Huntsville gazette., 1890-09-20
In WOMAN'S BEHALF.
WOMAN'S HOME IDEA.
What She Hopes and Strives for and
Sometimes Attains.


Sometimes Attains.
A woman hovers around the idea
OF home like a moth around candle. 1t
fixes her with it's gaze, as serpent fixes
bird. She has to be poor indeed-poor
in spirit as well as in pocket-if the in
tention to establish home for herself
does not fit before her, shining now
with steady light, paling at intervals as
the prospect grows remote and dim, but
never entirely dying out until death re-
moves her to that other homo, her be-
lief in which has possibly sustained her
in her earthly expectations. 1t is the
characteristic of such women as can
form no conception of happiness which
does not have home as its center, that
they hope against hope. As soon as one
expectation is killed another rises in its
place. Or, TO vary the simile, hope,
with them, is Argus eyed and Briarean;
you can not render it blind and helpless
ut a stroke.
What are the attractions of this home,
which is the center of woman's heart?
1t would be foolish to claim that q hus-
band always enters it, for he does not,
although it is true that many husband
is oftener at home in Imagination than
in reality. Home and husband may be
exchangeable terms in the fancies of a
young girl, but we are not talking of the
day-dreams which visit the heart of tho
average girl but of the desire and the
determination SO frequently met with in
women of the middle and lower classes
women who very often have to strug-
gle for living-to create home for
themselves and their children, for their
children more than themselves, where
every comfort and delight shall exist
that can be compassed by their en-
deavor.
What, say, is at the root of this
home idea? In many cases the woman
who cherishes it is compelled by the
slenderness of her resources-or Of her
husbands if she have one-to contem-
plate herself as the chief worker. If
she is not actually the bread-winner, she
is forced, when her home-idea is even
partially carried out, to work just as
hard as though she were, if not harder.
If she is obliged to live in fiat without
u servant, her work is never done,
though she rise at six in the morning
and retire at ten at night. The good
'always something to do" and without
that over-zealous pertinacity which
makes some housewives the scOurge of
the domain over which they preside. If
she have servant-one of these incap
able beings who, by a mysterious par
adox of language, denominated ''help"
she is at once plunged into an inferno
in which the question, ''Is life worth
living" might be instantly answered in
the negative. And, as a rule, the more
servants she has the worse the inferno
becomes, unless Sire is exceptionally
lucky To this dictum nine out Of ten
of those women who are brought person
ally into contact with their servants
will subscribe. As for those whose
wealth enables them to interpose a
housewife between them and their do
mestics, they know nothing about it;
and the housewife, if questioned, would
answer that the idea of a home is of a
place where the work can be done by
machinery and the word servant is un-
known.
Are we forced then to conclude that
the. reason why woman clings SO OBJ
stinately to the home-idea is because it
represents to her Imagination a realm
where she can rule and reign? Does
she like to think that her word is law
there? Her slightest reflection will
show her that she mistakes. Unless
she is a very wonderful woman, or a
woman of very unusual experiences, her
word is not law, either when her hus-
band is there or when he isn't. When
he is at home he is not apt to forget
that his house is his castle-you may
say if you choose that his fiat is his for
tress-and when he is not at home he is
apt to leave the impression of his au-
thority lingering in the air. You can
perceive it, just as you can tell he has
been smoking in the parlor. The bou-
quet of masculinity is in the atmos-
phere, just as the flavor of tobacco is in
the air.
If woman does not have her way
with her husband still less does she
have it with her servants and her chill
dren. The ''spirit of our institutions"
Is on the side of hired help in this coun-
try, and it is the ''help" who have their
own way and not those who pay good
wages in the despairing hope of getting
good work. AS for children, when you
compare the number of well-mannered
and fairly-obedient children with those
whose behavior shows not the slightest
taste of good breeding, and to whom any
thing like a decent response for their
elders would be a totally new idea, it is
readily seen that the woman who basks
in the heavenly idea Of home surrounds
herself with golden dream which
generally has no exact counterpart in
reality.
But delusive as this dream may be, if
we dissect it further we shall perhaps
see that quality of unselfishness which
beauties so many of the acts Of a good
woman's life. The inferences we have
been making must not be taken in too
pessimistic and universal sense. There
are many homes-many, when taken in
the lump by themselves, few when con-