out-of-door exercise not oftener than once or twice a week, and the
effect is as deleterious physically, mentally, and morally as a similar
course would be in other walks of life. It must decrease that pernicious
habit, so degrading to the occupation as well as to the individual, of
discussing the personal characteristics of both employers and employees,
since the relationship between the two is changed from the personal to
the business one. It elevates to the rank of distinct occupations many
classes of housework now considered drudgery because done at odd moments
by overworked employees. It must in time result in many economic gains,
one illustration of which is the fact that the kitchen could be heated
by the furnace and all cooking done by kerosene, gas, or electricity; on
the other hand, the necessities of employers would cease to be the gauge
for measuring the minimum of work that could be done by employees without
losing their places.
Two objections are sometimes raised to this plan. The first is that the
cost of living would be increased. This would undoubtedly be the effect
at first, but it is not a valid objection to this mode of housekeeping.
The list of articles now made out of the house shows that every article
of men’s dress is made more cheaply and better than formerly when made
at home. This is due to the fact that in the transitional period men of
means were willing to pay a higher price for goods made out of the house
for the sake of obtaining a superior article. Competition subsequently
made it possible for men of moderate means to share in the same benefit.
The same tendency is seen among wage-earning women. They could make
their own dresses at less expense than they can hire them made, but it
would be done at a loss of time and strength taken from their own work,
and they prefer to employ others. Moreover cost of living is a relative
term—an increase in the family income makes it possible to employ more
service and therefore to live better than before. Families of wealth now
have two alternatives, either to employ more domestics within the home,
or to purchase more ready-made supplies. The alternative usually chosen
is the former, but if such families would choose the second and instead
of employing additional domestics would, as far as practicable, purchase
ready-made supplies for the table and have more work done by the hour,
day, or piece, as great ease of living would be secured as through the
employment of additional service within the house under the present
system. Though the cost of living might be increased, it is a price
many would be glad to pay for a release from the friction of a retinue
of domestics in the home. When it has become the custom for families
of wealth to have few or no domestics under their own roofs, the great
problem of how people of limited incomes can have comfortable homes will
be solved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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