The most serious disadvantage in domestic service that remains to be considered is the low social position the employment entails at the present time on those who enter it. This shows itself in various ways. The most noticeable is the lack of home privileges. It is true that the domestic employee receives board, lodging, protection, and many incidental privileges in the home of her employer; that these are as a rule better than she could provide for herself elsewhere, and much superior to those which can be secured by women working in shops and factories. But board and lodging do not constitute a home, and the domestic can never be a part of the family whose external life she shares. The case is well stated by an employee who writes: “Ladies wonder how their girls can complain of loneliness in a house full of people, but oh! it is the worst kind of loneliness—their share is but the work of the house, they do not share in the pleasures and delights of a home. One must remember that there is a difference between a _house_, a place of shelter, and a _home_, a place where all your affections are centred. Real love exists between my employer and myself, yet at times I grow almost desperate from the sense of being cut off from those pleasures to which I had always been accustomed. I belong to the same church as my employer, yet have no share in the social life of the church.” This appreciation of the difference between being in a family and being a part of it is in direct ratio to the delicacy and sensitiveness of the organization of the employee. An American who can be considered one of the family is the very one who most appreciates the difference between being one of the family and like one of the family. The differences which are most keenly felt are three. The first is the fact that a certain amount of regulation must always be exercised by the employer in regard to the number and character of visitors received by the employee. It is a matter of self-protection, and is sometimes due to the employee as well. It often does not differ in kind or in degree from the care exercised for the other members of the household. The necessity for it is recognized by the better class of employees.[267] Nevertheless the restraint is irksome, the desire for independence not always unreasonable, and the wish for a place in which to receive visitors not surprising.