The home: its work and influenceGilman, Charlotte Perkins
General
The home: its work and influence
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Home
What the food supply is in the hands of the housemaid we have seen.
What the child is in the hands of the nursemaid, we may see anywhere.
The parasitic woman by no means uses the time free of housework to
devote herself to her children. A mother is essentially a worker. When
a woman does not work it dries the very springs of motherhood. The
idler she is, the less she does for her children. The rich man's
children are as often an anxiety and disappointment to him as the poor
man's.
The expense of the place is a thing of progressive dimensions. The home
of the parasitic woman is a bottomless pit for money. She is never
content. How could a human creature be content in such an unnatural
position? She is supplied with nourishment; she has such social
stimulus as her superficial contact with her kind affords, but nothing
comes out; there is no commensurate action.
In the uneasy distress of this position her only idea of relief is to
get something more; if she is not satisfied after one dinner, get or
give another dinner; if not satisfied with one dress, get two, get
twenty, get them all! If the home does not satisfy, by all means get
another one in the country; perhaps that will feel different; try first
one and then the other. If the two, or three, should pall, get a yacht,
go to some other country, get more things to put in the home or on
one's pretty body; get, get, get! and never a thought of the ease and
freedom and joy that would come of Doing. Not of playing at doing, with
a hot poker or a modelling tool--but really doing human work. It does
not occur to her, and it does not occur to him. He thinks it right and
beautiful to maintain the dainty domestic vampire, and pours forth his
life's service to meet her insatiate demands. All the reward he asks is
her love and faith, her sweet companionship.
May we look, then, in homes of this class for an ideal influence on
man? Consecrating his life to the business of not only feeding and
clothing, but profusely decorating and amusing a useless woman,--does
this have an elevating effect on him? When he thinks of how charming
she will look in the costly fur, the lace, the jewels, how she will
enjoy the new home, the new carriage, the new furniture; of her fresh
and ceaseless delight in her "social functions"--does his heart leap
within him?
He performs wonders in business, honest or dishonest, useful to mankind
or cruel; he slowly relinquishes the ideals of his youth, devotes his
talents to whatever will make the most money, even prostitutes his
political conscience, and robs the city and the state, in order to meet
the demands of that fair, plump, smiling Queen of the Home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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