Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-03-29

what is denied in this paper. If individu
alitv is a virtue. the drift is error, since Il
is des' ructive of that distinct and beautiful
yirtuuus individuality for which good wo
men are conspicuous. II domesticity,
home life and care, wifehood maternity
and the training of children is womanly,
then any business vocation that units
woman for these functions is unwomanly.
As woman becomes unwomanly men less
seek her. and are less attracted to her for
matrimony; they become less chivalrous
and the respect paid her as from knight
hood gives place to the hard law of the
street. Since, as Grant Allen so boldly,
almost coarsely puts 1t, the highest office
of woman's nature is that of motherhood,
whatever tends to unfit her for that condi-
ton is bad for society. While Mr.. Allen
declares that wives We might have.
mothers we must have, and has thus
brought upon him the criticism of those
who possibly too literally interpret him,
let us phrase it, wives we must have that
mothers we may have"
What is this drift of which we complain?
and we must be understood as referring
now to the class of women who have not
the favor of fortune from birth, but those
who claim TO feel the need for self-reliance
and self-Support We find these women and
others actuated by less worthy motives
crowding into all manner of business voca-
tons, from telegraphy to bookkeeping,
from stenography 10 journalism, from
brokerage to counter-clerking, from mes
senger service TO news reporting, from in
surance and drumming" to merchandise
ing, and half hundred other vocations,
in every one of which each woman with
less ability displaces a man whose better
wage would enable him to found home
and care for the two. With less ability
for it is conceded by the mass of employers
that women in business are less able, less
reliable and earn less for the employer
than men.
woMAN's CAPACITY IN BUSINESS.
Perhaps exceptions should be made,
however, to this statement, so far as the
vocations of teaching and nursing are
concerned, and certain of the fine arts,
where the delicacy, smaller frame, finer
taste and gentler instincts of the woman
| come into play as important factors. But
it happens that there is not very decided
| or swift movement by American women
to these finer and filter special vocations
As the woman displaces the man she re-
duces the wage, and thus lowers the stand
ard of earnings. She rarely earns suffi-
cient TO maintain home. and hence home
| is not one of the outcomes of her labor.
| She is thus compelled oy the necessity of
| the vocation to deny herself wifehood, or if
| a wife, maternity; or else subordinate both
| to the occupation. If she has a home it is
very little above the level of boarding
| place" She therefore fails to fulfill the de-
mand insisted upon by Mr.. Grant Allen. To
paraphrase Mr.. Aliens conclusion, we may
say that she gives 10 wife and motherhood
secondary places in the economy of her
| life, for this is the inevitable result
of conditions antagonistic to that high
| est office of woman already referred
| 10. If her strongest obligations are
wifehood and motherhood, she should be
the best possible wife and mother, and she
is not prepared for either by service in the
store, the shop or the Office. IL the inter-
| est of the race and as a matter of pure
justice, the demand of Mrs. NJ. F. Arm.
strong, in the Popular Science Monthly,
must be conceded that if society is entitled
to the highest types of wives and mothers,
so, TOO, women are justified in the demand
for society for the highest and best order
| of husbands and fathers.
THE DRIFT INTO BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT.
If true marriage is falling into disuse.
marriage with home and fatherhood and
( motherhood in view. it is, among wage
| earners, due in largest measure to the DRIFT
of women into business. By inquisition
quite searching, it is established that
among the very class of young men
who if they marry must choose from
among women of the class we
are considering, there is rapidly
! growing disposition to avoid marriage be-
cause of the conviction that business en-
| ployment units woman for the home
| clergyman recently declared this to be
| matter of infinite concern to him. since the
| young men who counsel with him, in the
maj )rity of cases decline to take his advice
to marry because of the very reasons here
set forth, and therefore, he added, many
, of them l see drift into female companion
ship of the vicious character"
The chances are that the girl behind the
counter, in the shop, factory, or upon the
street, is not a housewife and never will
become one, at least nc. an economic one
Ii she has passed from TWO or three to five
years in business employment outside of
the home the probability is that, despite
her natural domestic instincts, she will
have acquired distast- for home life and
pleasures, or at least Will be untitled to do
her full part in them.
woMAN's SELF EELPFULNEss.
1t is said that women nave a right to be
selt-helpful, to lit themselves for self-sup-
port and the maintenance of those de-
pendent or who may become dependent
upon them, and that ID e areinuumerable
instances all around L, IF the value to
women and to society OF the ability to labor
in business walks. But we are discussing
large question, matter of broad social
policy, not conditions that are the out.
growth of error. We are considering a
principle involving the decadence of the
higher conditions of domesticity, and not
the individual cases of human misery and
misfortune, which are deplorable and un.
denlable. We must construct horizon of
view beyond all the excuses of poverty.
want widowhood, dependent parents and
children; horizon so embracing that it
takes in society IS it should be, regarding the
employment of women to the exclusion
OF the filter laborer, man. Women should
be able to be self-helpful and there are
vocations to her hand more ,emuner-
alive than those which throw her
into competition with man as q lasorer.
Unfortunately one of these, the ranks of
which are never filed, is the house
wifely art. A false pride, a false svs-
tenn of social education, disposes our
women against employment as domestics.
and they are aggravated and intensified
by many employing housewives who,
under the influence of social system
equally as bad in effect treat the domestic
as mental, being of lesser value in the
"a Cieo'AIe "ASuOtiI' as d person
in the evolution of nature, against whose
advancement impossible barriers are
erected, and the chief of which is honest
labor.
THE DOMESTIC
The domestic labors less, suffers less of
human waste. receives better wages, and
saves more, If saving at all. than the girl in
shop, store, factory, or office. She enioys
the additional advantage of domicile in
home, which. even if not altogether har-
monious, is still a better atmosphere for her
than that other in which she would have
TO confront and elbow all manner Of peo-
pie in the cold, harsh and unwomanly
circles of business. That is 10 saw