears of the world. She has the magic that can change innumerable lives from misery to joy. For the greatest trouble in the world is domestic trouble. The bitterest disappointment is a marriage that is a failure. There is no place of torment so hard to endure as a home of bickering and strife. No enemy can stab you to the heart as does a cold, selfish, unkind husband or wife.
It lies within the power of mothers to put an end to all this misery, to stop divorce and the breaking up of homes, and the orphaning of helpless little children. It is in their power to provide every man and woman with a good husband and wife, to make every home a prosperous and peaceful one, and to save other mothers from the agony of seeing their children mistreated by the men and women to whom they are married. There is no more appalling thought than that every woman could raise her children up to be good husbands and wives, and that she does not do it. On the contrary, nine times out of ten she brings up her sons and daughters to be exactly the kind of husbands and wives from whom she prays God on her knees to deliver her own precious darlings.
Most likely the woman is herself the victim of another woman’s cruelty. Her own marriage has been wretched because her husband’s mother never taught him to treat women with any courtesy, or consideration, or chivalry. He was never brought up to consider a woman’s feelings, or even to extend to her common justice. As a result, his wife has had to walk on eggs to keep from rousing a demoniacal temper. She has had to wait on him hand and foot. She has had to wheedle every penny out of him, and never since her wedding day has her husband made one move to entertain or amuse her, or done anything to make her happy.
It would seem that a woman who had been through the arid desert of such a marriage would save some other poor girl from such a fate by raising up her son to be a good husband. You would think that she would teach him what a terrible crime it is to take a woman’s life into his hands and break it; that she would teach him to be gentle and tender to his wife; that she would impress upon him that a woman earns her share of the family income, and that it should be given to her outright instead of being doled out as alms.
You would think that she would ground him, from his infancy up, in the knowledge of all the little things that make a marriage a failure or a success to a woman—the little attentions, the little treats, the word of praise, the compliment on a new dress or hat, the little things that make a woman’s heart sing with joy, and that makes marriage worth while to her. The great majority of women, however, never even so much as think of training their sons to be good husbands. Nor do they train their daughters to be good wives. Very few mothers would be willing to see their sons marry the kind of girls their daughters are.
Mother has raised her daughters up to be selfish and spoiled and lazy and extravagant, and she is ready to foist them without mercy on any poor young fellows who are taken with their pretty faces. But Heaven defend her own boys from marrying girls who have never considered any other human being in the world but themselves, and whose only law is their own pleasure! You even hear mothers boast that they have never taught their daughters how to cook, or sew, or keep house, yet the very foundation of domestic happiness and the prosperity of the family depend upon the wife being a thrifty manager and making a comfortable home.
Nor do women instil into their daughters’ minds the truth about marriage—that it is an obligation that they take upon themselves, and that they have no right to throw it up and quit because it is full of hardships and self-sacrifice instead of being the joy-ride they thought it would be. Neither do mothers pass on to their daughters their own hardly won knowledge of how to get along with a husband, how to bear with him and forbear, how to jolly him and handle him with tact and diplomacy, yet that precious bit of information would save many a marriage. Believe me that the most important question that any mother can ask herself is this: “Am I raising up my son and daughter to bless or curse the woman and man who marry them?”