Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1903-07-25
WHY WOMEN ARE BORED.
Where Life Is Lived with Zeal, Ennu
Is StTangled.

- SlAoISlc0
\ recent French weekly treats the sub
ject of the boredom of women with much
solemnity and not little yituperation-
Woman" il says, rs bored by reason
of the Indulgence of her nature and the
lnferonty of her social condition. Her
boredom is innate and organic, and is due
10 the essential poverty Of her sensations
and the lack of continuity OF heT inn
pulses. Few roads are open TO her; abe
has access to few crafts or professions.
BY birth she is relegated to mediocre
empl0yments and posts without applause;
she lives under the surveillance of opin-
ion; she can never call herself free: she
cannot 80 where she chooses, nor APP
pear alone where she pleases she is con-
demned to the management of house
ana the guardianship of a home. 1t is
hard fate To bear it without impotence
one must be endowed with Il talent for
mechanical activities and habitual Sleepi-
ness. The domestic affair TO be reOrgan-
lZed daily Is Il vertable web of Penelope.
wearisome to an indispensable degree"
The article gives itself to the most de-
spondent statement of the case and Of
Iers no remedy. America. the soil upon
which most problems are solving. j.
again the place where this question of
the scope of womans freedom is being
populated districts more women suffer
from nervous prostration than from
ehhuye. Certainly mere almost all the
crafts and many of the professions are
open TO Women-not hegrudgingly open.
put freely and fairly open. Medicine and
literature have thrown the gates wide;
only the more conservative sectS debar
the right of public preaching, and if she
mas attained little III the legal profession.
she would be the first to admit that logic
ana legality are not of the native bias
OF the feminine mind.
AS TO Penelope's web, the years are
lessenlng the burden by mechanical de-
wees for tightening work, by domestic
convenIenceS innumeraiie, and ultimate
ly, doubtless, the great servant question
VIII be solved. Servants, unfortunately.
are not trained to their craft They take
a place, trusting to luck that they will
know what to do, and manage somehow
10 do 1t. Some Of them resent their posi-
tion and do their work grudgingly with
GUY a, STANDARD. If domestic schools in
splred the zeal for domestic service that
normal colleges and kindergarten train
ing schools do for the work they teach.
the millennium would be heaving over
the horizon line. And if there were
training schools for mistresSes where they
were taught patience, system, considera-
ton. respect for interiors and care for
would come sailing over seas t. MS. Do
nestle servants can only be supposed to
feel real interest in their work where
they feel a real interest in their mistress.
therefore, the first rule laid down in the
mistress training school should be: BE
charming to your servants" To he charm
ing to husband and children is an old
creed. but to be loved by the rest of ones
household is almost as important to peace
ana order. Many of the wheels of the
domestic machinery would be oiled if the
mistresses were schooled in having an
eye to the comfort and the diversion of
their servants. Harriet Martineau used
to call in her dOmestlcs every morning,
and spend Il half-hour reading and dis
cnssIng with them the foreign news in
the daily papers. But if this is carrying
theory far afeld, at least it ought to be
as much part of domestic economy for
servants to have n tidy place to rest in
with cards and games and few books
and pictorial paper or two, as it is for
the mistress to have a sitting room. And
this is not extravaganza: it can be done
as easily in fiat at $400 year as in 4
manor house.
These details, the care to diffuSe charm
and harmony over a given space in the
uniycrSe-Who cares how big or how little
the plot provided it is exquisite as far as
1t goeS-theSe create an interest as vital
in the domestic routine as the passion for
fidelity did in the web of Penelope. Mrs.
Wigs never knew ennuye in the cabbage
patch: we have seen the very family the
Higher Journalist depicts with So much
feeling. of twelve children. where they
keep one girl, and the washing is done Ar
home. and found them ignorant of the
word boredom.
Wherever Il life is lived with zeal.
wherever there is a standard striven for
and gradually approached. there-be tho
conditions what they may boredom is
trangled,-Harper's Weekly