Bed Manners by Bloomsbury Publishing

Author:Bloomsbury Publishing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bed Manners: A Very British Guide to Boudoir Etiquette
ISBN: 9781783660353
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

THE WIFE WHO STAYS OUT LATE

Modern women have emancipated themselves from the absurd old notion that “woman’s place is in the home.” Do you know why your ancestors wear such grim, strained expressions in the family photograph album? It is because they were always at home together. Never a respite, never a reprieve. As soon as work was over for the day, and a hearty twelve-course dinner eaten, they gathered around the parlour lamp and glared at each other until it was time to go to bed. In other words, until it was half-past nine o’clock. Civilization has ended this ghastly custom.

It has made it almost obligatory for a refined woman to belong to a culture class which meets on Monday evenings, a bridge club which meets on Tuesday evenings, a charity organization which meets on Wednesday evenings, and so on. This keeps her from staying at home and picking on her husband and the children.

Another agency which has helped to get Mother out of the house is science. To appreciate what science has done for women consider Nancy Hanks. Her housewifely duties consisted in getting up before dawn, taking care of the livestock, cooking breakfast, weeding the garden, picking and shelling peas, digging and peeling potatoes, helping to kill pigs, wringing chicken’s necks, winding wool, making clothes, teaching the baby boy his letters, scrubbing floors, cooking dinner, making jam, etc. (This is only a partial list.) It suggests what you would be doing, gentle reader, if it weren’t for such blessings as tinned soup and electric gadgets in every room.

The modern housewife has no work of any kind to do.2 To keep her mind and muscles occupied, she has therefore handsomely paid Mr. Sims, Mr. Culbertson, and a few other brainy gentlemen to complicate the simple old game of whist for her, until it has become almost a life work to learn to play it. Instead of reading for herself, which on the authority of Dr. Charles W. Eliot takes “only fifteen minutes a day,” she has formed clubs to take up hours and hours in the discussion of books, and the eating of salads.

All these things represent progress. If they don’t fill your time, there is always charity. Martha Washington’s idea of charity was to fill some baskets with good food, and take them directly to poor people. This is too simple and quick to be modern. You must now hold a lot of meetings, and elect officers, and give yourself and your fellow workers a banquet at the best hotel, and employ a press agent, and a professional money-raising firm, before the poor folks get so much as a chicken bone. If they ever do get it.

After self-improvement and charity, the most refined way to break the shackles of the home is motoring. Every discriminating woman now has her own car, or will have as soon as the motor-car manufacturers can spread the gospel. A car of her own will help immensely in keeping a housewife out in God’s great out-of-doors during the day.

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