The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-18
COMMON-SENSE REMARKS.
Elizabeth Cady stanton on the Ques-
ton OF Home Deterioration


At the present time pessimists are MAX
ing a great deal of capital out of what
they are pleased to call the deterioration
of American home life, which, they at
firm, is evidenced in the weakening of fam
lily ties, the breaking up of the privacy and
sancity of home, the increase Of divorce
and kindred evils, which are depicted in
lurid colors by these frightened moralists.
Particular stress is laid upon the modern
institution of the apartment house, womens
clubs, and the different attitude which
woman now holds TO society, as powerful
factors in disintegrating influences at work
in the home. Such apprehension is need
less.
Now, if there is one subject Gon which
more nonsense has been talked than upon
any other, it is that of the apartment
house. The modern apartment house, with
all its scientific, sanitary, and labor-saving
improvements, has reduced the drudgery Of
housekeeping and homemaking to a mini
mum, and increased the comfort and gen.
eral well-being of the family In a proper
tionate degree. In the detached home, un-
der the old conditions, the life of the wife
and mother was a ceaseless round of toll,
with no time for recreation, mental culture
or social intercourse. Her horizon was
narrow, at best.
The wisest and broadest minded sociolo-
gfsts tell US that We are going to have
perfect social or home life just in proper
ton as we cooperate and bring science to
cur aid. The modern apartment house is
move in this direction. What II needs
tc complete IT is large restaurant where
people can take their meals together If
they desire, and a great common recreation
room parlor where all can assemble in
the evening for lectures, music, games, con-
versation, dancing and general social in
tercourse. How much better and more ex-
hilarating this would be than the solitary,
monotonous life Which many, especially
relief fi from the old duilnes. and drudgery.
AS to the pitiful cry that family affection
is decreasing, that is even more senseless
than the apartment house wall. Men and
women will love each other, love their chill
dren and be loved by them in turn no mat
ter what happens even IL the world turns
upside down You might as we'll talk of
the animal deserving its young, of the bird
in the tree forsaking it's unf1edged little
CneS because of a great thunderstorm or
some CONFUSION of nature as to say that
social upheavals or changes weaken or de-
stroy human affection. None of these con-
vulsionS now sweeping over society will
charge what nature has made uncbange-
able-love. In the material world We have
positive and negative electricity, the CEN
tripetal and centrifugal forces, balancing
each other. If these forces were thrown
out of equilibrium for five minutes we
should have material chaos. So in the
moral world we have the two diverse ele-
ments complementary CT each other, the
feet adjustment of these two great forces
as as necessary to the preservation of the
order of the moral world as the balancing
of the contripetal and the centrifugal force
is to the maintenance OF order In the ma
terra! world The reason conditions are
not as harmonious in the moral world as
they should be is because these forces have
not been, are not In perfect equilibrium.
The feminine has been unduly depressed
stand in a relation of perfect equality;
when, as Tennyson expresses IL, We have
Two heads in council.
Two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world.
Two plummets dropped for one, to sound
The abyss of science and the mind
then only shall we have the ideal society
and home.
Another cry is that the large family no
longer exists that woman's growing indie
penSence Will lessen population. No doubt
il will; and we should have fewer idiots, lu-
natics and criminals to be burdens on the
state. A great deal OF cheap sentiment
has been INDUCED in regarding the large
family i think it is a wrong to the
child and a wrong to society to bring into
the world more children than the parents
can comfortably provide for and educate:
and the average man and woman cannot do
this for more than two or three-four, at
the most.
vorces being an evidence of the weaken
ing of home ties, I think IL quite the con-
trary. 1 believe it is due to the growing
independence or woman and her recognition
of what is due to her as the mother of the
race Her new dignity and self-respect
will not allow her 10 maintain relations
which can never be productive of any
thing but degradation and misery for her
self She knows, too, that the influence of
unhappy relations between the parents will
act most disastrously upon the children.
There will probably be some abuses, but.
on the whole, facility in obtaining divorce
will result in strengthening all true rela-
tions and weakening all false ones.
In short, / believe that many Of the
things bemoaned as evils, including the
apartment house the womans club. and
less stringent divorce laws, are heralds of
the good time coming. the ideal society and
home OF the twentieth century.