At any rate I advised separation for a time,—six months at least. I told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She answered that she knew this but could not conceive of any change. We discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The outlook is therefore a poor one.
Case VI. The over-conscientious housewife,—the seeker of perfection.
The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New England stock, i.e. the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily radical, has this prevailing trait,—standards of right and wrong are set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal.
This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years of age, with three children, was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any importance—yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one."
Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc.
She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her husband, with garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude she completely rejected.
It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,—from the beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless all the time; she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for it.
"She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes after them picking up and cleaning."
This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime.
Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their quest for experiment,—and they learn thereby. Not every mickle grows into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits.
So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show.
It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic.
In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and to such advice as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", "extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her home.
This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an over-zealous conscience.
Case VII. The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability.
In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the trousers" themselves.
Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, had excellent health before marriage. Her family, originally poor, had been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an executive in a department store.
Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law.
In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend involuntarily to arouse.
With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and fatigue.
The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime essential to cure in such cases,—an ignorant or unintelligent woman with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism and hostility.
Case VII. The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law.
That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted financial success, settling down may be possible, but is much more difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,—and she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of doubt and rebellion.
Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did and was treated with deference by the entire organization.
She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and mother.
Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her home with the son for some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and daughter-in-law live together.
The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger woman. There was enough to find fault with, since the wife was absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. Further, the distracted husband, in his rôles of husband and son, found himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she expressed it.
Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that attends it. No outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied on.
The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the symptoms were headache, sleeplessness, etc., for which the neurologist was consulted.
How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law vs. daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a son's wife.
This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an unconsciously humorous compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no children.
Case VIII. The childless, neglected woman.
It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and sleeplessness.
The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental disease in her family. She married a man of twenty-four, who had also been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end of his long day and the pair were quite happy.
At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the course of the next three years underwent three operations with no result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing cards,—in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife.
The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, gifts, etc., for a week or so,—and then backsliding. Finally even the brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them both.
The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun other women and their company, the fear that her husband was unfaithful (which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium.
This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery.
Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one constant attraction,—Chance.
The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was fortunate enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was impossible in her lonely home.
Case IX. The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the home.
This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at first in many cases of conflict between man and wife.
The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm and was a mechanic in a small city.
The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", i.e. to displease her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased when she married off their hands and left the home.
Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit.
They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,—she became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will he would go with her to her friends.
Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he set his will firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill.
The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech.
When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will was thwarted, and that part of their function was to bring the man to his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come any more to see me,—a not unnatural reaction.
The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and discomfort of others.
Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly from her disposition and not from the kitchen.
Case X. The unfaithful husband.
Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the keener.
The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples do", were as much in love "as other couples are", to use her phrases. She was above her class in education, read what are usually called advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman.
Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate reason for living and became a helpless prey to her troubled mind. "A temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for.
Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression remained.
Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never trust him again; I would die before I lived with him."
Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of life is to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of memories.
With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part of the recovery process.
I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had acted the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong.
Case XI. The unfaithful wife.
In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the present-day code of morals. This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a doctor."
A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the conflicts of health and ethics.
Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, of Swiss parentage.
Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, settled life, got on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married except"—Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but romantically so, not realistic.
There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a philosophy of life that justifies them.
Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these men found his way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought about a profound neurasthenia.
Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her unfaithfulness,—largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was evident to me that something was obsessing her.
When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the result to him, for she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to confession.
As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was that of an essentially moral person; that an essentially immoral woman would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget her pain.
It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires heroic measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to extremes.
The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of nutrition.
No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where division of opinion will occur. A transition from long skirts to dress that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in over tight short skirts.
Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it.
Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, art, and stage,—it unfits people for sex reality.
In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the household, and the man less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of divorce records.
That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book.
Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the engaged." The freedom of the engaged couple is part of the emancipation of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family friend, or the family physician.
Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be obviated if wisdom and experience instructed the husband and wife in the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist.
It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the taking of medicine.
Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable.
It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, and the major diseases,—these must be remembered as factors that may determine nervousness.
With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as tact, are the essentials.
It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich woman may have settled down to a deënergizing life, with too much time in bed, too many matinées, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, the whole structure of misery may rest.
I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic remedies,—a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists had failed.
So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its significance and importance.
An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through irritability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with others who are in most ways perfectly normal.
Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life.
If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women down does not prove that they do not break some women down, women with finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for its victims.
What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found.
One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. But unfortunately the consulting room for the poor is in the crowded clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to give the time and energy necessary?
For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself gives out.
In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a temperament to a situation.
Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only in the very largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much as one may expect.
But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis.
If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, they seek counsel as well as treatment.
It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the personal efforts to change.
A new philosophy of life must be presented. Less fussiness, less fear, more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,—old-fashioned words, but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding.
If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity with those of more means and ability.
Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the coöperation of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he is anxious enough to help cure her.
Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide.
Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband deënergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,—a highly strung, very efficient self.
In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the individual woman and then the painstaking adjustment of that individual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the housewife to the life situation.
In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a disguised way of naming their desire.
One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,—these are the hopeless situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt to be the scold and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another story.
At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of feeling, that the major duties were of less importance.
On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the devotion of the husband is the woman's anchor to windward, her grip on safety,—that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling off of the lover's spirit and feeling.
After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she fears the rivalry of business,—and with reason. So she craves attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to work marries a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of justice and the race.
In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and efficiency.
No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to reproach or mock him.
Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful reformations and progressive ages.
Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who work will be specialized and individualized—- the woman executive, the writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and sociologist—will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might.
Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their sex. Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of the children they might have had no one can say.
But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually.
So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will increase rather than diminish, and it must be faced without prejudice and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or doing.
Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as fact,—the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there seems little to do but accept the situation.
That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all classes in society except the feeble-minded are learning the procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility artificially.
What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women to-day?
It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great advantage,—the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social structure and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded mother can bring.
Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by divorce,—rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some States.
Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply encourages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty.
Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the rôles of mother and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and special education, and she will continue to find the rôle of the traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis.
In other words what we must seek to do—those of us who are not bound by tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings rather than the reverse—is to find out what changes in the home and matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and to-morrow.
That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was eliminated, in a sense was coöperative. This coöperation is increasing; more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible.
Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched in the Introduction.
The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged.
Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects.
On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking and feeding to break from.
Take as one minor example the gorging encouraged on Sunday and certain holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, Christmas,—the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer.
While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service.
There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak too much in generalities—the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, Mankind—forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and having only one thing in common,—that they are segregated social units, based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who knows shakes hands with individuals."
In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as possible conventional morals and manners. Such persons have simply overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their teaching by building counter-prejudices.
Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the poor fellows in the blizzard.
Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that break away from home and home ties who do the great things.
When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are born in the home.
It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height.
That courtesy to each other might be taught the children, might be insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example.
Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of treatment,—so in society at large.
Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger coöperation, at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as coöperative stores are springing up, so coöperative kitchens, community kitchens organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the housewife in most need,—the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would disappear in a generation.