The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-12

It's pity that the average woman
who marries today doesn't look upon
matrimOny as job as well as career
1t has been we'll said that marriage
is the highest and the noblest of all
careers for a woman to pursue, and
the lowest and most despicable of all
professions for her to engage in.
1t is the glory of this age that for
the first time in the history of the
world women can make a career of
marriage and are not driven into it as
profession.
Up to this generation girls had to
marry in order to get home and food
and social positions for themselves.
The girl of today can make her own
bread and butter and achieve her own
place in the sun, and so she is free
not to enter into marriage unless she
can bring to it that which makes mar
riage right and holy.
The average woman who marries
nowadays does look upon matrimony
as career, but it is a pity that she
doesn't also look upon it as a job
her job, in which she must make good
by actual performance and by turn
ing out first class work, just as she
would do if she were holding down
good situation in a business office or
was singing in the Metropolitan opera
Many a woman thinks that as long
as she loves her husband well enough
to die for him, she has done her full
duty by him, and that the state of
her affections gives her right to nag
him and kill him with bad cooking
and waste his money. Never was
there greater mistake A good heart
does not atone for a bad dinner, and
the affection that does not express it
self in terms of service and unselfish-
ness is a mockery
= In matrimony, as elsewhere in life,
to make a success we have got to de-
liver the goods. That is why the
woman who does not make a cheerful
and comfortable home has defaulted
on her part of the marriage contract
Now this job of home making is the
biggest, the most important, and the
most complicated that any human be-
ing ever undertakes, and vet there is
only an occasional woman who has
any pride in her work, or goes about
performing 1t in a craftsmanlike way
Nine housewives out of ten are open
ly envious of every woman who writes
or paints or is a buyer in a store, and
is contemptuous OF her own job and
expresses tn wish that she could do
som ething.''
That she could do something"
when she has mans destiny. and
the souls and bodies of little children
! in her hands," That she could do
somethingi" When 1T has been given
her to make a PLACE that can be a
| haven of refuge for the storm-tosSed
! of the world, a sanctuary, a bit of
Heaven on earth,
| OF course. the underlying reason
why women hold domesticity in such
poor esteem is because it is the only
work that carries with it no pay en-
velope and brings no financial indie
pendence. A wife is the only laborer
who is not considered worthy of his
hire, and who is still spoken of as
being supported by the husband for
whom she tolls from ten to sixteen
1 hours a day.
= Doubtless women would put more
interest in domestic work if they did
not know that in the great majority
of cases they would receive neither ap-
probation nor pay for it. On the
| other hand. perhaps men would be
more willing to pay if women turned
cut a better job. Certainly the man
who gets a slovenly and shiftless wife
must feel that he has been stung in
the transaction, and that whatever he
gives his wife is more than she de-
serves
/ If women could only be brought to
realize that when they marry they not
only fulfill their natural destiny, but
undertake a practical job in which It
IS up to them to make success. it