Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-10-14
Husbands Must Not Stay At Home.
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/ so with the unemployed, such, for in
/ stance, as officers and business men who
have retired or who are out of harness for
short time. The spirit of mischief is
| never at a loss for a job for paterfamilias.
| If 1T catches him idling and lounging
about neither at work nor at play. 1t
stir up his bile and irritability, and in
cites him to the reform of domestic
abuses. 1t kindles his sanitary ardor, and
sends him poking and shifting about in
conveniently into all the old corners of
the establishments; or sets him about the
curtailment of housekeeping expenses
or the amendment of various anmethodi-
cal household procedures, all of which,
however, right and proper tend to dis
turb domestic peace and quietude, and
to make the women of the house devOutly
pray for the time when business shall call
the dlsturber away immediately after
| breakfast and keep him away till toward
evening. We have known clever men
who were always thinking of new theorie
and "fads" about the management of
children and other parts of family govern
ment. Such men torment their wives and
in lure the health of their children when
they allow their theories to interfere with
common sense and practical experience.
The following case will illustrate what is
meant: A certain family had the young
est members i'll with measles. The time
was winter, and, among his other pre-
scrlptiOns for their benefit, the doctor
ordered that the room in which the
patients were should be kept free from
draughts of cold air. Everything went
on comfortable and all were convalescent
but the two youngest, one about 3 years
of age and the other 10 months.
To them their father came one day
in January; the temperature was
higher than usual he wore a great
coat, and had walked fast, about
mile up hill at noon under
winter sun. He was warm,
and when he entered the sick-chamber he
found it sitting. Being a bu5tling sort
OF man, and very OpiniOnated, he
ordered the children and their nurse to
leave the 'Stif1ing chamber, where none
but salamanders could live, and go into
another room, where the air was pure,
and sweet, aud COOL" "Reminiscences
were in vain, and the poor patients were
packed off to an unaired bedroom. With
IN one hour the youngest child was af-
fected with Group, and in a few more
the second became equally i'll. Both
died within three days victims to pedan-
try and obstinacy would probably never
have had such fatal results if the father
had not been idling at home.
A man can never pull with his wife I'M
til he learns not to interfere with what
does not concern him. He who can trust
his wife should no more NEEDLE with her
home concerns than she should poster
him with quentions about his business.
There will be no peace if he poke over
the weekly bills, insist upon knowing how
much each thing is per pound, and what
he is going to have every day for dinner.
1t is, indeed, almost a sine quamOn of
domestic felicity that paterfamilias
should be absent from home at least six
hours in the day. Jones asked his wife:
"Why is husband like dough?" He ex-
pected she would give it up, and he was
| going to tell her that it was because a
woman needs him; but she said it was
because he was hard to get off her
! hands.
| Ofcourse, like every other good rule,
this one of non-intervention may be car
ried too far, as it was by the studious
man who said, when a servant told him
his house was on fire: 600 to your mis-
tress; you know [ have no charge Of
household matters" No doubt occasions
will arise when husband will be only too
glad to take counsel with his wife in bust
ness cares; while she may have to re-
member all her life long with gratitude
and love, some season of sickness or af-
Fiction when he filed his own place and
hers too, ashamed of no womanish task,
and neither irritated Or Fhumiliated by
ever such trivial household affairs.
A lady very much given to gadding was
suddenly taken i'll at home one day and
sent her husband in great haste for the
doctor. The obedient man ran part OF
the way, then returned to put this impor-
tant query: "My dear, where shall I find
you when get back?" We have no sym
pathy for women like this who are never
sat home" except on their invitation
cards, nevertheless we cannot but see
that if husbands need vacations so do
wives. We do not agree with the old
writer who said that woman should
only leave home three times in
her life-tO be christened, married, and
buried. Doctors tell US that more women
break down mentally than men, and they
also tell US that this is because they have
more cares to carry, and have to carry
them continuously. When a mans work
NNO~AS 1OSh
put the key in his pocket But wife
never locks her wolk up till sleep comes,
and turns the key upon it. Her work is
never done, and if she does not want an
occasional holiday, who does? And she
can not get it at home. The more quiet
and restful the home is to her family,
the more evidence that it is care, if not
burden, to her. A housekeeper can no
more take a vacation in her home than a
merchant in his counting room or prime
minister in his council chamber. Hus-
bands, then should occasionally try and
induce their wives (if they are good ones
it will not be easily done) to take short
holiday away from home, where they can
have the luxury of not knowing what is
Tor dinner before they see it, and go to
sleep without listening with one ear for
the cry of the children.
Without going so far as LacOrdaire,
who III his letter to young people fixes the
age of as the period for weaving a boy
from the delights of home life, we still
think with him that time does come
when he does prosecute his studies and
meet the trials of life away from home.