Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-02-09
IS HOUSEKEEPING A FAILURE?

@--
IS HOUSEKEEPING A FAILUREl
In the North -Ameyican Reriev for the
month, Shirley Dare, Rose Terry Cooke
Marion Harland, Catherine Owen and
Maria Parlea write upon the question,
"Is Housekeeping Failure?" Shirley
Dare answers "yes, and no." that is, if ex-
aggerated expense is to cramp comfort,
AYE" if economy is made to conserve
happiness, and content govern expenditure
within income, "no" In short, she holds
that one wants home to make life worth
living
Rose Terry Cooke does not hesitate to
pronounce boarding failure in whatever
| light viewed. For health, it is not ben
eficial, since food cooked for many will
not accommodate varying needs. In the
boarding house dress for women is more
expensive and trying the neat attire in
which matron will preside over the
family table would not be tolerated by the
sex when twelve or fifteen people are to be
met at meal time. Boarding gives more
leisure to women, but it is rarely so well
used as when engagements at home en-
ploy her time. The cares of home are
legitimate duties and high privileges for
married woman. Finally, home life is
the only correct life for children.
Marion Harand holds that while Amer
lean home life draws more heavily on the
mental, moral and nervous forces of women
than do any other duties, and while the
modern home is complete machine, with
"hired help" steadily weakening reed,
yet home is not be found even in the least
Objectionable of boarding houses. Taking
into account the time, the increased cost
OF dress, the temptations of public life,
the drift into extravaganza, the insepara-
Bile stiffness and afiectation of the board
ing-house, the most exacting and laborious
duties of home are preferable. It is from
the vast body Of mediocre apprentices, who
never will become adopts in "the noble
art" of home-making, that the cry goes up
against housekeeping"
Catherine Owen says housekeeping is
never failure, so far as her observation
goes. Yet she admits that TO the entirely
incapable girl-wife, married out of school,
boarding may offer a refuge from worse
discomfort. So, also, to the people of
small income, who shun living in cheap
neighborhoods, that must be their choice
if they keep house." boarding is an adj
vantage. Maria Parloa answers "no, en-
phatically no" and gives her reasons much
the same as do the Others
These women answer well, but Catherine
Owen fails to show reason for her exceptions
If the girl-wife is incapable as home
maker, the boarding house will not qualify
her, but home experience will. If limited
incomes and pride as to the home location
do not cousort well, then pride should
have a fall and domestic comfort rise
superior to it. There is consideration
relating to men likewise that none of these
essayists touch upon. Men as rule are
averse to boarding, and will put up with a
poor table and apprentice efforts in house
keeping in preference to tyranny of board
ing, which deposes the head of the house
from his true position-the head of the
table. If women cannot escape the ills of
the boarding house, the chief of which is
non-domes.icity, much less can men, They
are, in fact, more susceptible to the unrest
full influences of the public table and pub
lie parlor. 1t is necessary to the man that
he shall be able to go into his home as
safe haven from the world, between which
and his family he is the shield.
II lovely traits are not fostered in
women and children by the boarding
house, neither does it make the husband
and father amiable, or give them the
abiding interest in his family that is in
separable from the home, however lowly.
When the hours of sickness and woe come
on, the barriers to prying curiosity cannot
be put up, or the loving and restful silence
of home secured elsewhere than in the
home. Its walls have no ears; the walls
of the clearinghouse are call ears"
Better poor homes than none, and un-
economic results in home, than saving
and the hardening influences of life among
strangers to the home.
The drift of the American is to hotel
and clearinghouse life, and it does not
indicate social Improvement or augmented
domesticity. 1t does not contribute TO the
strength of the nation, which lies in its
homes. Shear it of these by cultivating
fully the belief that home-makIng is a
"task," burden, an infiction, and the
boarding house and hotel, reliefs, escapes
from duty and responsibility, and deplor-
able retrogression of society must set in.