The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1909-07-22
Sinking Household Tasks.

A Woman Worker in the National Re-
view, London.
Where can the fine and complicated art
Of housekeeping be learned as well as In
h houses of the rich, where there Is
leisure, and need for every kind OF house
hold skill from the highest to the lowest
Blu women have long ago forgotten that
they might afford in their own domain
a training given by the danes Of a former
day to damsels Of varying degree as well
as to serving maids, a training which in
cluded much ministertng to m care OF
the poor as well as valuable personal in
]tercourse between different ranks. In the
deepest sense this is the day of the ma
chine-made household; the old Christian,
personal relationships nave been abolished.
William Morris spent a magnificent life
time In one long fruitless endeavor to re-
call men to a sense of the beauty of the
old order, n the waves of time haVe
closed over him.. What is there left to
suppose that all his grain has been thrown
overheard, and the husks carefully cher
ished, the tradition of beautiful decoration
only that ministers to the qualification of
the rich. Women nave practiced as we'll
as preached their contempt for art and
craft within their own walls until the
c~ontagion has spread from upper to low
er class. Ready as they have shown
themselves to undergo the severe techni-
cal training required of one who aspires
to earn an income as a hired laborer in
the market, they will not train in the
same way to work in the home, neither
will they consent to earn that income, as
they easily could, in their own home. 1t
Is to Re observed that although they will
submit to long hours of close work and
even to severe discipline outside, anything
of the kind Is regarded as uncomfortable in
justice n hardship once the necessity
for 1t is asserted under their W roof
tree.
What is 1t that makes women so averse
from remaining within the sheltering
walls Of home, that a the very poor
herd into bleak factories, where the pay
Is wretchedly poor, where hard living re-
places the comparatively soft living of the
private house, and apply for any arduous
unhealthy task in the rough outside
world, rather than face the chilly atmos-
phere of woman governed domesticity? Is
it not really that women have, in very
truth, ceased to govern; they have relin-
quished their household task to any one
who can be found for pay to perform 1t.
The boredom OF personal supervision will
never be endured by the luxurious modern
woman. And other not minor evils AVE
crept in. 1t seems not only that the up
per class women are fast losing the trick
Of homemaking, that mistresses have
shirked the difficulties there are In the
relations between those who serve n
those who are served there must always
be difficulties, though these hould not be
insuperable even In this complex age of
ours), by keeping at a distance and i'm
posing a rule of speechlessness on their
dependents, but that there must be, some
how, where women are the dominant fac
tor, some lack of g~entleness, of respect
for the individuality and personality Of
the governed, which makes so many.
women impatient Of household control,
not to be coaxed or coerced from their
refusal to stay at home In the houses
from which the man goes forth in the
morning only to return at nightfall. What
ever explanation lies at the root OF the
poorer women preference for factory life
over household service, for their trans
ference to careers In which the acquisi-
ton Of household skill Is impossible to
them, 1t is this disastrous want of house
hold training which accounts for so much
that Is d~eplorable today in the lives Of
the very poor.