The home: its work and influenceGilman, Charlotte Perkins
General
The home: its work and influence
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Home
"Why should she have married that fellow!" cries the father; "I gave
her a good home--she had everything she wanted." It does not enter the
mind of this man that a woman is something more than a rabbit. Even
rabbits, well-fed rabbits, will gnaw and dig to get out--they like to
run as well as eat. Also, the girl whose character has time to "set" a
little in some legitimate business associations, instead of being held
in everlasting solution at home, will be able to face the problems of
domestic industry and expense with new eyes.
No men, with practical sense and trained minds, would put up for a week
with the inchoate mass of wasted efforts in the home; and, when women
have the same trained minds and practical sense, they will not put up
with it much longer. For the home's sake, as well as her own sake, the
girl will profit by experience in the working world.
Once she learns the pleasure and power of specialisation, the benefits
of organisation, the advantages of combination, the whole tremendous
enginery of civilised life, she can no more drop back into her
ancestral cradle than her brother could turn into an Arcadian shepherd,
piping prettily to his fleecy charge.
XIV
HOME INFLUENCE ON MEN
In our peculiar and artificial opposition of "the Home" and "the
World," we have roughly ascribed all the virtues to the first, and all
the vices to the second. "The world, the flesh, and the devil" we still
associate, forgetting that home is the very temple of the flesh, and in
no way impervious to the devil. Sin is found at home as generally as
elsewhere--must be, unless women are sinless and men absolved on
entering the sacred door.
There are different sins and virtues, truly, as we have seen in the
chapter on Domestic Ethics. There is less fighting at home, as there is
but one man there. There is less stealing, the goods being more in
common, only sometimes a sly rifling of pockets by the unpaid wife. A
man pays his housekeeper, or his housemaids, because he has to; and he
pays, and pays highly, the purely extortionate women of pleasure; but
sometimes he forgets to pay his wife, and sometimes she steals. The
home has patience, chastity, industry, love. But there is less justice,
less honour, less courage, less truth; it does not embrace all the
virtues. Such as it is, strong for good and also very weak for some
good, possibly even showing some tendencies to evil, what is its
influence on men?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account