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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:55 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:55 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14196-0.txt b/14196-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6be24e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/14196-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5370 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14196 *** + +THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE + + + +BY + +ABRAHAM MYERSON, M.D. + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +1920 + + + + +Published November, 1920 + + +Norwood Press + +Set up and electrotyped by J.S. Cushing Co. + +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I INTRODUCTORY 1 + II THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" 17 + III TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS 46 + IV THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS 74 + V REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE 91 + VI POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS 116 + VII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND 126 + VIII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS 141 + IX THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND 160 + X HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES 168 + XI OTHER TYPICAL CASES 199 + XII TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES 231 + XIII THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE 244 + INDEX 269 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife? + +Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific +creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse +all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the +youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a +headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost +his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge? + +We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference +to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the +present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in every +man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do, +for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor +Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of +occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her +a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes +from specialist to specialist,--orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray +man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment +she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her +feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her +insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics, +electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science! + +Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with +pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and +saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young +girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her +man, into the housewife of a decade,--complaining, fatigued, and +disillusioned. Bound to her husband by the ties the years and the +children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them. + +"Men don't understand," cries she. "Women are unreasonable," says he. + +What are the causes of the change? Did the housewife of a past +generation go through the same stage? Ask any man you meet and he will +tell you his mother is or was more enduring than his wife. "She bore +three times as many children; she did all her own housework; she baked +more, cooked more, sewed more; she got up at five o'clock in the morning +and went to bed at ten at night; she never went out, never had a +vacation, did not know the meaning of manicure, pedicure, coiffure. She +was contented, never extravagant, and rarely sick." + +So the average man will say, and then: "Those were the good old days of +simple living, gone like the dodo!" To-day,--well, it reminds me of a +joke I heard. One man meets another and says: 'By the way, I heard that +your wife was the champion athlete at college.' 'Ah, yes,' said the +husband; 'now she is too weak to wash the dishes.' + +Is the average man's impression the correct one? Or are we dealing with +the incorrigible disposition of man to glorify the past? To the majority +of people their youth was an era of stronger, braver men, more +wholesome, beautiful women. People were better, times were more natural, +and there is a grim satisfaction in predicting that the "world is going +to the dogs." "The good old days" has been the cry of man from the very +earliest times. + +Yet read what a contemporary of the housewife of three quarters of a +century ago says,--the wisest, wittiest, sanest doctor of the day, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. The genial autocrat of the breakfast table +observes: "Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid of all work, with the title of mistress and an American +female constitution which collapses just in the middle third of life, +comes out vulcanized India rubber, if it happens to live through the +period when health and strength are most wanted?" + +And then, if one looks in the advertisements of half a century ago, one +finds the nostrum dealer loudly proclaiming his capacity to cure what +is evidently the Nervous Housewife. In America at least she has always +existed, perhaps in lesser numbers than at present. And one remembers in +a dim sort of way that the married woman of olden days was altogether +faded at thirty-five, that she entered on middle life at a time when at +least many of our women of to-day still think themselves young. + +It becomes interesting and necessary at this point to trace the +evolution of the home, because this is to trace the evolution of our +housewife. We are apt to think of the home as originating in a sort of +cave, where the little unit--the Man, the Woman, and the Children--dwelt +in isolation, ever on the watch against marauders, either animal or +human. In this cave the woman was the chattel of man; he had seized her +by force and ruled by force. + +Perhaps there was such a stage, but much more likely the home was a +communal residence, where the man-herd, the group, the clan, the Family +in the larger sense dwelt. Only a large group would be safe, and the +strong social instinct, the herd feeling, was the basis of the home. +Here the men and women dwelt in a promiscuity that through the ages +went through an evolution which finally became the father-controlled +monogamy of to-day. Here the women lived; here they span, sewed, built; +here they started the arts, the handicrafts, and the religions. And from +here the men went forth to fish and hunt and fight, grim males to whom a +maiden was a thing to court and a wife a thing to enslave. + +Just how the home became more and more segregated and the family life +more individualized is not in the province of this book to detail. This +is certain: that the home was not only a place where man and woman +mated, where their children were born and reared, where food was +prepared and cooked, and where shelter from the elements was obtained; +it was also the first great workshop, where all the manifold industries +had their inception and early development. The housewife was then not +only mother, wife, cook, and nurse; she was the spinner, the weaver, the +tanner, the dyer, the brewer, the druggist. + +Even in the high civilization of the Jews this wide scope of the +housewife prevailed. Read what the wisest, perhaps because most +married, of men says: + + She seeketh wool and flax, + And worketh willingly with her hands. + She is like the merchant ships; + She bringeth her food from afar. + She considereth a field, and buyeth it. + With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. + She girdeth her loins with strength, + And maketh strong her arms. + She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. + Her lamp goeth not out by night. + She layeth her hands to the distaff + And her hands hold the spindle. + + * * * * * + + She is not afraid of the snow for her household: + For all her household are clothed with scarlet. + She maketh for herself coverlets, + She maketh linen garments and selleth them, + And delivereth girdles unto the merchants. + +No wonder "her children rise up and call her blessed" and it is somewhat +condescending of her husband when he "praiseth her." All we learn of him +is that he "is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of +the land." With a wife like her, this was all he had to do. + +This combination of industrialism and domesticity continued until +gradually men stepped into the field of work, perhaps as a result of +their wives' example, and became farmers on a larger scale, merchants of +a wider scope, artisans, handicraftsmen, guild members of a more +developed technique. Woman started these things in the home or near it; +man, through his restless energy, specialized and thus developed an +intenser civilization. But even up till the nineteenth century woman +carried on all her occupations at the home, which still continued to be +workshop and hearth. + +Then man invented the machine, harnessed steam, wired electricity, and +there was born the Factory, the specialized house of industry, in which +there works no artisan, only factory hands. The home could not compete +with this man's monster, into which flowed one river of raw material and +out of which poured another of finished products. But not only did the +factory dye, weave, spin, tan, etc.; it also invaded the innermost +sphere of woman's work. For her loaf of bread it turned out thousands, +until finally she is beginning to give up baking; for her hit-or-miss +jellies, preserves, jams, it invented scientific canning with absolute +methods, handy forms, tempting flavors. And canning did not stop there; +meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the +housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no +longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern +time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has +stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own +creation, the factory. + +Thus it has come to pass that in our day the housewife does but little +dyeing, spinning, weaving, is no longer a handicraftsman, and in +addition is turning over a large part of her food preparation and +cooking to the factory. + +But the factory is not content with thus disarranging the ancient scheme +of things by invading the housewife's province; it has dragged a large +number of women, yearly increasing in number and proportion, into +industry. Thus it has made this condition of affairs: that it takes the +young girl from the home for the few years that intervene before her +marriage. She is thus initiated into wage-earning before she becomes a +man's wife, the housewife. + +This industrial period of a girl's life is important psychologically, +for it profoundly influences her reaction to her status and work as +homekeeper. + +Of even greater importance to our study than the influence of the +factory is the rise of what is known as feminism. Of all the living +creatures in the world the female of the human species has been the most +downtrodden, for to every wretched class of man there was a still +inferior, more wretched group, their wives. She was a slave to the +slaves, a dependent of the abjectly poor. When men passed through the +stage where woman's life might be taken at a whim, she remained a +creature without rights of the wider kind. Men debated whether she had a +soul, made cynical proverbs about her, called her the "weaker vessel," +and debarred her from political and economic equality, classing her up +to this very moment in rights with the idiot, the imbecile, and the +criminal. Worse than this, they gave her a spurious homage, created a +lop-sided chivalry, and caused her to accept as her ideal goal of +womanhood the achievement of beauty and the entrance into wifehood. +After they tied her hand and foot with restrictions and belittling +ideals, they capped the climax by calling her weak and petty by nature +and even got her to believe it! + +It is not my intention to trace the rise of feminism. Brave women arose +from age to age to glorify the world and their sex, and men here and +there championed them. Man started to emancipate himself from slavery, +and noble ideals of the equality of mankind first were whispered, then +shouted as battle cries, and finally chiseled with enduring letters into +the foundations of States. "But if all this was good for men, why not +for women--why should they be fettered by illiteracy, pettiness, +dependence; why should they be voiceless in the state and world?" So +asked the feminists. The factory called for women as labor; they became +the clerks, the teachers, the typists, the nurses. Medicine and the law +opened their doors, at least in part. And now we are on the verge of +universal suffrage, with women entering into the affairs of the world, +theoretically at least the equals of man. + +But with the entrance of woman into many varied professions and +occupations, with a wider access to experience and knowledge, arose +what may be called the era of the "individualization of woman." For if +any group of people are kept under more or less uniform conditions in +early life, if one goal is held out as the only legitimate aim and end, +in a word, if their training and purposes are made alike, they become +alike and individuality never develops. With individuality comes +rebellion at old-established conditions, dissatisfaction, discontent, +and especially if the old ideal still remains in force. This new type of +woman is not so well fitted for the old type of marriage as her +predecessors. There arises a group of consequences based psychologically +on this, a fact which we shall find of great importance later on. + +Women still regard marriage as their chief goal in life, still enter +homes, still bear children, and take their husband's name. But having +become more individualized they demand more definite individual +treatment and rebel more at what they consider an infringement of their +rights as human beings. Also, and unfortunately, they still wish the +right to be whimsical, they continue to reserve for themselves the +weapons of tears, reproaches, and unreasonable demands. This has +brought about the divorce evil. + +Briefly the "divorce" evil arises first from the rebellion of woman +against marital drunkenness, unfaithfulness, neglect, brutality that a +former generation of wives tolerated and even expected. Second, it +arises from a conflict between the institution of marriage which still +carries with it the chattel idea--that woman is property--and a +generation of women that does not accept this. Third, it arises from the +ill-balanced demands of women to be treated as equals and also as +irresponsible, petty, and indulged tyrants. Men are unable to adjust +themselves to the shattering of the romantic ideal, and the home +disintegrates. Though divorce is the top of the crest of marital +unhappiness, it really represents only the extreme cases, and behind it +is a huge body of quarreling and divided homes. + +We shall later see that our Nervous Housewife has symptoms and pains and +aches and changes in mood and feeling that are born of the conflict that +is in part pictured by divorce. _Divorce is a manifestation of the +discontent of women, and so is the nervousness of the housewife._ + +There arises as a result of this individualization of woman, as a +result of increasing physiological knowledge, the hugely important fact +of restricted child bearing. The woman will no longer bear children +indiscriminately,--and the large family is soon to be a thing of the +past in America and in all the civilized world. The-woman-that-knows-how +shrinks from the long nine months of pregnancy, the agony of the birth, +and the weary restricted months of nursing. Had the woman of a past time +known how, she too would have refused to bear. In this the housewife of +to-day is seconded by her husband, for where he has sympathy for his +wife he prefers to let her decide the number of children, and also he is +impressed by the high cost of rearing them. + +One gets cynical about the influence of church, patriotism, and press +when one sees how the housewife has disregarded these influences. For +all the religions preach that race suicide is a sin, all the statesmen +point out that only decadent nations restrict families, and all or +nearly all the press thunder against it. It is even against the law for +a physician or other person to instruct in the methods of birth +restriction, and yet--the birth rate steadily drops. An immigrant mother +has six, eight, or ten children and her daughter has one, two, or three, +very rarely more, and often enough none. This is true even of races +close to religious teaching, such as the Irish Catholic and the Jew. + +One can well be cynical of the power of religion and teaching and law +when one finds that even the families of ministers, rabbis, editors, and +lawmakers, all of whom stand publicly for natural birth, have shown a +great reduction in their size, that has taken place in a single +generation. + +Is the modern woman more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy,--less +resistant to the strain of childbearing and childbirth? It is a quite +general impression amongst obstetricians that this is a fact and also +that fewer women are able to nurse their babies. If so, these phenomena +are of the highest importance to the race and likewise to the problem of +the new housewife. For we shall learn that the lowering of energy is +both a cause and symptom of her neuroses. + +If then we summarize what has been thus far outlined, we find two +currents in the evolution of the housewife. _First_, she has yielded a +large part of her work to the factory, practically all of that part of +it which is industrial and a considerable portion of the food +preparation. + +_Second_, there has been a rise in the dignity and position of woman in +the past one hundred and fifty years which has had many results. She has +considerably widened the scope of her experience with life through work +in the factory, in the office, in the schoolhouse, and in the +professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original +occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. +She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has +declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce +has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability +to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the +declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization +and is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of +freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" + + +Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we +must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness +in general. + +Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place +whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition +is so loosely used as this one. + +People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of +anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of +fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is +restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting +his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the +ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who +branded his baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A +"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of +the sinister faces of insanity itself. + +It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous +housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the +general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the +intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the +causes. + +Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous +disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no +alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part +of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such +diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, +etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter +troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed +oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,--as against one in which a +vital part was broken. + +The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is +concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although two other +diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance. + +It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as +a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the +eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the +stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every +part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an +accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is +probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that +modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever +present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved. + +Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as +compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of +neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving, +_i.e._ distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, +telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to +increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy man with +his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but +by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving +_himself_. + +The keynote of neurasthenia is _increased liability to fatigue_. The +tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising +than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should +remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his +day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious +drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or +sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body. +Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and +this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words +as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a +listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more +distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with +over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild +kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for +the things formerly held dearest. And finally the fatigue is often +marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger +blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a +slight vexation. _To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks +of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that +is neither health nor disease._ + +The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything +imaginable. + +1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache, +backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs, +pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings +rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to +disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue +plays the principal part in evoking them. + +2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels, +are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a +capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. +The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for +disagreeable emotions, such as worry, fear, vexation, have long been +known as the chief enemies of appetite. + +With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by +"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these +lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the +stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the +nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the +disorder of emotion. + +3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is +primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once +it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism +by its interference with the mood. + +The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread +knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical +discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the +agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness. +Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named +the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared +with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be +seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he +found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life +and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said +the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to +commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my +bowels moved well." + +4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful, +dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the +bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded +our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary +functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work, +and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not +only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness. + +5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes +two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, +that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health +and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has +even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is +almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the +possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a +symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability +to worry becomes greatly increased. + +Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors +hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The +hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease, +every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis, +every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache +into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze +inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of +sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant +for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily +processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the +little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the +gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of +cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they +multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal +groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily +disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally +enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or +perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The +faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then +proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of +treatment. + +What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back +of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in +relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad +training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for +sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, +over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, +passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and +doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, +wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc. + +Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that +either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after +a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of +energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some +thought, some life situation of a depressing kind. + +It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our +subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over +the wider field of the human being. + +The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the +building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is +digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into +the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion. +The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the +human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other +words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our +later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of +our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our +love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought +battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and +achievement. + +Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in +tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition +there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor +and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, +laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work +with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the +battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a +stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The +feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a +new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, +which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end. + +There are _deënergizing emotions and experiences_ as well, things that +suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a certain type +is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs +become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, +and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, +either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the +strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the +frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and +injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and +inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,--the mistaken +marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental +pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure of +interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of +enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with +loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic, +deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We +shall discover how this comes about farther on. + +What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in +further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it? + +In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists +affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only +mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of +writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a +new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed--that every human +being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes, +ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly +admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he +would deny. + +These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with +another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for +the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an +illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose +to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may +struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,--a husband, +a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one +refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to +suppress jealousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring, +forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may +(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast. + +In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings, +passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses +of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but +nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it. + +However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast +and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the +neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided +against himself, deënergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict. + +And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a +creature, with a host of deënergizing influences playing on her, +buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to +discover how they work. + +I have stated that in medical practice two other types are +described,--psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely +related to the happenings of life as to the inborn disposition of the +patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the +neurasthenic, deënergized state. However, they are usually of more +serious nature, and as such merit a description. + +By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which +the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, +etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are +overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms. + +These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to +recurring fears,--fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of +leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt, +so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of +disease--especially such as syphilis--and a host of other fears, all of +which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles +but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and +comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense +of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has +actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear +of any vehicle after an automobile accident. + +There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas +and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such +as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a +chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly +turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts +occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them +continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In +extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of +deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal +debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his +meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing, +and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an +inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the +name that is often applied,--"anxiety neurosis." + +Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd +impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch +the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. +The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick +that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic +adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and +cracking joints of the inveterate _ticquer_. Against some of these habit +spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for +there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will +of the patient is powerless. + +Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow +exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The +ground is prepared for these conditions, _e.g._ by the strain of long +attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a +queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is +brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful +expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease +starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage, +recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful +struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or +obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases +according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of +causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and +repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not +at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of +nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in +life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian +factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they +should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are +bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires +frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face +they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way +or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance. +These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have +been considering. + +Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is +probably the one having its source mainly in the character of the +patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is +secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of +diseases and has probably played a very important rôle in the history of +man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, +for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of +religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in +their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical +blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away +his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every +faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de +Beaupré. + +In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as +well as in her single sisters and brothers. + +There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to +prolonged and freakish manifestations,--the well-known hysterics with +laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics +is this instability, this emotionality, which is however secondary to +an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and +often unable legitimately to earn them. + +A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called +paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a +moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg, +face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to +worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the +nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call +"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, +ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and +a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any +energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a +physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious +danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of +people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat +of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well. + +Similar in type to the paralyses are losses of sensation in various +parts of the body,--losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep +into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting +the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they +found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of +witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or +drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and +happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their +ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually +mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or +wretches deserving severest punishment. + +Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness +that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to +long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is +apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden +days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of +throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague +statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descendants +in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers +that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and +credulous. + +For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of +themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are +theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are +weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient. + +In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now +consider in more detail certain phases of emotion. + +Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow +flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the +floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's +soul. + +Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly +against the problems of nature, much more rarely against _his own_ +problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense +of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and +desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied +emotions,--hunger, sex, property, competition, coöperation. The +intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the +case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any +great decision is to be made. + +We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely +psychical,--purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great +descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart +thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold +chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth +was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man +stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force +only equaled by its truth. + +William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that +emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain +its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly +feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing, +and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling +of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or +anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,--immediately the +jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench +and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in +what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. +Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over +you a feeling not unlike anger. + +In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying +because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we +cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy +because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of +things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of +fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling +itself. + +This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable +theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is +largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat, +lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion +is a very important matter in our study of the housewife as of every +other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance +that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what +may be called the physical basis of emotion. + +What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to +well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It +may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and +excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the +appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This +is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions. +(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.) + +It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may +change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It +may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent +their evacuation. + +It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head +without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell; +_i.e._ may absolutely deprive the victim of consciousness. In lesser +degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often +very distressing. + +It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about +sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show. + +It may completely deënergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or +power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser +degree with the form of fear called worry. + +The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation +which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily +response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase +the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the +"psychical" processes, but also it may deënergize to an extraordinary +degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and +action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely, +produce death. + +Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty +laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion +has probably for one of its main functions the producing of an effect +on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger +is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring +about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one +smiles or laughs _at_ some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, +anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that +his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to +their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when +joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered +when pessimistic deënergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a +nation becomes energized with good news and success and deënergized when +the battle seems lost. + +The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or +the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a +social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous +housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her +family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties +are greatly weakened. + +This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I +recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and +afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room, +seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the +very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever +hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps +the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the +predominant note. + +Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler, +obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile, +everything is wrong. You are a _deleted deleted deleted deleted_ +rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of +anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She +gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. +White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, +bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face, +and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the +gingerbread from the butcher's boy. And that still hungry juvenile +slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back +doorstep. + +Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly +it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at +any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual +happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as +disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes +down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered +by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes +a king off his throne. + +So when we trace the deënergizing emotions of the housewife, we are +tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; +we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood, +her emotion, into the future, into history. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS + + +There are three main factors in the production of the nervousness of the +housewife, and they weave and interweave in a very complex way to +produce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how +simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. +Our housewife's symptoms are no exception, whether they are mainly +pains, aches, and fatigue, or the deeply motivated doubt or feeling of +unreality. + +The nature of the housewife, the conditions of her life, and her +relations to her husband are these three factors. All enter into each +case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There +are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essential cause, +others where it is the conditions of her life, and still others where +the husband stands out as the source of her symptoms. + +We are now to consider the nature of the housewife as our first factor. +We may preamble this by saying that a woman essentially normal in one +relationship in life may be abnormal in some other, may be the +traditional square peg in the round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on +the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large +extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are +alike"--and then follows the specific accusation--"in fickleness", "in +extravagance", "in unreasonableness", in this trick or that. The chief +effort of conservatism is to make them alike, to fit each one for the +same life by the same training in habits, knowledge, abilities, and +ideals. + +Talk about Prussianism! The great Prussianism, with its ideal of +uniformity, serviceability, and servility, has been the masculine ideal +of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to taste +all its experiences, but woman had her sphere, which belied all +mathematics by being a narrow groove. + +The nineteenth century changed all that,--or started the change which +is going on with extraordinary rapidity in the twentieth. There are all +kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman +tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative +middle-of-the-road biologically, while man spreads out, but no one can +be sure of this until woman's early training to some extent resembles +man's. + +1. From the very start woman is trained to vanity. Every mother loves to +doll up her girl baby, and the child is admired for her dress and +appearance. Now it is an essential quality of the normal human being +that he accepts as an ideal the quality most admired. To the young +child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, +Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The +pretty girls, the ones most courted, the ones surest on the whole to get +married and to become housewives are usually spoiled by indulgence, +petting, admiration, and this for a quality not at all related to strong +character, and therefore vanity of a trivial kind results. + +2. Moreover, woman is trained to emotionality. It may be that she is by +nature more emotional than man, but again this can only be known when +she has been trained to repress emotional response as a man is trained. +If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or +another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if +a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taught that tears are +potent weapons, a fact she uses with extraordinary effect later on, +especially in dealing with men. If she shows fear, she is protected, +sheltered, and given a sort of indulged inferiority. + +3. The romantic ideal is constantly held before her in the private +counsel of her mother, in the books she reads, in the plays she +witnesses, in all the allurements of art. She is to await the lover, the +hero; he will take her off with him to dwell in love and happiness +forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops +the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible +preparation for married life, excepting perhaps the _courtship_. This +latter emphasizes a distorted chivalry that makes of woman a petty thing +on a pedestal, out of touch with reality; it is an exciting entrance +into what in the majority of cases is a rather monotonous existence. + +All these things--vanity, emotionality, romanticism, courtship--are poor +training for the home. They hinder even the strongest woman, they are +fetters for the more delicate. + +In taking up the special types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife it is to be emphasized that conditions may bring about the +neurosis in the normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of +women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the +neurosis much more easily and much more intensely than do the normal +women. They are the types most commonly seen in the hospital clinic or +in the private consulting room of the neurologist. + +First comes the hyperæsthetic type. One of the chief marks of advancing +civilization is an increasing refinement of taste and desire. The +fundamental human needs are food, shelter, clothes, sex relations, and +companionship. These the savage has as well as his civilized brother, +and he finds them not only necessary but agreeable. What we call +progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, +elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With +each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, +and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, desire +keeps pace with improvement, so that although great advances materially +have been made, there has been little advance, if any, in contentment. +This is because as we progress in refinement little things come to be +important, manner becomes more essential than matter, and we get to the +hyperæsthetic stage. + +Thus the dinner becomes less important than the manner of serving it. In +the "highest circles" it is the _savoir faire_, the niceties of conduct, +that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with +thought rather than the means of expressing it, and thought itself +scorns the elemental and fundamental and busies itself with the vagaries +of existence. + +From another angle, to the hyperæsthetic more and more things have +become disagreeable. To the man of simple tastes and simple feelings, +only the calamities are disagreeable; to the hyperæsthetic every breeze +has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the +reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess +boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in +delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So +with the hyperæsthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a +deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of its savor; +sounds become noises; a bit of litter, dirt; a little reality, +intolerable crudity. + +A woman with this temperament is a poor candidate for matrimony unless +there goes with it a capacity for adjustment, unusual in this type. Most +men have their habitual crudities, their daily lapses, and every home is +the theater of a constant struggle with the disagreeable. Intensely +pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for +the shortcomings. The hyperæsthetic woman is constantly the prey of the +most deënergizing of emotions,--disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an +exaggerated expression of her feeling. And her afflicted household size +up the situation with the brief analysis, "Everything makes her +nervous." Every one in her household falls under the tyranny of her +disposition, mingling their concern with exasperation, their pity with a +silent almost subconscious contempt. + +Next comes the over-conscientious type. Whatever conscience is, whether +implanted by God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, +and a social nature, there can be no question that, as the Court of +Appeals, it does harm as well as good. + +There are people whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of +crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, +and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there +are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two +directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their +own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to +reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they +become, as it were, a sort of misdirected Providence, raising havoc with +the happiness and comfort of others. Whether the conscienceless or +those overburdened with this type of conscience have done more harm in +the world is perhaps an open question, which I leave to the historians +for settlement. + +The other type of the overconscientious does definite harm to +themselves. This type I have called the "Seekers of Perfection" and it +is their affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are +particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by +hyperæsthetic. Constantly they examine and reëxamine what they have +done. "Is it the best I can do?" "Should I rest now; have I the right to +rest?" + +Into every moment of enjoyment they obtrude conscience, or rather +conscience obtrudes itself. They become wedded to a purpose, and then +that purpose becomes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief +pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; +nothing is good but the best. The sense of humor is conspicuously +lacking in this type, for one of the main functions of humor is to +season effort and straining purpose with proportion. + +Should one of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually +"picking up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, +"finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never +finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, +unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly +chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the +strain, even though she have a dozen servants to help. For to this type +each helper is not at all an aid. At once up goes the standard of what +is to be done, and each servant becomes an added care, an added +responsibility. + +"I'd love to go out with you," wails this housewife, "but there's +something I must finish to-day." The word _must_, self-imposed, becomes +the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word +drives her to the real neglect of her husband, who becomes irritated at +her constant and to him needless activity, coupled with her complaints. + +"Why don't you rest if you are tired," is his stock remonstrance; "the +house looks all right to me." + +But it is futile. She becomes irritated, perhaps cries and says, "Just +like a man. It's clean to you if there are no cobwebs on the walls." + +Whereupon the debate closes, but the woman is the more deënergized and +the man exasperated at the unreasonableness of women in general and his +wife in particular. + +It is probably true that woman has more conscience, in so far as detail +is concerned, than man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, +more wedded to decorum. Man loves comfort and his interest is more +specialized and analytical, and as a rule he hates fussiness. + +This hatred of fussiness makes him long for the masculine clubroom, +gives him the kind of uneasiness that sends him off on a fishing trip or +hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, +many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of the Wife, the +Husband, and the Other Woman owes its existence, not to the charms of +the other woman, but to the overconscientious wife. + +The third type predisposed to the neurosis of the housewife is the +overemotional woman. + +We have already considered the effect of certain types of emotion on +health and endurance and may formulate it as follows: Emotion may act +as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function +of the body. What we call nervousness is largely made up of abnormal +emotional response, of persistent emotion, of the blocking of energy by +emotion. + +Now people differ from the very start of life in their response to +situations. One baby, if he does not get what he wants, turns his +attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he +gets it. One will manifest anger and strike at being blocked or impeded +in his desires, and the other will implore and plead in a baby way for +his wish. + +In the face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts +hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a +fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a +fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past +experience and seeking a definite plan to gain his end. + +A loss, a deprivation, plunges one type of person into deepest sorrow, a +helpless sorrow, inert and symbolic of the hopeless frustration of +love. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him +deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great +philanthropy, a great memorial to his grief. For the one, sorrow has +deënergized; for the other it has energized, has raised the efforts to a +nobler plane. + +Now there are women, and also men, to whom emotion acts like an overdose +of a drug. Parenthetically, emotion and certain drugs have very similar +effects. No matter how joyous the occasion and how exuberant their joy, +a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. +This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vision +of possible disaster to one they love may appear before them through +some stray mental association. They are at the mercy of every sad memory +and of every look into the future. + +Preëminently, they are the victims of that form of chronic fear called +worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He implied by this +name that it was a sort of degenerated "forethought." + +If the baby has a cough, then it may have tuberculosis or pneumonia or +some disastrous illness, of which death is the commonest ending. How +often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she +does keep his telephone busy! It is true that a cough may be early +tuberculosis, but this is the last possibility rather than the first. + +If the husband is late, Heaven knows what may have happened. She has +visions of him lying dead in some morgue, picked up by the police, or +he's in a hospital terribly injured by an automobile, or, perchance, a +robber has sandbagged him and dragged him into a dark alley. If she is a +bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that +way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at +home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession +of her to the exclusion of the more rational; _she has a sort of +affinity for the terrible_. And when her husband comes home, the +profound fear in many cases turns sharply and quickly to anger at him. +Her distorted sense of responsibility makes him the culprit for her +unnecessary fear. + +Now it is true that almost every woman has something of this tendency, +but it is only the extreme case that I am here depicting. In this +extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. The +Jewish home reverberates with emotionality and largely through this +attitude of the Jewish housewife. + +Such a woman is apt to make a slave of her family through their fear of +arousing her emotions. How frequently people are chained by their +sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny +of some one else's weakness, would fill one of the biggest chapters in a +true history of the human race,--a book that will probably never be +written. + +Naturally enough, this housewife finds plenty to worry about, to react +to, and since these reactions are physical, they have a lowering effect +on her energy. + +To those familiar with the conception that every emotion, every feeling, +needs a discharge, it will seem heretical when I say that the excessive +discharge of emotion is harmful. Freud finds the root of most nervous +trouble in repressed emotion. That is in part true, but it is also true +that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emotional +discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act +too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is +one of the great objects of training. It has for its goal the supremacy +of the noblest organ of the human being, his brain. For proper living +there must be emotion--there always will be--but it must be tempered +with intelligence if the best good of the individual and the race is to +be reached. + +The type of woman we must now study is a very modern product, the +non-domestic type. + +That the great majority of women have a maternal instinct does not +nullify the fact that a small number have none whatever. One of the +facts of life, not taken into account with a fraction of its true +significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide +range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and tastes. A +quality is said to be normal when the majority of the group possess it, +but it may be utterly lacking in a smaller number who are thereby +declared abnormal. + +At present, it is normal for woman to be domestic, _i.e._ to yearn for +husband, home, and children; to want to be a housewife. Unfortunately, +all these yearnings do not hang closely together, and a woman may want a +husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, +and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike the housekeeping +activities of marriage. The sex and other instincts upon which marriage +is based are not always linked with the maternal and home-keeping +instincts. + +While this has probably always been true, it mattered little in olden +days. A woman regarded the home as her destiny and generally had +experienced no other life. But as was shown in the first chapter, +industry and feminism have given woman a taste of other kinds of life +and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. +Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private +secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for +some house; or she has dabbled in art or literature; or she has been a +factory girl mingling with hundreds of others, working hard, but in a +large group; or a saleslady in a department store,--and domestic life is +expected of her as if she had been trained for it. In fact, she has been +trained away from it. + +The novelists delight to tell us of the woman who seeks a career and +enters the struggle of her profession and fails. And then there comes, +just when her failure is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, +the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, +oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and will be happy--long row of +asterisks, and have children; and if it is a movie, a year or more +elapses and we are permitted to gaze upon a charming domestic scene. + +But alas for reel life as against real life! We are not shown how she +yearns for the activities of her old career; we are not shown the +feeling she constantly has that she is too good for housekeeping. If she +has been fortunate enough to marry a rich and indulgent man, she becomes +a dilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first +vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she +marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty +and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker +worm in the bud,--and we have the neurosis of this type of housewife. Or +else her experience in business makes her size up her husband more +keenly, and we find her rebelling against his failure, criticizing him +either openly to the point of domestic disharmony, or inwardly to her +own disgust. + +It is not meant that all business and professional women, all typists +and factory girls are dissatisfied with marriage or develop an abnormal +amount of neurosis. Many a girl of this type really loves housekeeping, +really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, +clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent +experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman, +then the neurosis appears in full bloom. Against the adulation given to +women singers and actresses, against the fancied rewards of literature +and business, the domestic lot seems drab to this non-domestic type. + +Here the question arises: Is there room in our society for matrimony and +a business career? That a large number of exceptional women have found +it possible to be mothers, housewives, authors, and singers at one and +the same time does not take away from the fact that in the majority of +cases such a combination means either a childless marriage or the +turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the +abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few +cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have +children are poor and work in factories, there is the greatest infant +mortality, there is the greatest amount of juvenile delinquency, and +there is the greatest amount of marital difficulty. Our present +conception of matrimony demands that woman remains in the home until +such time at least as her children are able to care largely for +themselves. + +In the history of the worst cases of the housewife's neurosis one finds +previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized, +the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously +existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in +college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it +occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This +previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional +strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in +examinations. It may have followed acute illness, like influenza or +pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung, +delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep +readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of +energy. + +This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best +product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and +ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress +and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What +happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?" + +As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how +she marries. For after all a woman does not marry _matrimony_, she +marries a _man_, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic +woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to +give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she +is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than +if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social +worker, typist, factory hand the rest of her days,--and she has +fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an +unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the +first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short +periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, +the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really +sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust +himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To +differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness +is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some +show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And +the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the +genuineness of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between +wife and husband. + +That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this +type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an +increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question +is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases. He will marry her, is +the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. +Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil +that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,--delicate, with a play +of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim +physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about +this type; she is either very lovely or a freak. + +So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it +is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is +more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that +something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of +neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real +knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of +cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and +Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration. + +But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is +usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical +possibilities of his offspring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman +as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really +needs what only the rich can have,--servants, variety, frequent +vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even +the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who +ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, +and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man. + +Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and +we here pass to the physically ill housewife. + +It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, +properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of +exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses +that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the +diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, +or kidney disease, or with derangements of the sexual organs, may act +precisely like a nervous housewife,--may have pains and aches, changes +in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deënergized. + +It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a +natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to +the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external +parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth +occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately +is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very +small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small +experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large +experience and high authority. + +In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe +that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her +predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage +women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no +reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, +woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first +birth. + +Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is +more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, athletic girl who +falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, +old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy +motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the +occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the +truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point. + +A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as +flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes +of ill health to be ruled out before "nervousness" (or its medical +equivalents) is to be diagnosed. + +It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few +of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women +do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperæsthetic in one +sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She +may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be +willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for +her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her +energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house but be +willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The +overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over +trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the +neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work +for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a +fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike +men. + +One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman +envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter +thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of +human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their +difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of +the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of +mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, +and we shall so consider them in a later chapter. + +Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book that great forces of +society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible. +From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider +them frankly and fully. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS + + +One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless +advancement of desire,--and consequently the never-ending search for +contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in +the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to +further weary climbing. + +This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm +water it _feels_ warm only for a short time, and you must add still +warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand. +The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our +desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must +lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires. + +This is to be emphasized in the case of the housewife, but with this +additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on +what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out +of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one +expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to +discontent. + +What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, +thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed +wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the +neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the +increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied +life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, +discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the +factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness +of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework. + +What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status +of the house work. + +It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford +it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is greater and +greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the +so-called servant class dislikes the work. No amount of argument +therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be +essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it +that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one +likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the +dusting, the dishwashing, the clothes washing and ironing, the work that +is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be +begun. To say nothing of the care of the children! + +I do not class as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a +butler, and a chauffeur,--the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager +for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or +nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid +with whom she wrestles to do her share,--who relieves her somewhat but +not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, +only one woman in ten has any help at all! + +It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife +may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large +extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the +science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of +child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home +(capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, +but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage +collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and +civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable. + +"Fine words butter no parsnips." There are some rare souls who lend to +the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person +frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes +housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique +it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, +ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods. + +All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of +the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one to quarrel +with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel +hides nuts,--on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, +aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family +feeling demand it. + +This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the +woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home +and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the +main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads +almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are +essentials, in the housework,--monotony, daydreaming, and introspection. + +Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a +paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst +punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need +the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies +the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the +presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of +interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on itself is +pleasurable only in rare snatches, for short periods of time or for rare +and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes +uneasy when confronted by itself. + +The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, +is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom +or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It +is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and +fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exotic +in his vain search for what is logically impossible,--lasting novelty. +Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of +interest and concentrated purpose as well. + +People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this +is often a constitutional matter as well as a matter of education. What +is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same +value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge +interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, +taught to expect certain things, may find no need of other newer +things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need +a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it. + +The most important stimuli are other _persons_, capable of setting into +action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham +Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas",--ideas called into +being by words, moods, and deeds of others. + +It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. +"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It +is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to +talk _at_; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the +flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds +are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of +which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly +disastrous to others. + +If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection +may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of +marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of +understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children +that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her +thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements +of her life. + +But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams +pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back +to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The +daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A +struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep +in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest +disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and +weariness of life often results. + +One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little +group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit +sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a +person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, +and all are bright, energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the +monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, +the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the +unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,--the hearth. But for the +housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her +husband does. + +Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the +woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is +the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of +women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more +strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework +a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman +depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and +the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing +number of women to settle down to home-keeping. + +The housewife is _par excellence_ a sedentary creature. She goes to work +when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, +very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many +women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next +to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as +hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery. + +It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are +possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent +conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If +there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, +seem the logical way of resting up. + +Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It +tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. +Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the +exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. +Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, +running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before +civilization made necessary and pleasurable. + +With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. +Frequently the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite +every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a +female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better +still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good +part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent +enough result to find him "logy" on Monday. + +Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely +eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each +course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The +dishes _must_ be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that +peace of mind so necessary for good digestion. + +An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the +family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and +various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of +oilcloth,--then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much +of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous +waste of human energy and happiness. + +An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under +the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her +mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged +beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate +structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the +hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are +not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism +amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated +biped." + +While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also +true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as +a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it +destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the +efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an +autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the +importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon +mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia. + +These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of +sedentary life bear with especial weight upon the woman of little +means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth. +There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, +as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and +deënergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a +sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as +inflicting injury on the personality. + +Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. "It's hell to be poor" is +the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical +injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still +more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the +physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery +and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of +childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without +conveniences and necessities. + +That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens +is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would +be a wreck morally, physically, and mentally if he coped with his +wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get +down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and +cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs +of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as +non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little +animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in +the home would disappear. + +Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only +in spots coöperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I +think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which +they enjoy in their clubs. + +This digression aside, there are debilitating factors in the housewife's +lot which need some amplification. We have referred to the insufficient +time for convalescence from childbirth. There are _sequelæ_ of +childbirth, such as varicose veins, flat feet, back strain, that render +the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest +enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to +rest, and with recourse either to her overbusy family doctor or to the +overburdened, careless, out-patient department of some hospital, drags +along with her troubles year in and year out, becomes old before her +time, and loses through constant pain and distress the freshness of +life. + +It is impossible to separate the psychical factors from the physical, +largely because there is no separation. One of the aims of a woman's +life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest +days this is held out to her as a way to praise, flattery, and power. It +becomes a cardinal purpose, a goal, even an ideal. + +Unlike the purposes of men this goal is attained early, if at all, and +then Nature or Life strip it away. The well-to-do woman or the +exceptional poor woman may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial +beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have +usually given up the struggle. For the poor woman the fading comes +early,--household work, bearing children, sedentary life, worry, and a +non-appreciative husband bringing about the fatal change. + +I doubt if men see their youth slipping away with the anguish of women. +To men, maturity means success, greater proficiency, more +achievement,--means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main +purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical hold on +their mate, loss of the longed for and delightful admiration of others; +it means substantially the frustration of purpose. + +And I have noticed that the very worst cases of neurosis of the +housewife come in the early thirties, in women previously beautiful or +extraordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine +wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something +of the anguish that the general watches the enemy cutting off his lines +of communication or a statesman marks the rise of an implacable rival. + +Popular literature, popular art, and popular drama, including in this by +a vigorous stretching of the idea the movie, are in a conspiracy against +reality. This is of course because of the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." +While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in +so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what +really happens is that the disagreeable phases of life, not being +faced, persist. To have a blind side for the disagreeable does not rule +it out of existence; in fact, it thus gains in effect. + +To say that housekeeping is looked upon essentially as menial, to say +that it is monotonous, that it is sedentary, and has the ill effects +that arise from these characteristics, is not to deny that it has +agreeable phases. It has an agreeable side in its privacy, its +individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. +That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and +scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt +on these. The agreeable phases of the housewife's work do not cause her +neurosis; it is the disagreeable in her life that do. Or rather it is +what any individual housewife finds disagreeable that is of importance, +and it is my task to show what these things are, how they work, and +finally what to do about it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE + + +A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot +will be of value. + +We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three +groups,--the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two +men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or +disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are +people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another +man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what +one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not +cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. +And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent. + +1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to +cause fear. This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal +reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as +the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. +Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out +of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not +experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in +sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor +religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality. + +As a matter of fact fear is _a_ (I almost said _the_) great motive force +of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear +of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of +disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is +the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of +thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life +insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our +fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity +with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him! + +2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works +hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by +sentimentalists,--anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by +obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze +forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, +or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with +thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may +range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation +against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. +Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or +other it would never be fulfilled. + +3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different +times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or +thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is +paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deënergization. + +Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be +met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive +action, or it may be met with a deënergization, confusion, paralysis, +hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high +constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and +the peculiar agony of doubt. + +This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For +the situation is never clear-cut for decision--there is the ideal +implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to +live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, +weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This +conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can +neither accept nor reject the situation. + +This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of +view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, +some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind +and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon +some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of +his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing +of time. This passing of time can be received equably by the one +conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and +purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt. + +Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases +which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are +reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in +mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where +they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle +is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of +impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a +neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that +a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring +about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, +hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt. + +With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us +turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may +cause her neurosis. + +The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the +biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been +recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of +human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the +mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the +maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love +and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their +natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While +the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for +all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source +of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children. + +Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the +maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the +interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle +between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in +the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. +All the world honors the mother, but few children return in anything +like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother. + +Is the maternal instinct waning in intensity in this period of +feminization? There have always been some bad, careless, selfish +mothers; has their number increased? Probably not, yet the maternal +instinct now has competition in the heart of the modern woman. The +desire to participate in the world's activity, the desire to learn, to +acquire culture, engenders a restless impatience with the closed-in life +of the mother-housewife. This interferes with single-minded motherhood, +brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of +course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of +the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of +many. + +The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her +children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been +touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as +a group. + +We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman +has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her ancestress. If +this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are +often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in +their memories) there are several explanations. + +First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first +child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and +that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing +difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body, +loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for +childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular +organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows +older. + +Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of +the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic +nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important +factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are +part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion +plays a rôle of importance in childbearing. The modern woman _fears_ +childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater +knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life. + +Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a +need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more +difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and +yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often +seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to +nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it +cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened +sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's +supply. + +The feeling of great responsibility for her child's welfare that the +modern woman has acquired, as a result of popular education in these +matters, undoubtedly saves infants' lives and is therefore worth the +price. A secondary result of importance, and one not good, is the added +liability to fatigue and breakdown that the mother acquires. This factor +we meet again in the next phase of our subject, the education and +training of children. + +Though the number of children has conspicuously decreased, the care and +attention given them has increased in inverse proportion. The woman with +six children or more turned over the younger children to the older ones, +so that her burden, though heavy, was much less than it may seem. +Further, though she loved and cared for them, she knew far less of +hygiene than her descendant; she did not try to bring them up in a +germless way; and her household activities kept her too busy to allow +her to notice each running nose, or each "festering sore." Not having +nearly so much knowledge of disease, she had much less fear and was +spared this type of deënergization. Her daughter views with alarm each +cough and sneeze, has sinister forebodings with each rash; pays an +enormous attention to the children's food, and through an increasing +attention to detail in her child's life and actions has a greater +liability to break under the greater responsibility and +conscientiousness. + +It must be remembered that the feeling of responsibility and +apprehensive attention is not merely "mental." It means fatigue, more +disturbance of appetite, and less restful sleep. These are things of +great importance in causing nervousness; in fact, they constitute a +large part of it. + +Perhaps another generation will find that hygiene can be taught without +producing fussiness and fear. Certainly popular education has its value, +but it has a morbid side that now needs attention. This morbid side is +not only bad for the mother but is unqualifiedly bad for the child. + +For the child of to-day, the center of the family stage in his +attention, is often either spoiled or made neurasthenic by his +treatment. Either he is frankly indulged, or else an over-critical +attitude is taken toward him. "Bad habits must not be formed" is the +actuating motive of the overconscientious parents, for they do not seem +to know that the "trial and error" method is the natural way of +learning. Children take up one habit after another for the sake of +experience and discard them by themselves. For a child to lie, to steal, +to fight, to be selfish, to be self-willed is not at all unnatural; for +him to have bad table manners and to forget admonition in general and +against these manners in particular is his birthright, so to speak. + +Yet many a mother of to-day torments her child into a bad introspection +and self-consciousness, herself into neurasthenia, and her husband into +seething rebellion, because of her desire for perfection, because of her +fear that a "bad act" may form into a habit and thence into a vicious +character. + +Especially is this true of the overæsthetic, overconscientious types +described in Chapter III. I have seen women who made the dinner table +less a place to eat than a place where a child was pilloried for his +manners,--pilloried into sullen, appetiteless state. + +So, too, an unfortunate publicity given to child prodigies brought with +it for a short time an epidemic of forced intellectual feeding of +children, that produced only a precocious neurasthenia as its great +result. Similarly the Montessori method of child training which made +every woman into a kindergarten teacher did a hundred times more harm +than good, despite the merits of the system. That a child needs to +experiment with life himself means that it will be a long time before +the average mother will know how to help him. + +A factor that tends to perplex the mother and hurts the training of the +child is her doubt as how "to discipline." Shall it be the old-fashioned +corporal punishment of a past generation, the appeal to pain and blame? +Shall it be the nowadays emphasized moral suasion, the appeal to +conscience and reason? With all the preachers of new methods filling her +ear she finds that moral suasion fails in her own child's case, and yet +she is afraid of physical punishment. + +This is not the place to study child training in any extensive manner, +yet it needs be said that praise and blame, pleasure and pain, are the +great incentives to conduct. One cannot drive a horse with one rein; +neither can one drive a child into social ways, social conformity by one +emotion or feeling. Corporal punishment is a necessity, sparingly used +but vigorously used when indicated. Of course praise is needed and so is +reward. + +What is here to be emphasized is that a sense of great responsibility +and an over-critical attitude toward the children is a factor of +importance in the nervous state of the modern housewife. Increasing +knowledge and increasing demand have brought with them bad as well as +good results. Here as elsewhere a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, +but a more serious difficulty is this,--though fads in training arise +that are loudly proclaimed as the only way, there is as yet no real +science of character or of character growth. + +The tragedy of illness is acute everywhere, and the sick child is in +every household. In many cases I have traced the source of the +housewife's neurosis to the care and worry furnished by one child. There +are truly delicate children who "catch everything", who start off by +being difficult to nurse, and who pass from one infection to another +until the worried mother suspects disease with every change in the +child's color. A sick child is often a changed child, changed in all the +fundamental emotions,--cranky, capricious, unaffectionate, difficult to +care for. A sick child means, except where servants and nurses can be +commanded, disturbed sleep, extra work, confinement to the house, heavy +expense, and a heightened tension that has as its aftermath, in many +cases, collapse. The savor of life seems to go, each day is a throbbing +suspense. + +With recovery, if the woman can rest, in the majority of cases no +marked degree of deënergization follows. But in too many cases rest is +not possible, though it is urgently needed. The mother needs the care of +convalescence more than does the child. + +There is an extraordinary lack of provision for the tired housewife. +True there are sanataria galore, with beautiful names, in pretty places, +well equipped with nurses and doctors to care for their patients. But +these are prohibitive in price, and at the present writing the cheapest +place is about forty dollars per week. This rate puts them out of the +reach of the great majority who need them. + +Moreover, where there are small children and where there is no trusty +servant or some kindly relative or friend it seems impossible for the +housewife to leave the home. Her husband must work daily for their bread +and unless they are willing to turn to the charitable organizations, it +is necessary for the housewife to carry on, despite her fatigue. So at +the best she gets an hour or two extra rest a day, takes a "little +tonic" from the family doctor and gets along with her pains, her aches, +and moods as best she can. + +But the sick do not always recover. Fortunately, the average human +being grieves a while over death, but the life struggle soon absorbs +him, and the bereavement itself becomes a memory. But now and then one +meets mothers whose griefs and deprivations seem without end. No +religion, no philosophy can bring them back into continuity with their +lives. They go about in a sorrowful dream, hugging their affliction, +resenting any effort to comfort or console; without interest in the +daily task or in those whom they should love. They offer the severest +problem in readjustment, in reënergization, for they actively resent +being helped. Sometimes one believes their grief is an effort to atone +for neglect real or fancied, a self-punishment which is not remitted +until full atonement has been made. + +Aside from the physical difficulties in the bearing and rearing of +children, and in addition to the ordinary mental difficulties, such as +judging what discipline to use, there are especial problems of some +importance. Men vary in character from the saint to the villain, in +ability from the genius to the idiot. The children they once were vary +as much. There are children who go through the worst of homes, the +worst of environments, the worst of trainings,--and come out pure gold, +with characters all the better for the struggle. There are others whom +no amount of love, discipline, training, and benefits help; they are +despicable from the ordinary viewpoint from the first of life to the +last. Some children, adversely situated as to poverty and health, become +geniuses, and their reverse is in the poor child whom heredity, early +disease, or some freak of nature dooms to feeble-mindedness. + +The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, +and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be +overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her +maternal love. + +It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who +evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the +housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love +injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a +nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children. + +The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, destructive, and quarrelsome, +or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually +runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time +goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between +hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc +with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife +neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with +mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results. + +Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the +child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and +the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous +illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the +teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time +the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that +"the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he +should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the +pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and +feeble-mindedness is recognized. + +There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust +themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all +the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their +normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I +am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or +incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with +the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of +fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly +reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental +hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes +with the legitimate work. + +There is no offhand solution for the case of the incorrigible boy or +girl. Of course the largest number sooner or later reform, sometimes +overnight, and in a way to remind one of the religious conversions that +James speaks of in his "Varieties of Religious Experiences." So long as +a child has a social streak in his make-up, so long as he at least is +responsive to the praise and blame of others and understands that he +does wrong, so long may one hope for him. But the child to whom the +opinion of others seems of no value, who follows his own egoism without +check or control by the accepted standard of conduct, by the moral law, +by the praise and blame of those near to him, is almost hopeless. Some +day intelligence may keep him out of trouble, but by itself it cannot +change his nature. + +It is not sufficiently realized that while there has been a rise of +feminism there has also been a great change in the status of children, a +change that makes their care far more difficult than in the past. They +have risen from subordinate figures in the household, schooled in +absolute obedience, "to be seen and not heard," to the central figures +in the household. One of the strangest of revolutions has taken place in +America, taken place in almost every household, and without the notice +of historians or sociologists. That is because these professional +students of humanity have their attention focused on little groups of +figures called the leaders, and not nearly enough on that mass which +gives the leaders their direction and power. + +The age of the child! His development parallels that of women, in that +an individualization has taken place. In the past education and training +took notice of the child-group, not of the individual child. But +child-culture has taken on new aspects, punishment has been largely +superseded, individual study and treatment are the thing. Personality is +the aim of education, especial aptitudes are recognized in the various +types of schools that have arisen: commercial, industrial, classical; +yes, and even schools for the feeble-minded. + +All this is admirable, and in another century will bring remarkable +results. Even to-day some good has come, but this is largely vitiated by +other influences. + +Aside from the fact that the attention paid the child often increases +his self-importance and makes his wishes more capricious, there are +factors that tend to rob him of his naïveté. + +These factors are the movies, the newspapers, and the spread of +luxurious habits amongst children. + +The movies are marvelous agents for the spread of information and +misinformation. Because of the natural settings they give to the most +absurd and unnatural stories, their essential falsity and unreality is +often made the more pernicious. Their possibilities for good are +enormous, their actual performance is conspicuously to lower the public +taste, to create a habit which discourages earnest reading or +intelligent entertainment. For children they act as a stimulant of an +unwholesome kind, acquainting them with realistic crime, vice, and +vulgarity, giving them a distaste for childlike enjoyment. One sees +nowadays altogether too often the satiated child who seeks excitement, +the cynical, overwise child filled with the lore of the movies. + +In similar fashion the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an +extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the +funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor +is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and +thoroughly enjoyable to those whom it cannot harm. + +If the historians of, say, 4500 A.D. were by chance to get hold of a few +copies of our newspapers of 1920 they might legitimately conclude that +the denizen of this remote period expressed surprise by falling backward +out of his shoes, expressed disagreement by striking the other person +over the head with a brick or a club; that women were always taller than +their mates and usually "beat them up"; that all husbands, especially if +elderly, chased after every young and pretty girl. They might conclude +that the language of the mass of the people was of such remarkable types +as this: "You tell them Casket, I'm Coffin", or "the Storm and Strife is +coming; beat it!" + +No one I think enjoys the comic page more than the present writer,--yet +it spreads a demoralizing virus amongst children. Of what use is it to +teach children good English when the newspaper deliberately teaches them +the cheapest slang? Of what use is it to teach them manners and +kindliness when the newspaper constantly spreads boorishness and "rough +house" conduct? Of what use is it to raise taste when this is injured at +the very outset of life by giving bad taste a fascinating attraction? + +Throughout the community there is a stir and excitement that is +reflecting on the children. There are so many desirable luxuries in the +world now, so many revealed by movie and symbolized by the automobile, +the cabaret, the increasing vulgarity of the theater (the disappearance +of the drama and the omnipresent girl and music show), a restless search +for pleasure throughout the community even before the War, have not +missed the child. + +All these things make the lot of the housewife harder in so far as the +training of her children is concerned. She is dealing with a more alert, +more sophisticated, more sensuous child,--and one who knows his place +and power. The press and the theater both have knowledge of this and a +recent witty play dealt with the sins of the children, paraphrasing of +course the classic of a bygone day, "Sins of the Fathers." And a wise +old gentleman said to his grandson recently, when the lad complained +about his mother, "Of course you are right. Every son has a right to be +obeyed by his mother." + +I am by no means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but +nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we +shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the +value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a rôle in the world of +great importance,--but the spread of education and opportunity to the +mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to +survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the +agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the +woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think +are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and +replaced, but which are yet of importance. + +And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep +from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him +from sophistication. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS + + +In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning +of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save +mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty. +Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of +poverty,--the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven, +and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of +reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha +knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the +desperate struggle to reach riches. + +We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of +poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged +or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,--that +would be nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack +of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth +are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect +traceable in the conditions we are studying. + +Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the +cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of +housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does +more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what +the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing +objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That +is the long and short of it,--the Emancipation Proclamation did not +include them. + +Aside from the physical effects of poverty on the housewife, there are +factors of psychical importance that call for a hearing. After all, what +is poverty in one age is riches in another; what is poverty for one man +is wealth to his neighbor. More than that, what a man considers riches +in anticipation is poverty in realization. Here again we deal with the +mounting of desire. + +The philosophical, contented woman, satisfied with her life even though +it is poor, is exempted from one great factor making for breakdown. +Contentment is the great shield of the nervous system, the great bulwark +against fatigue and obsession. But contentment leads away from +achievement, which springs from discontent, from yearning desire. +Whether civilization in the sense of our achievements is worth the price +paid is a matter upon which the present writer will not presume to pass +judgment. Whether it is or not, Mankind is committed to struggle onward, +regardless of the result to his peace of mind. + +There are two principal psychical injuries with poverty--fear and +worry--and we must pass to their consideration as factors in the +neuroses of some women. + +Worry is chronic fear directed against a life situation, usually +anticipated. Man the foreseeing must worry or he dies,--dies of +starvation, disease, disaster. It is true that worry may be excessive +and directed either against imaginary or inevitable ills; ills that +never come, ills that must come, like old age and death. + +Men in comfortable places cry "Why worry?" meaning of course that the +most of worry is about ills that are never realized. That is true, but +the person living just on the brink of disaster, ruined or made +dependent on charity by unemployment, a long illness, or any failure of +power and strength, cannot be as philosophical as the man fortified by a +nice bank account or dividend-paying investments. These well-to-do +advisers of the poor remind one of the heroes of ancient fables who, +having magic weapons and impenetrable armor, showed no fear in battle. +One wonders how much courage they would have had if armed as their +foemen were. + +For the poor housewife who sees no escape from poverty, whose husband is +either a workman or a struggling business man always on the edge of +failure, life often seems like a wall closing in, a losing battle +without end. + +Especially in the middle-aged, in those approaching fifty, does this +happen. Aside from the condition produced by "change of life", the +so-called involution period, there is a reaction of the "time of life" +that is found very commonly. For old age is no longer far off on the +horizon; it is close at hand, around the corner, and the looking-glass +proclaims its coming. The woman wonders whether her husband will long be +able to keep up,--and then "what will become of us?" + +To be thrown on the benevolence of children is a sad ending to +independent natures, to people of experience. Crudely put, those who +have been dependents are now sustainers; those who have been led now +guide; the inferiors are the superiors. This is not cynicism, for with +the best intentions in the world, if the children are also poor, the +care of the parents is a burden that they cannot help showing, sooner or +later. + +Looking forward to such an ending to the hard work and struggle of a +lifetime is part of the worry of poverty, to be classed with the fear of +sickness and unemployment. + +We may loudly proclaim that one honest man is as good as another, that +character is the measure of worth, that success cannot be measured by +money. These things are true; the difficulty is not to make people +believe it, it is to make people _feel_ it. Deeply ingrained in poverty +is not alone to be deprived of things desired; more important is the +feeling of inferiority that goes with the condition. Only in the +Bohemia of the novelists do the poor feel equal to the rich. + +One of the fundamental strivings of the human being is the enlargement +of the self-feeling, which fundamentally is the wish to be superior, to +have the admiration and homage of others. All daydreaming builds this +air castle; all ambition has this as its goal. No matter how we disguise +it to ourselves and others, the main ends of purpose are power and +place. True, we may wish for power and place so as to help others; we +may wish them as the result of constructive work and achievement, but +the enlargement of self-feeling is the end result of the striving. + +To be poor is to be inferior in feeling and applies equally to men and +women. Man is a competitive-social animal and competes in everything, +from the cleverness and beauty of his children to the excellence of his +taste in hats. Money has the advantage of being the symbol of value, of +being concrete and definite, and of having the inestimable property of +purchasing power. + +Now woman is as competitive as her mate. A housewife vies with her +neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her youth, her +husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,--vies with +her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women +(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry +only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the +greater part of it has this origin. + +Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a +great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from +these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends +unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is +envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from +himself. + +Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be +satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that +is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of +the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous +sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of +her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when +she is outstripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by +her relatives and intimate friends. + +Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their +children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a +good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all +their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the +bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children +respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of +their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have +drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then +the breakdown is tragic. + +A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his +children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but +he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,--that the +average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them +for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on +their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother +usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares +this desire except in a mild way. + +It may be that there was a time when classes were more fixed, that +poverty had less of humiliation and blocked desire than it has at +present. That society of all grades is restless with the desire for +luxury seems without doubt. How profoundly the psychology of the masses +is being altered by education, by the newspaper, the magazine, the +movie, the automobile, the fashion changes that make a dress obsolete in +a season and above all the department store and the alluring +advertisement, no one can hope to even estimate. Modern capitalism reaps +great wealth by developing the luxurious, the spendthrift tastes of the +poor. It would be a peculiar poetic justice that will make that +development into the basis of revolution. + +The women of the poor are perhaps even more restless than the men. In +fact, it is the women that set the pace in these matters. This is +because to woman has fallen the spending of the family funds, a fact of +great importance in bringing about discord in the house. As the shopper +the poor woman now sees the beautiful things that her ancestors knew +nothing of, since there were no department stores in those days. To-day +desires are awakened that cannot be fulfilled; she sees other women +buying what she can only long for, and an active discontent with her lot +appears. + +Unphilosophical this, and severely to be deprecated as unworthy of +woman. This has been done so often and so effectively(?) by divines, +reformers, press, that a mere physician begs leave to remark that it is +a natural sequence of the publicity luxury to-day has. _The most +successful commercial minds of America are in a conspiracy against the +poor Housewife to make her discontented with her lot by increasing her +desires_; they are on the job day and night and invade every corner of +her world; well, they have succeeded. The divines, etc., who thunder +against luxury have no word to say against the department store and the +advertising manager. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND + + +The husband differs from the wife in this fundamental,--that essentially +he is not a house man as she is a house woman. For the man the home is +the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here +also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity. +Man writes songs and books about the home, but the woman lives there. +Perhaps that is why women have not written sentimental verse about it. + +Marriage is variously regarded. "It is a sacrament, a religious +sanction, and not to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very +large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered +into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is +the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly +is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat +this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction +alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics +is an undisputed fact. + +It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has +been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict +between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This +conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life +of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their +attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate. + +For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean +merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in +the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has +become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their +energies. + +Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its +eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil +relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches +that if it is sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, +brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a +source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out +their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with +daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods +and emotions of all of us. + +This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part +of the neurosis of the housewife. + +After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with +whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she +becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss +as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live +apart, have no children and meet occasionally,--for obvious purposes. +Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the +virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties. + +This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and +successful the happiest human experience. Soberly speaking, it is then +the flower of existence, satisfying biologically and humanly, giving +peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy +ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of +youth leave us. Warm, cozy, intense domesticity, where passion is +legitimate and love and friendship eternal; where children play around +the hearth fire; of which death only is the ending! + +This ideal is not realized largely because no ideal is. How often is it +closely approximated? Experience says seldom. That implies no reproach +against marriage, for we are to judge marriage by the rest of life and +not by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which +economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never +absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in +the larger policies and where folly occupies the high places,--why +expect marriage to be more nearly perfect than the life of which it is a +part? To be reasonably comfortable and happy in marriage is all we may +expect. + +What are the difficulties confronting the partners which impede +happiness and especially which bring the neurosis of the housewife? For +after all we can only examine the field for our own purpose. + +We may divide the difficulties as follows from the standpoint of the +neurosis of the housewife: + +1. Those that arise from the sex relationship itself. + +2. Those that arise from conflicts of will, purpose, ideas. + +3. Those that arise from the types of husbands. + +4. Those that arise from the types of wives. (This has already been +considered under the heading Types Predisposed to the Neurosis.) + +Before we go on to the consideration of these various factors we must +repeat what has been emphasized frequently in this book. + +That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the +marriage relationship. If only _one_ will is expected to be dominant in +the household, the man's, then there can arise no conflict. If the form +of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or +expects equality, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat +her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been the case and still is in +some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes +of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an +unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest +disagreement. In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a +woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, +ideas, and ideals have never been developed,--the ancient woman; it is +very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister. + +Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex. +Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than +frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy +has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence +shrouding the wrecks of many a life. + +The sex relationship is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of +Rosalind still holds good. The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for +coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of +possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated +by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no +marriage is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless +of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first +year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for +companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen. Complementary +to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the +woman, arises from the first marital embrace. + +This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance +wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before +marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore +knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has +been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to +deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected +of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and +even those who know are unprepared for reality. + +Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a +paramount "Jus Primis Noctis." True, the majority of men are abashed in +the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,--but others follow in +a repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of +experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman +can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night. + +There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an +elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, +but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the +ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and +expert, is needed by our civilization. + +The sex appetite varies as widely as any other human character. +Generally speaking, it is believed that sexual passion in women is more +episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many +cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life +until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. +Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less +conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his +feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of +boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent passion than to +the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him +devolves not only courtship but the fundamental activity in the sexual +act. A passionless woman may have sexual relation, a passionless man +cannot. + +The disparity in sex desire between a husband and wife may be slight or +great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very +nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity +exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is +suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a +subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring +about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue. +Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is +lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked +nature. + +A woman sexually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy +mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good +woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the sex +attachment. Demureness of appearance, refinement of manner, noble +ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is +no reason why strong, well-controlled passion should be considered +anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the sexual field should, +under the social restriction, be regarded as impure. + +Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often +govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to +live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological +reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. +Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one +roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous +counsel to dissipate. + +This purely occidental idea that sexual pleasure is somehow unworthy is +responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the +physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, +though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. +Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the +part of the man to bring about that adjustment. This part of the +adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are +explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of +our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without +gratification brings about nervous instability. + +Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, +is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first +ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single +chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room +is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find +comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner +sleeps beside them. Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, +there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does +not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons. + +A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are +politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly +changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that +necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not concerned here +with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman +undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be +voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity +and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living +as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her +husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to +adjust themselves to this situation. + +The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a +woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her +monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk +almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of +the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely +allayed it. + +Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every +"solution" breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness. +Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction. +Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and +some are left excited and unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, +neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in +many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the +neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of +neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The +channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old. And this new +development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to +deënergize the organism. + +At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as +women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually +called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively +belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, +collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of +men,--smoking, drinking,--are building up a club life, live in bachelor +apartments, call each other by their last names, etc. + +Whether with this goes a greater sexual license or not it is difficult +to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a +decrease in female chastity,--that the entrance of women in industrial +life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater +freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have +brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's. + +The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked +by a hyper-sexuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more +common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The +dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for sex +allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that +only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of +the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the +day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music +show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost +disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the +risqué; with titles that are sometimes much more clever than their +contents. + +Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is +doubtful if they ever affected so large a number of people. The +excitement of the daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this +brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. +She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as +well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more +dissatisfied and therefore more nervous. + +Altogether the sexual relationship of modern marriage needs a candid +examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in sexual +affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure +of the sex-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. +Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from +the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is +being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the +fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in +the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is +more disastrous if possible than prudery. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS + + +The problems of life are not all sexual, and in fact even in the +relations of men and women there are more important factors. After all, +as Spencer pointed out in a marvelous chapter, love itself is a +composite of many things, some, of the earth, earthy, and some of the +finest stuff our human life holds. The aspirations, the ideals, the +yearnings of the girl attach themselves to some man as their +fulfillment; the chivalrous feelings, the desire to protect and cherish, +the passion for beauty of the man lead to some girl as their goal. There +are few for whom the glow and ardor of their young love bring no +refinement of their passion; there are few who have not felt a pulsating +unity with all that love and live, at least for some ecstatic moments. +Something of what James has so beautifully designated as the "aura of +infinity that hangs over a young girl" also lingers over the love of men +and women. + +All the cynics and epigram makers in the world agree that love ends with +marriage, and this not only in modern times but even back into those +days of the French Court of Love, when Margaret de Valois decided that +the lover had more claims than the husband. Romance dies with marriage +is the plaint of poet and novelists; the charm of woman disappears with +her mystery, with possession. And the typical humorist speaks of the +curl papers and kimono of the wife, the snores and unshaven beard of the +husband. "Familiarity is the death of passion" is the theme of countless +writers who bemoan its passing in the matrimonial state. + +How much harm the romantic tales have done to marriage and the +sober-satisfying everyday life, no one can estimate, no one can +overestimate. Romanticism, which extols sex as the prime and only thing +of life, prudery which closes its eyes to it and makes sour faces, need +special places in Dante's Inferno. Neither has dealt with +reality,--reality, which is satisfying and pleasant unless examined +with the prejudices instilled by the hypersexual romance writer and the +perverted sexuality of the prude. + +Nevertheless that two people brought up entirely differently, and having +different attitudes towards love and life, should come into sharp +conflict is to be expected. Further, that disillusionment follows after +the excitement and heightened expectation of courtship is inevitable. +Marriage at the best includes a settlement to routine; it carries with +it an adjustment to reality, a getting down to earth that is painful and +disappointing to minds fed to expect thrill and passion with each +moment. + +The idealization of the mate--the man or woman--gives way to a gradually +increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, +earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save +the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more +solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality +what it loses in intensity. + +Unfortunately, in many cases to a great extent and in all to some +extent, there arises dissension natural wherever two human beings meet +on anything like equal terms. + +In times past (and in many countries at the present time), the +patriarchal household prevailed. The Head of the House was the father, a +sovereign either stern or indulgent according to his nature. Perhaps his +wife ruled him through his love for her, as women have ruled from the +beginning of things, but if she did it was not by right but by +privilege. + +America has changed all that, so say all native and foreign observers. +Here the woman rules; here she drags her husband after her like a tail +to a kite; here she is mistress and he obeys, though nominally still +head of the household. All the humorists emphasize this, and the +novelist depicts it as the common situation. The husband is represented +as yoked to the wheel of his wife's whims, tyrannized over by the one he +works for. + +This is surely a gross exaggeration, though it furnishes excellent +material for satire. The man still makes the main conditions of life for +both; his name is taken, his work sustains the household, his purse +supplies the means of existence, his industrial business situation +determines the residence, his social standing is theirs. This does not +prevent him from being "henpecked" in many cases, but on the whole it +assures his superior status. + +Nevertheless it is true that the American woman of whatever origin has a +will of her own as no other woman has. Since the expression of will is +one of the chief sources of human pleasures, one of the chief, most +persistent activities, man and wife enter into a contest for supremacy +in the household. It may be settled quietly and without even recognizing +its existence, on the common plan that the woman shall have charge of +the home and the man of his business; it may rage with violence over the +fundamental as well as the trivial things of home. After all, it is not +the importance of a thing that determines the size of the row it may +raise; men have killed each other over a nickel because defeat over even +this trifle was intolerable. + +What are the chief sources of conflict? For to name them all would be +simply to name every possible source of difference of opinion that +exists. Let us take as an example Extravagance. + +This is a new development. In the former days the bulk of purchases was +made by the husband, in whose hands the purse strings were tightly +clutched. With the growth of the cities and industry, the development of +the department store and rise of shopping as an institution, the man +gave place to his wife largely because industry would not let him off +during the daytime. So the housewife disbursed most of the funds of her +home,--and there arose one of the fiercest and most persistent of +domestic conflicts. + +Despite the fact that most American husbands turn over their purses to +their wives, they still regard the money as their own. The desire to +"get ahead" is an insistent one, returning with redoubled force after +each expenditure. He finds his entire income gone each week or month, or +finds less left than he expected. "Where does it all go?" is his cry; +"Must we spend as much as we do?" "How do people get along who get less +than we do?" + +To this his wife has the answer, "We must have _this_, and we _must_ +have that. We must live as our neighbors do." + +Here is the keynote to the situation. There has been a democratization +of society of this nature; there has been a spread throughout the +community of aristocratic tastes. The woman of even the poor and the +middle classes must have her spring and autumn suits, her dresses for +summer, her summer and winter hats. Her husband too must change his +clothes with each shift of the season. For this the enterprise of the +clothing trade, the splendid display of the department stores are +responsible, awakening desire and dissatisfaction. + +While the man accuses the woman of extravagance, he is as guilty as she. +He too spends money freely,--on his cigars and cigarettes, on every +edition of the newspapers, on the shine which he might easily apply +himself, on a thousand and one nickels that become a muckle. The +American is lavish, hates to stint, detests being a "piker", says, "Oh, +what's the difference; it will all be the same in a hundred years," but +kicks himself mentally afterwards. + +Meanwhile he quarrels with his wife, who really is extravagant. In this +battle the man wins, even if he loses, for he rarely broods over the +defeat. But it brings about a sense of tension in his wife; it brings +about a disunion in her heart, because she wants to please her husband, +and at the same time she wants to "keep up" with her neighbors and +friends. And who sets the pace for her, for all of her group; who +establishes the standard of expenditure? Not the thrifty, saving woman, +not the one who mends her clothes and makes her own hats, but the +extravagant woman, the rich woman perhaps of recently acquired wealth +who cares little for a dollar. Against her better judgment the woman of +the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely +dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills. + +This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do,--it +predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes +the relations with her husband more difficult. It takes away pleasure +and leaves discontent and doubt,--the mother-stuff of nervousness. + +While most American husbands are generous, there are enough stingy ones +to set off their neighbors. To these men the goal of life is the +accumulation of money, as indeed it is with the majority. But to them +that goal is to be reached by saving every penny, by denying themselves +and theirs all expenditures beyond the necessities. + +The woman who marries such a man is humiliated to the quick by his +attitude. That a man values a dollar more than he does her wish is an +insult to the sensitive woman. There ensues either a never-ending battle +with estrangement, or else a beaten woman (for the stingy are stubborn) +accepts her lot with a broken spirit, sad and deënergized. Or perhaps, +it should be added, a third result may come about; the woman accepts the +man's ideal of life and joins with him in their scrimping campaign. With +this agreement life goes on happily enough. + +It is not of course meant that all or a great majority of American women +have difficulties with their husbands over money. But I have in mind +several patients who would be happy if this never-ending problem were +settled. The struggle "gets on the nerves" of the partners; they say +things they regret and act with an impatience that has its root in +fatigue. + +This difficulty over money and its spending gets worse in the late +thirties and early forties, for it is then the man realizes with a +startled spirit that he is getting into middle age, that sickness and +death are taking their toll of his friends, and that he has not got on. +The sense of failure irritates him, depresses him. He finds that he and +his wife look at the money situation from a different angle. + +"If you loved me," says she, "you would see things a little more my +way." + +"If you loved me," says he, "you would not act to worry me so." + +Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of +life. Capital and Labor are at each other's throats; men cry "profiteer" +at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take +advantage of the world crisis. The air is filled with the whispers that +a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile +manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display +the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns. That the marital happiness of +the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the +discussions on the subject. Yet this phase of the high cost of living is +perhaps its most important result. + +The housewife's money difficulties are not confined to the question of +expenditure. For there is a factor not consciously put forward but +evident upon a little probing. + +If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows +some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she +has a woman friend whose husband has become successful. A subtle sort of +regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle +disrespect for her husband because of his failure. The husband becomes +aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest +place, his pride. One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in +a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and +contempt until exhausted. For she came of a successful family, she had +married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an +entire failure financially. Measuring men by their success, she found +her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge +her error. Out of this division in feelings came a complete +deënergization. + +Whether or not such a housewife deserves any sympathy in her trouble, +it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her. + +While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which +nervousness arises, there are others of importance. + +Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of +the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman--_e.g._ to +a boy's pranks--causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace +of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too +fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he +is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,--tough, +mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father +who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel +results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow. It is when the woman +fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with +vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way +repeatedly described. + +Next perhaps to actual disloyalty women feel most the cessation of the +attentions, courtesies, and remembrances of their unmarried life. Women +expect this to happen and usually they forgive it in the man who devotes +himself to his family, struggles for a livelihood or better, and helps +in the care of the children. It is the hyperæsthetic type of housewife +spoken of previously who weighs against her husband's devotion a minor +dereliction in courtesy. + +For it is too common in women to let a momentary neglect or +absent-minded discourtesy outweigh a lifetime of devotion. This is part +of a feminine devotion to manner and form, of which men are, +comparatively speaking, innocent. + +Aside from this phase of woman's character there are men who either +rapidly or gradually resume after marriage their bachelor freedom, to +the neglect of their wives. Though for some time after marriage they +give up their "freedom" to play consort and escort, sooner or later they +sink back into finding their recreation with their male friends,--at +club, lodge, saloon, pool room, etc. When night comes they are restless. +At first one excuse or another takes them out, later they break boldly +from the domestic ties and only occasionally and under protest do they +stay at home or escort the housewife to church, visiting, or the +theater. + +(It needs be said at this point that in America married life often +proceeds too far in the domestication of the man, in his complete +separation from male companionship, in a never-broken companionship +between man and wife. This is distinctly unhealthy for the man, for he +requires in his recreation the sense of freedom from restraint that he +can have only in masculine company; where the difficult attitude of +chivalry can be discarded for an equality and a frankness impossible +even with his wife.) + +The housewife, thus left alone, though wounded, may adjust herself. She +may build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her +neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become +unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote +herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene +life against odds. + +But often she does none of these things. Hurt in her pride, she +struggles to gain back her husband. Tears and reproaches fail, sickness +sometimes succeeds. If she is childless she becomes obsessed with the +belief that a child would hold her husband home. If she is failing in +the freshness of her beauty she makes a pathetic effort to hold her +indifferent mate through cosmetics and beauty specialists. Without the +courage and character to make or break the situation she falls into a +feeling of inferiority from which originates her headaches, her feelings +of unreality, her loss of enthusiasm, her depressed mind and body. + +This type of woman, dependent upon the love and affection of her husband +for her health and strength, mental and physical, is the type that +woman's education and training, at least in the past, have tended to +make. She has not been taught, she has not the power, to stand in life +alone; she is the clinging vine to the man's oak, she is the traditional +woman. She is happy and well with the right man, but Heaven help her if +the marriage ceremony links her with a philanderer! For she has been +taught to accept as true and right that mischievous couplet: + + Love is of man's life a thing apart, + 'Tis woman's whole existence. + +We need for our womanhood a braver standpoint than that, one more +firmly based, less apt to bring failure and disaster. For neither man +nor woman should love be the whole existence. It should be a fundamental +purpose interwoven with other purposes. + +Fortunately one source of domestic difficulty will soon pass from +America,--alcoholism. Politicians and theorizers may speak of the blow +to individual liberty and satirically prophesy that soon coffee and +tobacco will be legislated out also. They need to read Gilbert +Chesterton and learn that though "a tree grows upward it stops growing +and never reaches the sky." To see, as I do, the almost complete absence +of delirium tremens from the emergency and city hospitals, where once +every Sunday morning found a dozen or two of raving men; to witness the +disappearance of alcoholic insanity from our asylums, where once it +constituted fifteen per cent of the male admissions; to see cruelty to +children drop to one tenth of its former incidence; to know that former +drunkards are steadily at work to the joy of their wives and the good of +their own souls,--this is to make one bitterly impatient with the +chatter about the "joy and pleasure of life gone," etc. etc., that has +become the stock-in-trade of the stage and the press. Though alcoholism +did not cause all poverty, it stupefied men's minds so that they +permitted much preventable poverty; though it did not cause all +immorality, a few drinks often sent a good man to the brothel; and what +is more, many of the brothel inmates endured their life largely because +of the stupefying use of alcohol. + +No one knows the evil of alcohol more than the poor housewife. Of course +the woman brought up to believe that drunkenness was to be expected in a +man--and who often drank with him--was a victim without severe mental +anguish, though her whole life was ruined by drink. But for the refined +woman who married a clean, clever young fellow only to have him come +home some day reeking of liquor,--silly, obscene, helpless,--_her_ +contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life. +She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a +chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted. + +A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a +century that saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the +X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could +make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the +habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity. + +After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of +the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness +to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion +against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,--these are the basic +elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are +unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly +to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two +five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many +husbands and wives. + +Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not +leadership), overready temper and overready tears,--these cause more +domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The +education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these +defects, which are not necessarily feminine, from her character. In the +domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman +has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet +demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses. + +Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her +mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds +her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy +of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which +we shall deal with later. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND + + +Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of +human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to +Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire +to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth +(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a +religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human +effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to +gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle +of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial +(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the +statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a +boundary line and which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that +benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate +the ego,--love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire +for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in +many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his +fellows. + +Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and +interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the +group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need +of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly +feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are +essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others. +This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and +young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together. + +There are those who find no difference between the _egoism_ of the will +to power and the _altruism_ of the will to fellowship. They assert that +if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you +have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism of a larger ego. +However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may +separate these two trends in human nature. + +In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between +the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality +is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the +teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by +which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power +is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science, +benevolence, invention, government, money. + +Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness, +cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character. +Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile, +and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him +aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the +life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men +who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will +to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the thwarted will to +fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world +benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of +altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally +lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will +for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn +philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an +egotist. + +How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there +are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends. + +There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man +disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right" +is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering +voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes; +they follow the primitive line of direct attack. + +There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the +disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent +to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is +nine points of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is _not_ +the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what +_seems_ valuable for what _is_ valuable and then fall back on the adage, +"A fair exchange is no robbery." + +Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into +friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours. +Compromise is the keynote, coöperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to +fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?" + +Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness, +through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the +discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an +implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial; +tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an +equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched +social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and +desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief +and sorrow by which to plague him into submission, into yielding. +Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop +symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened +punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel +parents is a favorite one. + +This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of +weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long +been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of +woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought +about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain +similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in +these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a +substitute for tears in the marital conflict. + +Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it +causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them! + +Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where +the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow +long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman +who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or +becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her +will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but +helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place +almost at once. + +In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism +can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the +attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not +take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the +condition to turn soon for the better. + +I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the +medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every +experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the +satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point +is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the +disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when--he gets her +the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc. +etc. + +Discreditable to women? Discreditable to those women who use it? Men +would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills +that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the +strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our +present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will +abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever +women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort +to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where +the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type +uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain +her point. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES + + +The cases that follow represent mainly the severe types of nervousness +in the housewife. To every case that comes to the neurologist there are +a hundred that explain their symptoms as "stomach trouble", "backache", +etc., who remain well enough to carry on, and who think their pains and +aches inevitably wrapped with the lot of woman. + +It will be seen, upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic +attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a +series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that +by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it +would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the +majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a +number cannot be essentially benefited. Some of them have temperaments +utterly incompatible with matrimony, others have husbands of the +incorrigible type, others have life situations to change which would +make it necessary to change society. Therefore in these cases all a +doctor can do is to _relieve symptoms_, relieve some of the distress and +rest content with that. + +I am essentially neither pessimist nor optimist in the presentation of +these cases, nor do I seek to present the man or woman's case with +prejudice. In life a realistic attitude is the best, for if we were to +remove much of the sentimental self-deception at present so prevalent, +huge reforms would occur almost overnight. Sentimentality decorates and +disguises all kinds of horridness and makes us feel kindly toward evil. +Strip it away, and we would immediately break down the evil. + +There is always this danger in presenting "cases" to a lay public, that +symptoms are suggested to a great many people. How deeply suggestible +the mass of people can be is only appreciated when one sees the result +of public health lectures and books. Many persons tend to develop all +the symptoms they hear of, from pains and aches to mental failure. Even +in the medical schools this is so, and every medical teacher is +consulted each year by students who feel sure they have the diseases he +has described. + +So in presenting the following cases symptoms will be largely omitted. +What will be presented is history and to a certain extent treatment. +That part of treatment which is strictly medical can only be indicated. + +It may be said that in obtaining the intimate history of a woman a +difficulty is met with in the natural reluctance to telling what often +seems to the patient painful and unnecessary details. To some people it +seems inconceivable that fears, pains and aches, sleeplessness, etc., +can arise out of difficulties like the monotony of housework, +temperament, or troubles with the husband. Furthermore, though some +women understand well enough the source of their conflicts, they are +ashamed to tell and rest mainly on the surface of their symptoms. To +obtain the truth it is necessary to see the patient over and over again, +to get somewhat closer to her. This is especially easy to do after the +physician has to a certain extent relieved the patient. In other words, +except in the cases where the woman is quite prepared to tell of her +intimate difficulties, it is best to go slowly from the medical to the +social-psychological point of view. + +Case I. The overworked, under-rested type of housewife. + +Mrs. A.J., thirty years old, is a woman of American birth and ancestry. +Her parents were poor, her father being a mechanic in a factory town of +Massachusetts. She had several brothers and sisters, all of whom reached +maturity and most of whom married. + +Before marriage she was a salesgirl in a department store, worked fairly +hard for rather small pay, but was strong, jolly, liked dancing and +amusements, liked men and had her girl friends. + +At the age of twenty-two she married a mechanic of twenty-four, a good, +sober, steady man, devoted to her and very domestic. Unfortunately he +was not very well for some time following a pneumonia in the third year +of their marriage. They drew upon all their savings and fell seriously +in debt. This meant borrowing and scrimping for several years,--a fact +which had great bearing on the wife's illness later. + +They had three children, born the twelfth month, the third year, and +the fourth year after marriage. After the first child the mother was +very well, nursed the baby successfully, and the little family +flourished. Then came the unfortunate illness of the husband, which +threw him out of work for six months, during which time they lived on an +allowance from his union, his savings, and finally ran into debt. This +greatly grieved the man and depressed the woman, but both bore up well +under it until the birth of the second child, when their circumstances +forced them to move to a poorer apartment. The wife was delivered by a +dispensary physician, who did his duty well but allowed the woman, who +protested she felt well, to get up and care for her husband and baby +much earlier than she should have done. + +The nursing of this baby was more difficult. The mother's breasts did +not seem to be nearly as active as in the previous case. The baby cried +a great deal and needed attention a good part of the night. The husband +was unable to help as he had previously done and the fatigue of the care +of child and man brought a condition where the woman was tired all the +time. Still she bore up well, though when the summer came she greatly +missed the little two weeks' vacation that she and her husband had +yearly taken together from the days of their courtship. + +The husband recovered, but his strength came back very slowly. He went +to work as soon as possible but worked only part time for six months. At +night he came home utterly exhausted and could not help his wife at all. + +During the next year both children were sick, first with scarlet fever +and then with whooping cough. The mother did most of the nursing, though +by this time the father was able to help and did. The necessary expenses +so depleted the family treasury that when the summer came neither could +afford to go away. + +Both noticed that the mother was getting more irritable than was natural +to her. She went out very seldom and her youthful good looks had largely +been replaced by a sharp-featured anxiety. Though she carried on +faithfully she had to rest frequently and at night tossed restlessly, +though greatly fatigued. + +She became pregnant again, much to her dismay and to the great regret +of her husband. At times she thought of abortion, but only in a +desperate way. The last few months of her term were in the very hot +months of the year and she was very uncomfortable. However, she was +delivered safely, got up in a week to help in the care of her other two +children and to get the house into shape again. Her milk was fairly +plentiful, despite her fatigue and "jumpy nerves." Unfortunately at this +time, when they had accumulated a little surplus and she was looking +forward to better clothes for her family and more comforts, the plant at +which her husband was employed suspended operations because of some +"high finance" mix-up. Coming at this time, the news struck terror into +her heart; she broke down, became "hysterical" _i.e._ had an emotional +outburst. This passed away, but now she was sleepless, had no appetite, +complained of headache and great fatigue. + +Though she was assured that the plant would reopen soon (in fact it soon +did), she made little progress. That she was suffering from a +psychoneurosis was evident; what remained was to bring about treatment. + +This was done by enlisting a development of recent days,--the Social +Service agencies. Out of the old-time charity has come a fine successor, +social service; out of the amateurish, self-consciously gracious and +sweet Lady Bountiful has come the social worker. Unfortunately social +service has not yet dropped the name "Charity", perhaps has not been +able to do so, largely because the well-to-do from whom the money must +come like to think of themselves as charitable, rather than as the +beneficiaries of the social system giving to the unfortunates of that +system. + +Let me say one more word about social service and the social worker, +though I feel that a volume of praise would be more fitting. The social +worker has become an indispensable part of the hospital organization, an +investigator to bring in facts, a social adjuster to bring about cure. +For a hospital to be without a social service department is to confess +itself behind the times and inefficient. + +Briefly, this is what was done for this family. + +Their prejudices against social aid were removed by emphasizing that +they were not recipients of charity. The husband was allowed to pay, or +arrange to pay, for a six weeks' stay in the country for the mother and +the new baby. The home for this purpose was found by the agency and was +that of a kindly elderly couple who took the woman into their hearts as +well as over their threshold. The social worker arranged with a nursing +organization to send a worker to the man's house each day to clean up +the home while the children stayed in a nursery. One way or another the +husband and children were made comfortable, and the wife came back from +her stay, made over, eager to get back to her work. + +It is obvious that in such a case as this the physician is largely +diagnostician and director, the actual treatment consisting in getting a +selfish and inert social system to help out one of its victims. That a +sick man should be left to sink or swim, though he has previously been +industrious and a good member of society, is injustice and social +inefficiency. That a woman, under such circumstances, should be left +with the entire burden on her hands is part of the stupidity and +cruelty of society. + +How avert such a thing? For one thing do away with the name "Charity" in +relief work,--and find some system by which industry will adequately +care for its victims. What system will do that? I fear it may be called +socialistic to suggest that some of the fifteen billions spent last year +on luxuries might better be shifted to social amelioration. The record +in automobile production would be more pleasing if it did not mean a +shift from real social wealth to individual luxury. + +Case II. The over-rich, purposeless woman. + +This type is of course the direct opposite of the woman in Case I and +represents the kind of woman usually held up as most commonly afflicted +with "nervousness." "If she really had something to do," say the +critics, "she would not be nervous." + +This is fundamentally true of her, though not true of the majority of +women whom we have discussed. It seems difficult to believe that hard +work and worry may bring the same results as idleness and +dissatisfaction, but it is true that both deënergize the organism, the +body and mind, and so are kindred evils. What's the matter with the +poor is their poverty, while the matter with the rich is their wealth. + +Mrs. A. De L. is of middle-class people whose parents lived beyond their +means and educated their only daughter to do the same. Here is one of +the anomalies of life: bitterly aware of their folly, the extravagant +and struggling deliberately push their children into the same road. Mrs. +De L. learned early that the chief objects of life in general were to +keep up appearances and kill time; that as a means to success a woman +must get a rich husband and keep beautiful. Being an intelligent girl +and pretty she managed to get the rich husband,--and settled down to the +rich housewife's neurosis. + +Her husband was old-fashioned despite his rather new wealth, and they +had two children,--a large modern American family. Though he allowed her +to have servants he insisted that she manage their household, which she +did with rebellion for a short time, and then rather quickly broke away +from it by turning over the household to a housekeeper. This brought +about the silent disapproval of her husband, who let her "have her own +way", as he said, "because it's the fashion nowadays." + +She became a seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of +amusement to the other in an intricately mixed coöperation and rivalry +with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old +Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished +dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, +subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, +dabbled in new religions, became enthusiastic: about social work for a +month or two,--and became a professional at bridge. Summers she rested +by chasing pleasure and flirting with male _habitués_ of fashionable +summer resorts; part of the winter she recuperated at Palm Beach, where +she vied for the leadership of her set with her dearest enemy. + +Her husband financed all her ventures with a disillusioned shrug of his +shoulders. As she entered the thirties she became intensely dissatisfied +with herself and her life, tried to get back to active supervision of +her home but found herself in the way, though her children were greatly +pleased and her husband sceptical. The need of excitement and change +persisted; gradually an intense boredom came over her. Her interest in +life was dulled and she began a mad search for some sensation that would +take away the distressing self-reproach and dissatisfaction. Shortly +after this she lost the power to sleep and had a host of symptoms which +need not be detailed here. + +The medical treatment was first to restore sleep. I may say that this is +a first step of great importance, no matter how the sleeplessness +originates. For even if an idea or a disturbing emotion is its cause, +the sleeplessness may become a habit and needs energetic attention. + +With this done, attention was paid to the social situation, the life +habits. It was pointed out that all the philosophies of life were based +on simple living and work, and that all the wise men from the beginning +of the written word to our own times have shown the futility of seeking +pleasure. It was shown that to be a sensation seeker was to court +boredom and apathy, and that these had deënergized her. + +For interest in the world is the great source of energy and the great +marshaler of energy. From the child bored by lack of playmates, who +brightens up at the sight of a woolly little dog, to the old and +vigorous man who makes the mistake of resigning from work, this function +of interest can be shown. + +She was advised to get a fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that +would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally +she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that +from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in +reasonableness and purpose. + +That she improved greatly and came back to her normal health I know. +Whether she continued to remain well and how far she followed the advice +given I cannot say. From the earliest time to this, necessity has been +the main spur to purpose, and probably the lure of social competition +drew the lady back to her old life. Experience, though the best teacher, +seems to have the same need of repetition that all teaching does. + +Case III. The physically sick woman who displays nervousness. + +Though this is one of the most important of the types of nervous +housewife the subject is essentially medical. We shall therefore not +detail any case, but it is wise to reemphasize some facts. + +There are bodily diseases of which the early and predominant symptoms +are classed as "nervousness." Hyperthyroidism, or Graves' Disease, a +condition in which there is overactivity of the thyroid gland and which +is particularly prevalent among young women, is one of those diseases. +In this condition excitability, irritability, emotional outbursts, +fatigue, restlessness, digestive disorders, vasomotor disorders, appear +before the characteristic symptoms do. + +Neuro-syphilis is another such disease. This is an involvement of the +nervous system by syphilis. One of the tragedies that distresses even +hardened doctors is to find some fine woman who has acquired +neuro-syphilis through her husband, though he himself may remain well. +In the early stages this disease not only has neurasthenic symptoms but +is very responsive to treatment, and thus the early diagnosis is of +great importance. + +What is known as reflex nervousness arises as a result of minor local +conditions, such as astigmatism and other eye conditions, trouble with +the nose and throat and trouble with the organs of generation. The +latter is especially important in any consideration of nervousness in +the housewife, particularly in the woman who has borne children. +Frequently too the existence of hemorrhoids, resulting from +constipation, acts to increase the irritability of a woman who is +perhaps too modest to consult a physician regarding such trouble. Where +such modesty exists (and it is found in the very women one would be apt +to think were the very last to be swayed by it), then a competent woman +physician should be consulted. With good women physicians and surgeons +in every large community there is no reason for reluctance to be +examined on the part of any woman. + +Further details are not necessary. Enough has been said to emphasize the +fact that the nervousness of the housewife is first a medical problem +and then a social-psychological one. + +Case IV. A case presenting bad hygiene as the essential factor. + +Bad hygiene is something more than exposure to bad air, poor food, +contaminated water, etc. It includes habits and times of eating, +attention to the bowels, outdoor exercise, sleep, and in the marital +state it includes the sexual indulgence. + +The housewife under consideration, Mrs. T.F., aged twenty-eight, married +five years, two children, complained mainly of headache, occasional +dizziness, great irritability, and fatigue, so that quarrels with her +husband were very common, though there seemed nothing to quarrel about. +The family was not rich, but lived in a comfortable apartment; there +were no serious financial burdens, the children were reasonably healthy +and good, and the closest questioning revealed the husband as a kindly +man who never took the initiative in quarrels but who was never able to +keep silent under provocation. The couple was still in love and there +seemed to be no essential incompatibility. + +Questioned as to her habits, Mrs. F. said she did all her own housework +except the washing and ironing and scrubbing. She had a little girl +three times a week to take the baby out. Before marriage she had been a +stenographer, but never earned high pay and had no love for her work. In +fact she gave it up with relief and found housework with its +disagreeable features much more to her taste than business. She had been +of a placid, pleasant temperament and could not understand the change in +her. + +Since all this did not explain her symptoms, closer inquiry was made +into her habits. She arose with her husband at seven-thirty, prepared +his breakfast, sent the oldest child off to kindergarten and then had +her own breakfast, which usually consisted of toast and coffee. At noon +she had a very small piece of meat or an egg and a few potatoes with +tea. At night she ate sparingly of the dinner, which usually was meat, +potatoes, another vegetable, and a dessert. Her husband here stated that +she ate at this meal less than the boy of four and a half. + +Comparing her buxom figure with the diet a discrepancy was at once +apparent. She then confessed with shame that she was a constant nibbler, +eating a bit of this or that every half hour or so, and consequently +never had an appetite. The food thus nibbled usually was either spicy or +sweet, and she consumed quite a bit of candy. Her bowels moved +infrequently and she always needed laxatives. In her spare time she felt +rather "logy", rarely went out, except now and then at night with her +husband, and spent her leisure hours on the couch reading or nibbling. + +This in itself would have quite explained much of her trouble. It has +been pointed out that body and mind are not separable; that mental +functions are based on the bodily functions, and that mood may rest on +no more exalted cause then the condition of the bowels. But a more +intimate questioning revealed sexual habits which are easily drifted +into by people of an amorous turn of character and who are really fond +of one another. These both husband and wife frankly said they had not +meant to speak of, but with their disclosure it was evident that a good +deal of importance was to be attached to them. + +The correction of the life habits was of course the fundamental need. +The young woman was instructed in detail as to diet, the care of the +bowels and outdoor exercise. Since she was in perfect condition except +for stoutness she could easily look for recovery, and as an added +incentive the restoration of youthful good looks was held out as +certain. + +The sexual life was frankly discussed, and necessary restrictions were +imposed. Both the husband and wife agreed willingly to the changes +ordered and promised faithfully to carry out instructions. + +The patient made a splendid recovery and very rapidly. Here was a +deënergization dependent solely upon the sedentary life of the housewife +and upon ignorance of sex hygiene. Here were quarreling and impending +marital disaster removed by attention to details in living. Here was a +complete proof that not only does a sound mind need a sound body, but +that a sound marriage needs one as well. + +Case V. The hyperæsthetic woman. + +Mrs. J.F. is twenty-seven years of age. She was born in the United +States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty +man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the +like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was +an old-fashioned housewife, fond of her home and family, in fact perhaps +more attached to the former than the latter. She hated servants and got +along without them (except for a day woman) until she became rather too +old to do the work. + +J.'s sister and two brothers were duplicates of the parents,--hearty, +stolid, and remarkably plain looking. J., the younger sister, though not +the youngest in the family, was as different from her family as if she +had sprung from another stock. She was slender, very pretty, with a +quick, alert mind which jumped at conclusions, because labored analysis +fatigued it. Above all, from the very start of life she was sensitive to +a degree that perplexed her family, who were however intensely +sympathetic because they adored her. This adoration arose from the fact +that J. was brighter and prettier than most of her friends, and that her +cleverness in many directions--music, writing, talking, handiwork--was +the talk of their little group. + +This sensitiveness arose from two main factors. First, an egoism +fostered by the worship of her friends and the leadership of her +group,--an egoism which led her to regard as a sort of insult anything +disagreeable. Accustomed to praise, the least criticism implied or +outspoken cut like a knife; accustomed to being waited upon, she +resented physical discomfort of the slightest kind. Second, there must +also have been an actual physical sensitiveness to sights, sounds, +smells, tastes, etc. that made her perceive what others failed to +notice. This led to an artistry manifested by her nice work in music and +decoration and also by an excessive displeasure at the inartistic. + +With this training, experience, and natural temperament she should have +married a rich collector of art products, who would have added her to +his collection and cherished her as his most fragile possession. +Instead, through the working of that strange law of contraries by which +Nature strikes averages between extremes, she fell in love with a hulk +of a man whose ideas on art were limited to calling a picture "pretty", +who loved sports and the pleasures of the table, and whose business +motto was "Beat the other guy to it." A successful man, troubled with +few subtleties either of approach or conscience, he viewed the marriage +relationship in the old-fashioned way and the new American indulgence. A +man's wife was to be given all the clothes she wanted, servants to help +run the home, ought to bear two or three children, and love her +indulgent husband. As for any real intimacy, he knew nothing of it. +Kindly, self-indulgent, wife-indulgent, child-indulgent, ruthless in +business, he may stand as something America has produced without any +effort. + +From the very first night J.'s world was shattered. We need not enter +into details in this matter, but a woman of this type needs finesse in +the initiation into marriage more than at any other time. Cave-man style +outraged her every fiber, and the man was dumbfounded at her reaction. +Though he tried to make amends his very effort and lack of understanding +complicated matters. + +Aside from this matter, which in the course of time became adjusted, so +that though she rebelled desire arose in her, she found herself at odds +with her husband's tastes and conduct in little things. Though his table +manners were good enough, the gusto of his eating annoyed her and took +away her own appetite. When they went to a play together the coarse +jokes and the plainly sensuous aroused his enthusiasm. He lacked +subtlety and could not understand the "finer" things of life. As he grew +settled in matrimony, which he enjoyed in spite of her nerves (which he +took for granted as like a woman), he grew stouter and this irritated +and jarred her. + +She finally realized she no longer loved him. It is doubtful if she +realized this before the birth of her first and only child. She lacked +maternal feeling and rebelled with a bitter rebellion against the +distortion of her figure that came with the pregnancy. The nursing +ordered by the doctor and expected by all around her nearly drove her +"wild", she said, for she felt like a "cow", a "female." Indeed she +reacted bitterly against the femaleness that marriage forced on her and +hated the essential maleness of her husband. Her emotional reaction +against nursing took away her milk, and finally the disgusted family +doctor ordered the baby weaned and he was turned over to a servant. + +She went back to her own life, determined to become a housewife, to see +if she could not love her husband and her home. But everything he did +irritated her, and everything in the house made her feel as in a +"luxurious cage." Yet she was by no means a feminist; she detested +"noisy suffragettes", thought women doctors and lawyers ridiculous, and +had been brought up to regard marriage as indissoluble. + +Gradually out of the conflict, the chilling fear that she had made a +mistake which could not be rectified, the constant irritation and +annoyances, the revolt against her own sex feeling and her life +situation, arose the neurosis. It took the form mainly of sudden +unaccountable fears with faint dizzy feelings. The family physician on +the aside told me that it was "just a case of a damn fool woman with +everybody too good to her." + +What constitutes a "damn fool" will include every person in the world, +according to some one else. It seemed obvious to me that J. was not +meant by nature to be a housewife or any kind of wife. Matrimonially she +was a misfit, unless she met some man of a type like herself, though I +doubt if any man could have pleased her. I doubt if her over-exacting +taste would not rebel against the animal in life itself. For though the +animal of life is essentially as fine as the human, certain types find +it impossible to acknowledge it in themselves. + +At any rate I advised separation for a time,--six months at least. I +told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She +answered that she knew this but could not conceive of any change. We +discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her +husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold +her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a +temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The +outlook is therefore a poor one. + +Case VI. The over-conscientious housewife,--the seeker of perfection. + +The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New +England stock, _i.e._ the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England +climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. +This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily +radical, has this prevailing trait,--standards of right and wrong are +set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to +maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not +peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, +Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal. + +This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years of age, with three children, +was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she +and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something +was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a +type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. +She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious +appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a +physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a +dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any +importance--yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one." + +Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a +small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and +admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was +exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his +wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching +things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc. + +She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her +husband, with garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her +hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained +cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were +quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat +was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared +to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That +clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude +she completely rejected. + +It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,--from the +beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a +maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed +over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless _all the time_; +she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early +morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, +etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated +efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children +bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for +it. + +"She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy +about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul +their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely +because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes +after them picking up and cleaning." + +This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the +effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners +from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She +thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; +any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, +any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime. + +Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in +children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a +day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out +words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new +experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their +quest for experiment,--and they learn thereby. Not every mickle grows +into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as +unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits. + +So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, +developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, +self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never +perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had +become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she +read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show. + +It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own +ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her +neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some +stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not +prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for +everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst +dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic. + +In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and +to such advice as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that +dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed +always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better +dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the +ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a +relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, +admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was +sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin +idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", +"extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence +of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her +home. + +This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a +gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as +she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." +Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine +housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an +over-zealous conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OTHER TYPICAL CASES + + +Case VII. The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability. + +In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the +man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business +partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and +many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the +leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American +method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior +women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's +advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the +trousers" themselves. + +Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, +had excellent health before marriage. Her family, originally poor, had +been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important +places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is +married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an +executive in a department store. + +Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time +of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who +inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic +over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never +followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own +way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all +financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of +people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law. + +In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her +counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect +for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt +crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time +went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused +many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had +not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached +the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they +enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude +toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and +envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly +view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are +near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such +disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend +involuntarily to arouse. + +With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a +complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that +brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal +to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he +accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to +the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute +nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and +fatigue. + +The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much +surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection +immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old +feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of +business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that +she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was +necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime +essential to cure in such cases,--an ignorant or unintelligent woman +with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence +took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it +may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic +observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism +and hostility. + +Case VII. The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law. + +That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of +feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in +the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted +financial success, settling down may be possible, but is much more +difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably +has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,--and +she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all +this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of +doubt and rebellion. + +Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. +She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a +business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal +gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did +and was treated with deference by the entire organization. + +She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior +official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal +habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and +went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and +mother. + +Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. +She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her home with the son for +some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range +of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost +inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. + +Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his +wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father +presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to +a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other +woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. +Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good +enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to +feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household +or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old +Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one +roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and +daughter-in-law live together. + +The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger +woman. There was enough to find fault with, since the wife was +absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, +and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try +all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took +diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were +some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took +possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found +herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the +office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. +Further, the distracted husband, in his rôles of husband and son, found +himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the +girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible +for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her +pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house +seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she +expressed it. + +Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs +seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that attends it. No +outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should +be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It +sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all +love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it +animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in +this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a +crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman +found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found +herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied +on. + +The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical +strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited +spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to +matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband +intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a +circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be +dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the +symptoms were headache, sleeplessness, etc., for which the neurologist +was consulted. + +How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It +probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made +that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law _vs._ +daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. +Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to +take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a +well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the +mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the +mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a +son's wife. + +This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment +to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was +delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed +that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger +world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and +convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less +amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an unconsciously humorous +compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly +efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better +conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a +servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no +children. + +Case VIII. The childless, neglected woman. + +It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in +a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an +identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case +might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable +difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as +childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the +main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and +sleeplessness. + +The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the +age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well +and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental +disease in her family. She married a man of twenty-four, who had also +been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in +business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty +in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the +earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end +of his long day and the pair were quite happy. + +At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at +her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the +course of the next three years underwent three operations with no +result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time +her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He +would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing +cards,--in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first +discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York +where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him +for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he +remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife. + +The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged +deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four +days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times +the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and +agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties +to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would +reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, +gifts, etc., for a week or so,--and then backsliding. Finally even the +brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered +hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a +widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them +both. + +The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling +alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love +and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the +sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun +other women and their company, the fear that her husband was unfaithful +(which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or +definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought +on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium. + +This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her +frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to +the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. +Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery. + +Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the +chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The +lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm +has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the +inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he +is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and +his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one +_constant_ attraction,--Chance. + +The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was +fortunate enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her +doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went +back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete +satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to +take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was +impossible in her lonely home. + +Case IX. The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the +home. + +This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the +woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, +and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical +American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain +type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at +first in many cases of conflict between man and wife. + +The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but +thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class +rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm +and was a mechanic in a small city. + +The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As +a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", _i.e._ to displease +her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her +family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased +when she married off their hands and left the home. + +Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her +husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He +was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for +which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the +theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became +greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband +tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit. + +They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,--she +became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around +to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will +he would go with her to her friends. + +Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he +set his will firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming +set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion +had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, +speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill. + +The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence +of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of +symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but +which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true +paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech. + +When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and +her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will +was thwarted, and _that_ part of their function was to bring the man to +his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come +any more to see me,--a not unnatural reaction. + +The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and +dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, +in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a +sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not +warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to +give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional +crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms +that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, +fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are +frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and +discomfort of others. + +Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a +character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about +hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical +reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be +found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the +same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review +of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." +But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly +from her disposition and not from the kitchen. + +Case X. The unfaithful husband. + +Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a +single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has +this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable +that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been +strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the +important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as +themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on +the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the +theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the +keener. + +The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, +the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her +health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she +has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make +both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the +border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples +do", were as much in love "as other couples are", to use her phrases. +She was above her class in education, read what are usually called +advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good +housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their +sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she +thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman. + +Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the +part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes +fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she +found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the +bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to +the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped +maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, +unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an +unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, +contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate +reason for living and became a helpless prey to her troubled mind. "A +temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could +understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole +scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her +children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for. + +Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central +physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular +campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, +the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression +remained. + +Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at +reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it +was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found +out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never +trust him again; I would die before I lived with him." + +Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest +wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of life is +to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by +others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of +one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering +a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as +by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of +memories. + +With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her +children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part +of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize +the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that +she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the +children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, +she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans +made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to +its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, +and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part +of the recovery process. + +I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should +have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his +repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she +would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had _acted_ +the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust +him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the +children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong +argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest +separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest +reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong. + +Case XI. The unfaithful wife. + +In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the +difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into +ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor +saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow +orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical +health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the +present-day code of morals. This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In +such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the +physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a +doctor." + +A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a +physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as +well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an +intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the +conflicts of health and ethics. + +Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married +since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten +years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one +thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined +to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful +in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, +of Swiss parentage. + +Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home +life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, settled life, got +on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed +to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I +married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married +except"--Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging +her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity +against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but +romantically so, not realistic. + +There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest +in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers +are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession +and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the +married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to +whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these +gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is +sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a +philosophy of life that justifies them. + +Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these +men found his way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he +proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical +disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who +had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke +off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and +disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought +about a profound neurasthenia. + +Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her +unfaithfulness,--largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not +in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little +realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of +infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, +rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was +evident to me that something was obsessing her. + +When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her +husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; +but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to +tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the result to him, for +she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind +arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to +confession. + +As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very +foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was +that of an _essentially moral_ person; that an essentially immoral woman +would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so +remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she +came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make +it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the +quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of +veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget +her pain. + +It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two +professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would +disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that +Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, +that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires heroic +measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent +that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to +extremes. + +The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has +previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many +of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the +place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of +experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among +both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters +relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be +discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of +nutrition. + +No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional +ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the +United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and +dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but +whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where +division of opinion will occur. A transition from long skirts to dress +that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a +feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would +remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of +woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding +movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means +a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a +costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if +women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, +wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in +over tight short skirts. + +Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, +the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free +discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man +and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle +rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial +triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every +newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most +absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any +responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the +epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex +is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it. + +Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its +spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its +realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, +and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot +of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the +housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not +fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, +art, and stage,--it unfits people for sex reality. + +In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is +almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a +certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the +fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the +household, and the man less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or +no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than +in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of +divorce records. + +That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing +in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock +in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological +effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of +cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that +contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our +jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own +families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind +consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the +neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial +problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book. + +Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the +engaged." The freedom of the engaged couple is part of the emancipation +of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just +short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are +aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. +Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild +exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On +the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a +good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without +interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But +it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the +necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of +service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised +concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family +friend, or the family physician. + +Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped +with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. +That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be +obviated if wisdom and experience instructed the husband and wife in +the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the +domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the +pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That +reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on +a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who +believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, +the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge +should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better +than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES + + +It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be +wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do +yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large +proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently +the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing +to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the +taking of medicine. + +Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of +their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are +uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I +believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that +can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation +involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable. + +It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this +means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of +women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to +the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, +and the major diseases,--these must be remembered as factors that may +determine nervousness. + +With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such +difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the +life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, +where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as +tact, are the essentials. + +It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich +woman may have settled down to a deënergizing life, with too much time +in bed, too many matinées, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. +Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad +for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the +sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, +the whole structure of misery may rest. + +I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a +small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas +into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent +several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic +remedies,--a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I +investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an +inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath +the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime +and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists +had failed. + +So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman +which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its +significance and importance. + +An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an +underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of +mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular +indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel +functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through +irritability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all +the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such +that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with +others who are in most ways perfectly normal. + +Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life +Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of +eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical +difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life. + +If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, +the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and +recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous +chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement +home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women +down does not prove that they do not break _some_ women down, women with +finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The +most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can +see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for +its victims. + +What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or +more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves +by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from +morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting +them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What +right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does +not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately +philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and +saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American +civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much +philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found. + +One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies +interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a +woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and +even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient +has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. +But unfortunately the consulting room for the poor is in the crowded +clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to +give the time and energy necessary? + +For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with +the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy +that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either +slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such +stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself +gives out. + +In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more +weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more +ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork +in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or +other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some +difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a +rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a +temperament to a situation. + +Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are +insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only in the very +largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as +the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics +help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much +as one may expect. + +But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be +accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to +realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, +and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her +symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has +blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis. + +If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The +intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, +they seek counsel as well as treatment. + +It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control +instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not +unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or +her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the +personal efforts to change. + +A new philosophy of life must be presented. Less fussiness, less fear, +more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are +necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught +to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should +life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" +What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal +of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,--old-fashioned words, +but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face +with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly +that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a +selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and +aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding. + +If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, +then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end +doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to +end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic +situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity +with those of more means and ability. + +Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the coöperation +of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife +consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men +are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic +wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he +is anxious enough to help cure her. + +Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by +the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear +down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician +cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less +neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide. + +Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict +rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband +deënergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was +induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,--a highly +strung, very efficient self. + +In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the +individual woman and then the painstaking _adjustment_ of that +individual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life +situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the +housewife to the life situation. + +In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as +in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the +orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." +Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego +in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; +people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the +ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a +disguised way of naming their desire. + +One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every +woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of +irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,--these are the hopeless +situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is +the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the +disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst +offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt to be the scold +and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his +revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another +story. + +At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference +between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in +make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential +need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly +expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become +matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death +of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and +sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of +feeling, that the major duties were of less importance. + +On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets +impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it +unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to +think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains +out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the +devotion of the husband is the woman's anchor to windward, her grip on +safety,--that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and +she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their +husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch +them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling +off of the lover's spirit and feeling. + +After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than +in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she +fears the rivalry of business,--and with reason. So she craves +attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She +ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married +life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a +great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great +majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also +minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play +demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to +their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the +time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to work marries +a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical +for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving +up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of +justice and the race. + +In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of +increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is +this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, +which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and +efficiency. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE + + +No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in +favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days +of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to +reproach or mock him. + +Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of +woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come +along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in +the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the +largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women +alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the +outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many +reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful reformations and +progressive ages. + +Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, +feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more +diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they +will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who +work will be specialized and individualized--- the woman executive, the +writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and +sociologist--will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The +woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in +ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement +whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear +children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in +which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend +the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might. + +Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of +the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the +race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their +sex. Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of +the children they might have had no one can say. + +But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and +remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. +The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there +comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a +counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of +their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will +enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing +enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since +they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the +conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually. + +So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an +increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing +reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion +against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will +increase rather than diminish, and it must be faced without prejudice +and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, +that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or +doing. + +Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as +fact,--the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or +bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the +modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is +one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there +seems little to do but accept the situation. + +That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to +the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by +most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject +in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply +important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for +contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and +Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all +classes in society except the feeble-minded are learning the +procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, +and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility +artificially. + +What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family +will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or +before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. +What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? +Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while +away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women +to-day? + +It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever +before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way +of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great +advantage,--the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter +politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will +deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment +and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even +for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social +structure and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded +mother can bring. + +Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To +some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a +refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of +temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by +divorce,--rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for +which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons +for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel +and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not +grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in +the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go +even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or +venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some +States. + +Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until +the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time +comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply +encourages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty. + +Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness +can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the rôles of mother +and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman +will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife +and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and +special education, and she will continue to find the rôle of the +traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and +the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis. + +In other words what we must seek to do--those of us who are not bound by +tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings +rather than the reverse--is to find out what changes in the home and +matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and +to-morrow. + +That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century +is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant +the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore +directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has +been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and +individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was +eliminated, in a sense was coöperative. This coöperation is increasing; +more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. +In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent +hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible. + +Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do +woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the +smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number +of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette +apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it +is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or +two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the +huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and +second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched +in the Introduction. + +The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its +heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but +recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, +and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In +it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of +brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its +source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle +and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a +sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the +English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a +reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are +thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of +its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged. + +Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than +anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its +indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects. + +On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable +from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are +often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the +cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes +by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each +woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest +waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the +intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and +housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from +feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, +unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol +home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many +kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory +and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, +and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking +and feeding to break from. + +Take as one minor example the gorging encouraged on Sunday and certain +holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all +Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her +family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is +directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, +Christmas,--the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed +into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has +its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer. + +While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and +inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster +importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, +because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet +individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service. + +There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, +even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which +drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, +brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak +too much in generalities--the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, +Mankind--forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are +homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and +having only one thing in common,--that they are segregated social units, +based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said +approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who +_knows_ shakes hands with individuals." + +In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to +generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown +to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is +exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the +lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the +quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either +positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or +develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is +traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, +overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as +possible conventional morals and manners. Such persons have simply +overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their +teaching by building counter-prejudices. + +Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be +kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the +course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; +the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic +purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real +life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one +and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted +to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so +intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, +but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the +hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the +poor fellows in the blizzard. + +Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it +becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that +break away from home and home ties who do the great things. + +When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great +virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its +very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the +bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is +proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of +the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of +largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are +born in the home. + +It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional +violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the +restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the +family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would +bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete +disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest +bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between +the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height. + +That courtesy to each other might be taught the children, might be +insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not +exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the +marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out +almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, +courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example. + +Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet +maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human +heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is +easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into +programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of +treatment,--so in society at large. + +Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men +and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and +drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the +sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by +some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger +coöperation, at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built +so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as coöperative +stores are springing up, so coöperative kitchens, community kitchens +organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, +without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her +own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a +development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens +now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the +housewife in most need,--the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real +social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, +nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be +eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would +disappear in a generation. + +That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the +disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius +has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. +Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even +the lower middle class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of +them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device +ought to be judged are these: + +First--Is it efficient? + +Second--Is it labor saving? + +Third--Is it time saving? + +We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional +diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating +ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, +fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the +housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would +also be of great benefit to her husband. The cult of hearty eating, +which results in keeping a woman (mistress or maid) in the kitchen for +three or more hours that a man may eat for twenty or thirty minutes is +folly. The type of meal that either takes only a short time for +preparation and devices which render the attention of the housewife +unnecessary are ethical and healthy, both for the family and society. +The joys of the table are not to be despised, and only the dyspeptic or +the ascetic hold them in contempt; but simplicity in eating is the very +heart of the joy of the table. + +Elaboration and gluttony are alike in this,--they increase the housework +and decrease the well-being of the diner. + +How to maintain the sweetness of the family spirit of the home and yet +bring into it a wider social spirit, break down its isolated +individualistic character, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to +solve. Ancient nations emphasized the social-national aspect of life +overmuch, as for example the Spartans; the modern home overemphasizes +the family aspect. We must avoid extremes by clinging to the virtues and +correcting the vices of the home. + +Alarmists are constantly raising the cry that marriage is declining and +that society is thereby threatened at its very heart. There is the +pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; +there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds +in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding +old-fashioned morality. Divorce, late marriage, and child-restriction +are the manifestations of this decadence, and the press, the pulpit, +science, and the State all have taken notice of these modern phenomena, +though with widely differing attitudes. + +That matrimony is changing cannot be questioned or denied. The main +change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose +rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no +longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, +when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in +exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the +horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to +this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely +enough, seemed to glory in it. + +With the rise of woman into the status of a human being (a revolution +not yet accomplished in entirety) the property relationship weakened but +lingers very strongly as a tradition that molds the lives of husband and +wife. Women are still held more rigidly to their duties as wives than +men to their duties as husbands, and the will of the husband still rules +in the major affairs of life, even though in a thousand details the wife +rules. Theoretically every man willingly acknowledges the importance of +his wife as mother and homekeeper, but practically he acts as if his +work were the really important activity of the family. The obedience of +the wife is still asked for by most of the religious ceremonies of the +times. Two great opinions are therefore still struggling in the home and +in society; one that matrimony implies the dependence and essential +inferiority of woman, and the other that the man and woman are equal +partners in the relationship. I fully realize that the advocate of the +first opinion will deny that the inferiority of woman is at all implied +in their standpoint. But it is an inferior who vows obedience, it is the +inferior who loses legal rights, it is the inferior who yields to +another the "headship" of the home. + +The struggle of these two opinions will have only one outcome, the +complete victory of the modern belief that the sexes are, all in all, +equal, and that therefore marriage is a contract of equals. Meanwhile +the struggling opinions, with the scene of conflict in every home, in +every heart, cause disorder as all struggles do. When the victory is +complete, then conduct will be definite and clear-cut, then the home +will be reorganized in relation to the new belief, and then new problems +will arise and be met. How conduct will be changed, what the new +problems will be and how they will be met, I do not pretend to know. + +Meanwhile there is this to say,--that marriage should be guarded so that +the grossly unfit do not marry. A thorough physical examination is as +necessary for matrimony as it is for civil service, and many of the +horrors every generation of doctors has witnessed could be eliminated at +once and for all time. + +Further, if marriage is a desirable state, and on the whole it must be +preferred to a single existence, surely so long as our code of morals +remains unchanged, and so long as we believe the race must be +perpetuated, then the too late marriage should be discouraged. The ideal +age for women to enter matrimony is from twenty-two to twenty-five; the +ideal age for men is from twenty-five to twenty-eight. It is not my +province to deal at length with this subject, but I may state that I +believe that continence beyond these ages becomes increasingly +difficult, that immorality is encouraged, that adaptability becomes +lessened, and that wiser selection of mates does _not_ occur. But how +bring about early marriages in a time when the luxuries seem to have +become necessities, and therefore the necessity of marriage is eyed more +and more as an extravagance of the foolhardy? How bring about early +marriage when women are earning pay almost equal to that of the men and +are therefore more reluctant to enter matrimony unless at a high +standard of living. The late marriage is an evil, but how it can be +displaced by the early marriage under the present social scheme I do not +see. + +We have considered divorce before this. It is not an evil but a symptom +of evil; not a disease in itself. It cannot be lessened or abolished +unless we are willing to state that a man and a woman should live +together as husband and wife, hating, despising, or fearing one another. +We cannot countenance brutality, unfaithfulness, or temperamental +mismating. It is true that divorces are often obtained for trivial +reasons, but usually the partners are not adapted to one another, +according to modern ways of thinking and feeling. What is commonplace +in one age is cruelty in the next, and this is a matter not of argument +but of expectation and feeling. + +Nothing more need be said of contraceptive measures than this: they are +inevitably increasing in use and soon will be part of the average +marriage. Society must recognize this, and the lawmakers must legalize +what they themselves practise. + +Matrimony, the home, woman, these are nodal points in the network of our +human lives. But they are not fixed centers, and the great weaver, Time, +changes the design constantly. Through them run the threads of the great +instincts, of tradition, of economic change, of the ideas, ideals, and +activities of man the restless. Man will always love woman, woman will +always love man; children will be born and reared, and sex conflict, +maladjustment, will always be secondary to these great facts. How men +and women will live together, how they will arrange for the children, +will be questions that women will help the world answer as well as their +mates. That the main trend of things is for better, more ethical, more +just relationship, I do not doubt. The secondary, most noisy changes +are perhaps evil, the main primary change is good. + +Meanwhile in the hurly-burly of new things, of complex relationships, +working blindly, is the nervous housewife. This book has been written +that she may know herself better and thus move towards the light; that +her husband may win sympathy and understanding and be bound to her in a +closer, better union, and that the physician and Society may seek the +direct and the remote means to helping her. + + + + +INDEX + +Alcoholism and housewife, 157 +Anger, 88 + +Beauty, loss of, 88 +Birth control, 14-16 +Birth control measures and nervousness, 137 + +Cases, treatment of, 231-243 +Child and cartoons, 113 + and movies, 111 +Childbearing and modern woman, 15 +Children and the neurosis, 97-115 + +Daydreaming, 81 +Diet and Cooking, 259 +Disagreeable, reaction to the, 90 +Divorce, 13 + +Emotions, effects of, 27-30; 42-45 +Engagement period, 229 +Extravagance of the housewife, 145 + +Fear, 93 +Feminism and individualization of woman, 10-13 + +Happiness and high cost of living, 151 +Histories of cases: + case with bad hygiene, 183-187 + hyperæsthetic woman, 187-193 + over-rich, purposeless type, 177-181 + overworked, under-rested type, 171-177 + physically ill type, 181-183 +Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5 +Home, + aboriginal, 5 + faults of, 225 + future of, 250 + isolation of, 77 +Household conflicts, 141-159 +Housewife, + hyperæsthetic type of, 51 + non-domestic type of, 61 + overconscientious type of, 53 + overemotional type of, 57 + physically ill, 69 + previously neurotic, 65 + types predisposed to nervousness, 47-73 +Housewife and abnormal child, 107 + and childbearing, 99 + and neglect, 153 + and poverty, 117 +Housewife of past generation, 3 +Housework, + evolution of, 5-10 + nature of, 75 +Housework and factory, 9 +Husband and housewife, 127 +Hysteria, 35 + +Jealousy and envy, 123 + +Marriage, conflicting views of, 127 +Marriage and sex relationship, 131-140 +Monotony, effects of, 79 +Nervousness, 17-20 +Nervousness and child hygiene, 100 +Nervousness and sick child, 104 +Neurasthenia, + causes, 9 + symptoms, 20-26 +Neurasthenia and fear, 23 + +Pruriency of our times, 275 +Psychasthenia, 31 +Psychoneuroses, 18 + +Sedentary life, effects of, 83 +Sex and society, 139 +Subconscious, 29 +Symptoms as weapons against husband, 161 + +Voltaire and constipation, 23 + +Will to power through weakness, 163, 212 +Woman, arts and crafts, 6-8 +Woman, + discontent of, 13 + future of, 244 + training of, 48-50 +Woman, industry and home, 8-10 +Worry, 119 + + + + +_By the Author of "RELIGION and HEALTH"_ + +=HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER= + +_By_ JAMES J. WALSH, M.D. + +_Medical Director of Fordham University School of Sociology_ + +12mo. Cloth. 288 pages. + + * * * * * + +"The American Public sorely needs the gospel of health that Dr. Walsh +preaches to it in his new book." + +--_The Pilot, Boston._ + + +"I do not wonder that your splendid book 'Health Through Will Power' has +met with such great success. I know that I could hardly leave the book +out of my hands, it was so interesting and instructive." + +--_Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, of New York._ + + +"'Health Through Will Power' is packed with medical wisdom translated +into the vernacular of common sense." + +--_The Ave Maria._ + + +"Your book is capable of adding largely to happiness, as well as health. +It is also wonderful, spiritually. I feel like recommending the book to +everyone I know." + +--_Mgr. M.J. Lavelle, of New York._ + + +"This book should find a place in every home, as it will help to bring +us back to a more natural manner of living." + +--_The Rosary Magazine._ + + * * * * * + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS + +34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14196 *** diff --git a/14196-h/14196-h.htm b/14196-h/14196-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5cac266 --- /dev/null +++ b/14196-h/14196-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5470 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson, M.D. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; width: 80%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;font-variant: small-caps;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14196 ***</div> + +<h1>THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE</h1> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ABRAHAM MYERSON, M.D.</h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>BOSTON</h3> + +<h4>LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY</h4> + +<h5>1920</h5> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>Published November, 1920</h3> + + +<h4>Norwood Press</h4> + +<h4>Set up and electrotyped by J.S. Cushing Co.</h4> + +<h5>Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</h5> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><th align='right'>Chapter</th><th align='left'> </th><th align='right'>Page</th></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td align='left'>Introductory</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td align='left'>The Nature Of "Nervousness"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td align='left'>Types Of Housewife Predisposed To Nervousness</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td align='left'>The Housework And The Home As Factors In The Neurosis</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td align='left'>Reaction To The Disagreeable</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_91'>91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td align='left'>Poverty And Its Psychical Results</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_116'>116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td align='left'>The Housewife And Her Husband</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td align='left'>The Housewife And Her Household Conflicts</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td align='left'>The Symptoms As Weapons Against The Husband</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td align='left'>Histories Of Some Severe Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td align='left'>Other Typical Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td align='left'>Treatment Of The Individual Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_231'>231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td align='left'>The Future Of Woman, The Home, And Marriage</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'> </td><td align='left'><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_269'>269</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Introductory</h3> + +<p>How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife?</p> + +<p>Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific +creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse +all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the +youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a +headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost +his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge?</p> + +<p>We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference +to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the +present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in <a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>every +man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do, +for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor +Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of +occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her +a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes +from specialist to specialist,—orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray +man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment +she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her +feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her +insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics, +electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science!</p> + +<p>Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with +pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and +saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young +girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her +man, into the housewife of a decade,—complaining, fatigued, and +disillusioned. Bound to her <a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>husband by the ties the years and the +children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them.</p> + +<p>"Men don't understand," cries she. "Women are unreasonable," says he.</p> + +<p>What are the causes of the change? Did the housewife of a past +generation go through the same stage? Ask any man you meet and he will +tell you his mother is or was more enduring than his wife. "She bore +three times as many children; she did all her own housework; she baked +more, cooked more, sewed more; she got up at five o'clock in the morning +and went to bed at ten at night; she never went out, never had a +vacation, did not know the meaning of manicure, pedicure, coiffure. She +was contented, never extravagant, and rarely sick."</p> + +<p>So the average man will say, and then: "Those were the good old days of +simple living, gone like the dodo!" To-day,—well, it reminds me of a +joke I heard. One man meets another and says: 'By the way, I heard that +your wife was the champion athlete at college.' 'Ah, yes,' said the +husband; 'now she is too weak to wash the dishes.'</p> + +<p><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>Is the average man's impression the correct one? Or are we dealing with +the incorrigible disposition of man to glorify the past? To the majority +of people their youth was an era of stronger, braver men, more +wholesome, beautiful women. People were better, times were more natural, +and there is a grim satisfaction in predicting that the "world is going +to the dogs." "The good old days" has been the cry of man from the very +earliest times.</p> + +<p>Yet read what a contemporary of the housewife of three quarters of a +century ago says,—the wisest, wittiest, sanest doctor of the day, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. The genial autocrat of the breakfast table +observes: "Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid of all work, with the title of mistress and an American +female constitution which collapses just in the middle third of life, +comes out vulcanized India rubber, if it happens to live through the +period when health and strength are most wanted?"</p> + +<p>And then, if one looks in the advertisements of half a century ago, one +finds the nostrum dealer loudly proclaiming his capacity to cure <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>what +is evidently the Nervous Housewife. In America at least she has always +existed, perhaps in lesser numbers than at present. And one remembers in +a dim sort of way that the married woman of olden days was altogether +faded at thirty-five, that she entered on middle life at a time when at +least many of our women of to-day still think themselves young.</p> + +<p>It becomes interesting and necessary at this point to trace the +evolution of the home, because this is to trace the evolution of our +housewife. We are apt to think of the home as originating in a sort of +cave, where the little unit—the Man, the Woman, and the Children—dwelt +in isolation, ever on the watch against marauders, either animal or +human. In this cave the woman was the chattel of man; he had seized her +by force and ruled by force.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there was such a stage, but much more likely the home was a +communal residence, where the man-herd, the group, the clan, the Family +in the larger sense dwelt. Only a large group would be safe, and the +strong social instinct, the herd feeling, was the basis of the home. +Here the men <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>and women dwelt in a promiscuity that through the ages +went through an evolution which finally became the father-controlled +monogamy of to-day. Here the women lived; here they span, sewed, built; +here they started the arts, the handicrafts, and the religions. And from +here the men went forth to fish and hunt and fight, grim males to whom a +maiden was a thing to court and a wife a thing to enslave.</p> + +<p>Just how the home became more and more segregated and the family life +more individualized is not in the province of this book to detail. This +is certain: that the home was not only a place where man and woman +mated, where their children were born and reared, where food was +prepared and cooked, and where shelter from the elements was obtained; +it was also the first great workshop, where all the manifold industries +had their inception and early development. The housewife was then not +only mother, wife, cook, and nurse; she was the spinner, the weaver, the +tanner, the dyer, the brewer, the druggist.</p> + +<p>Even in the high civilization of the Jews this wide scope of the +housewife prevailed.<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a> Read what the wisest, perhaps because most +married, of men says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>She seeketh wool and flax,<br /></span> +<span>And worketh willingly with her hands.<br /></span> +<span>She is like the merchant ships;<br /></span> +<span>She bringeth her food from afar.<br /></span> +<span>She considereth a field, and buyeth it.<br /></span> +<span>With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.<br /></span> +<span>She girdeth her loins with strength,<br /></span> +<span>And maketh strong her arms.<br /></span> +<span>She perceiveth that her merchandise is good.<br /></span> +<span>Her lamp goeth not out by night.<br /></span> +<span>She layeth her hands to the distaff<br /></span> +<span>And her hands hold the spindle.<br /></span> +<span> * + * + * + * + *<br /></span> +<span>She is not afraid of the snow for her household:<br /></span> +<span>For all her household are clothed with scarlet.<br /></span> +<span>She maketh for herself coverlets,<br /></span> +<span>She maketh linen garments and selleth them,<br /></span> +<span>And delivereth girdles unto the merchants.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>No wonder "her children rise up and call her blessed" and it is somewhat +condescending of her husband when he "praiseth her." All we learn of him +is that he "is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of +the land." With a wife like her, this was all he had to do.</p> + +<p>This combination of industrialism and <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>domesticity continued until +gradually men stepped into the field of work, perhaps as a result of +their wives' example, and became farmers on a larger scale, merchants of +a wider scope, artisans, handicraftsmen, guild members of a more +developed technique. Woman started these things in the home or near it; +man, through his restless energy, specialized and thus developed an +intenser civilization. But even up till the nineteenth century woman +carried on all her occupations at the home, which still continued to be +workshop and hearth.</p> + +<p>Then man invented the machine, harnessed steam, wired electricity, and +there was born the Factory, the specialized house of industry, in which +there works no artisan, only factory hands. The home could not compete +with this man's monster, into which flowed one river of raw material and +out of which poured another of finished products. But not only did the +factory dye, weave, spin, tan, etc.; it also invaded the innermost +sphere of woman's work. For her loaf of bread it turned out thousands, +until finally she is beginning to give up baking; for her hit-or-miss +jellies, preserves, jams, it invented <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>scientific canning with absolute +methods, handy forms, tempting flavors. And canning did not stop there; +meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the +housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no +longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern +time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has +stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own +creation, the factory.</p> + +<p>Thus it has come to pass that in our day the housewife does but little +dyeing, spinning, weaving, is no longer a handicraftsman, and in +addition is turning over a large part of her food preparation and +cooking to the factory.</p> + +<p>But the factory is not content with thus disarranging the ancient scheme +of things by invading the housewife's province; it has dragged a large +number of women, yearly increasing in number and proportion, into +industry. Thus it has made this condition of affairs: that it takes the +young girl from the home for the few years that intervene before her +marriage. She is thus initiated into wage-earning before she becomes a +man's wife, the housewife.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>This industrial period of a girl's life is important psychologically, +for it profoundly influences her reaction to her status and work as +homekeeper.</p> + +<p>Of even greater importance to our study than the influence of the +factory is the rise of what is known as feminism. Of all the living +creatures in the world the female of the human species has been the most +downtrodden, for to every wretched class of man there was a still +inferior, more wretched group, their wives. She was a slave to the +slaves, a dependent of the abjectly poor. When men passed through the +stage where woman's life might be taken at a whim, she remained a +creature without rights of the wider kind. Men debated whether she had a +soul, made cynical proverbs about her, called her the "weaker vessel," +and debarred her from political and economic equality, classing her up +to this very moment in rights with the idiot, the imbecile, and the +criminal. Worse than this, they gave her a spurious homage, created a +lop-sided chivalry, and caused her to accept as her ideal goal of +womanhood the achievement of beauty and the entrance into wifehood. +After they tied <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>her hand and foot with restrictions and belittling +ideals, they capped the climax by calling her weak and petty by nature +and even got her to believe it!</p> + +<p>It is not my intention to trace the rise of feminism. Brave women arose +from age to age to glorify the world and their sex, and men here and +there championed them. Man started to emancipate himself from slavery, +and noble ideals of the equality of mankind first were whispered, then +shouted as battle cries, and finally chiseled with enduring letters into +the foundations of States. "But if all this was good for men, why not +for women—why should they be fettered by illiteracy, pettiness, +dependence; why should they be voiceless in the state and world?" So +asked the feminists. The factory called for women as labor; they became +the clerks, the teachers, the typists, the nurses. Medicine and the law +opened their doors, at least in part. And now we are on the verge of +universal suffrage, with women entering into the affairs of the world, +theoretically at least the equals of man.</p> + +<p>But with the entrance of woman into many varied professions and +occupations, with a <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>wider access to experience and knowledge, arose +what may be called the era of the "individualization of woman." For if +any group of people are kept under more or less uniform conditions in +early life, if one goal is held out as the only legitimate aim and end, +in a word, if their training and purposes are made alike, they become +alike and individuality never develops. With individuality comes +rebellion at old-established conditions, dissatisfaction, discontent, +and especially if the old ideal still remains in force. This new type of +woman is not so well fitted for the old type of marriage as her +predecessors. There arises a group of consequences based psychologically +on this, a fact which we shall find of great importance later on.</p> + +<p>Women still regard marriage as their chief goal in life, still enter +homes, still bear children, and take their husband's name. But having +become more individualized they demand more definite individual +treatment and rebel more at what they consider an infringement of their +rights as human beings. Also, and unfortunately, they still wish the +right to be whimsical, they continue to reserve for themselves the +weapons of tears, <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>reproaches, and unreasonable demands. This has +brought about the divorce evil.</p> + +<p>Briefly the "divorce" evil arises first from the rebellion of woman +against marital drunkenness, unfaithfulness, neglect, brutality that a +former generation of wives tolerated and even expected. Second, it +arises from a conflict between the institution of marriage which still +carries with it the chattel idea—that woman is property—and a +generation of women that does not accept this. Third, it arises from the +ill-balanced demands of women to be treated as equals and also as +irresponsible, petty, and indulged tyrants. Men are unable to adjust +themselves to the shattering of the romantic ideal, and the home +disintegrates. Though divorce is the top of the crest of marital +unhappiness, it really represents only the extreme cases, and behind it +is a huge body of quarreling and divided homes.</p> + +<p>We shall later see that our Nervous Housewife has symptoms and pains and +aches and changes in mood and feeling that are born of the conflict that +is in part pictured by divorce. <i>Divorce is a manifestation of the +discontent of women, and so is the nervousness of the housewife.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>There arises as a result of this individualization of woman, as a +result of increasing physiological knowledge, the hugely important fact +of restricted child bearing. The woman will no longer bear children +indiscriminately,—and the large family is soon to be a thing of the +past in America and in all the civilized world. The-woman-that-knows-how +shrinks from the long nine months of pregnancy, the agony of the birth, +and the weary restricted months of nursing. Had the woman of a past time +known how, she too would have refused to bear. In this the housewife of +to-day is seconded by her husband, for where he has sympathy for his +wife he prefers to let her decide the number of children, and also he is +impressed by the high cost of rearing them.</p> + +<p>One gets cynical about the influence of church, patriotism, and press +when one sees how the housewife has disregarded these influences. For +all the religions preach that race suicide is a sin, all the statesmen +point out that only decadent nations restrict families, and all or +nearly all the press thunder against it. It is even against the law for +a physician or other person to instruct in the <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>methods of birth +restriction, and yet—the birth rate steadily drops. An immigrant mother +has six, eight, or ten children and her daughter has one, two, or three, +very rarely more, and often enough none. This is true even of races +close to religious teaching, such as the Irish Catholic and the Jew.</p> + +<p>One can well be cynical of the power of religion and teaching and law +when one finds that even the families of ministers, rabbis, editors, and +lawmakers, all of whom stand publicly for natural birth, have shown a +great reduction in their size, that has taken place in a single +generation.</p> + +<p>Is the modern woman more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy,—less +resistant to the strain of childbearing and childbirth? It is a quite +general impression amongst obstetricians that this is a fact and also +that fewer women are able to nurse their babies. If so, these phenomena +are of the highest importance to the race and likewise to the problem of +the new housewife. For we shall learn that the lowering of energy is +both a cause and symptom of her neuroses.</p> + +<p>If then we summarize what has been thus far outlined, we find two +currents in the <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>evolution of the housewife. <i>First</i>, she has yielded a +large part of her work to the factory, practically all of that part of +it which is industrial and a considerable portion of the food +preparation.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>, there has been a rise in the dignity and position of woman in +the past one hundred and fifty years which has had many results. She has +considerably widened the scope of her experience with life through work +in the factory, in the office, in the schoolhouse, and in the +professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original +occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. +She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has +declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce +has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability +to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the +declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization +and is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of +freedom.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Nature Of "nervousness"</h3> + + +<p>Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we +must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness +in general.</p> + +<p>Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place +whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition +is so loosely used as this one.</p> + +<p>People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of +anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of +fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is +restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting +his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the +ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who +branded his <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A +"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of +the sinister faces of insanity itself.</p> + +<p>It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous +housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the +general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the +intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the +causes.</p> + +<p>Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous +disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no +alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part +of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such +diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, +etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter +troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed +oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,—as against one in which a +vital part was broken.</p> + +<p>The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is +concerned, is the <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>condition called neurasthenia, although two other +diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance.</p> + +<p>It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as +a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the +eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the +stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every +part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an +accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is +probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that +modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever +present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved.</p> + +<p>Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as +compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of +neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving, +<i>i.e.</i> distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, +telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to +increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>man with +his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but +by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving +<i>himself</i>.</p> + +<p>The keynote of neurasthenia is <i>increased liability to fatigue</i>. The +tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising +than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should +remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his +day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious +drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or +sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body. +Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and +this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words +as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a +listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more +distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with +over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild +kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for +the things formerly held <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>dearest. And finally the fatigue is often +marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger +blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a +slight vexation. <i>To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks +of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that +is neither health nor disease.</i></p> + +<p>The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything +imaginable.</p> + +<p>1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache, +backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs, +pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings +rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to +disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue +plays the principal part in evoking them.</p> + +<p>2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels, +are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a +capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. +The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for +disagreeable emotions, such as worry, <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>fear, vexation, have long been +known as the chief enemies of appetite.</p> + +<p>With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by +"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these +lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the +stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the +nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the +disorder of emotion.</p> + +<p>3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is +primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once +it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism +by its interference with the mood.</p> + +<p>The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread +knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical +discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the +agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness. +Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named +the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared +with a revolver <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be +seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he +found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life +and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said +the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to +commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my +bowels moved well."</p> + +<p>4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful, +dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the +bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded +our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary +functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work, +and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not +only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness.</p> + +<p>5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes +two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, +that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health +<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has +even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is +almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the +possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a +symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability +to worry becomes greatly increased.</p> + +<p>Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors +hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The +hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease, +every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis, +every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache +into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze +inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of +sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant +for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily +processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the +little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the +gastro-intestinal <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>tract have no essential meaning in the majority of +cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they +multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal +groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily +disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally +enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or +perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The +faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then +proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of +treatment.</p> + +<p>What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back +of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in +relation to the housewife,—matters like innate temperament, bad +training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for +sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, +over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, +passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and +doubt; matters like recent ill<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>ness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, +wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that +either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after +a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of +energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some +thought, some life situation of a depressing kind.</p> + +<p>It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our +subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over +the wider field of the human being.</p> + +<p>The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the +building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is +digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into +the tissues,—and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion. +The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the +human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other +words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our +later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of +<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our +love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought +battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and +achievement.</p> + +<p>Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in +tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition +there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,—that create vigor +and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, +laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work +with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the +battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a +stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The +feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a +new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, +which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end.</p> + +<p>There are <i>deënergizing emotions and experiences</i> as well, things that +suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>certain type +is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs +become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, +and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, +either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the +strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the +frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and +injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and +inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,—the mistaken +marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental +pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure of +interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of +enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with +loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic, +deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We +shall discover how this comes about farther on.</p> + +<p>What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in +further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it?</p> + +<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists +affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only +mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of +writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a +new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed—that every human +being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes, +ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly +admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he +would deny.</p> + +<p>These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with +another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for +the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an +illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose +to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may +struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,—a husband, +a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one +refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to +suppress jeal<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>ousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring, +forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may +(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast.</p> + +<p>In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings, +passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses +of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but +nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it.</p> + +<p>However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast +and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the +neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided +against himself, deënergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict.</p> + +<p>And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a +creature, with a host of deënergizing influences playing on her, +buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to +discover how they work.</p> + +<p>I have stated that in medical practice two other types are +described,—psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely +related to the happenings of life as to the <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>inborn disposition of the +patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the +neurasthenic, deënergized state. However, they are usually of more +serious nature, and as such merit a description.</p> + +<p>By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which +the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, +etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are +overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms.</p> + +<p>These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to +recurring fears,—fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of +leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt, +so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of +disease—especially such as syphilis—and a host of other fears, all of +which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles +but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and +comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense +of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has +actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear +<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>of any vehicle after an automobile accident.</p> + +<p>There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas +and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such +as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a +chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly +turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts +occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them +continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In +extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of +deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal +debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his +meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing, +and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an +inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the +name that is often applied,—"anxiety neurosis."</p> + +<p>Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd +impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>crack, to touch +the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. +The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick +that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic +adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and +cracking joints of the inveterate <i>ticquer</i>. Against some of these habit +spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for +there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will +of the patient is powerless.</p> + +<p>Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow +exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The +ground is prepared for these conditions, <i>e.g.</i> by the strain of long +attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a +queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is +brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful +expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease +starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage, +recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful +<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or +obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases +according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of +causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and +repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not +at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of +nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in +life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian +factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they +should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are +bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires +frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face +they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way +or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance. +These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have +been considering.</p> + +<p>Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is +probably the one <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>having its source mainly in the character of the +patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is +secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of +diseases and has probably played a very important rôle in the history of +man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, +for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of +religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in +their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical +blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away +his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every +faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de +Beaupré.</p> + +<p>In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as +well as in her single sisters and brothers.</p> + +<p>There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to +prolonged and freakish manifestations,—the well-known hysterics with +laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics +is this instability, this emotionality, which is however <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>secondary to +an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and +often unable legitimately to earn them.</p> + +<p>A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called +paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a +moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg, +face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to +worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the +nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call +"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, +ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and +a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any +energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a +physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious +danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of +people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat +of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well.</p> + +<p>Similar in type to the paralyses are losses <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>of sensation in various +parts of the body,—losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep +into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting +the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they +found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of +witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or +drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and +happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their +ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually +mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or +wretches deserving severest punishment.</p> + +<p>Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness +that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to +long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is +apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden +days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of +throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague +statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descend<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>ants +in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers +that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and +credulous.</p> + +<p>For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of +themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are +theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are +weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient.</p> + +<p>In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now +consider in more detail certain phases of emotion.</p> + +<p>Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow +flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the +floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's +soul.</p> + +<p>Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly +against the problems of nature, much more rarely against <i>his own</i> +problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense +of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and +desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied +emotions,—hunger, sex, property, competition, co<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>öperation. The +intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the +case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any +great decision is to be made.</p> + +<p>We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely +psychical,—purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great +descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart +thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold +chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth +was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man +stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force +only equaled by its truth.</p> + +<p>William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that +emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain +its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly +feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing, +and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling +of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>sorrow or joy or +anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,—immediately the +jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench +and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in +what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. +Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over +you a feeling not unlike anger.</p> + +<p>In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying +because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we +cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy +because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of +things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of +fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling +itself.</p> + +<p>This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable +theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is +largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat, +lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion +is a very <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>important matter in our study of the housewife as of every +other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance +that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what +may be called the physical basis of emotion.</p> + +<p>What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to +well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It +may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and +excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the +appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This +is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions. +(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.)</p> + +<p>It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may +change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It +may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent +their evacuation.</p> + +<p>It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head +without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell; +<i>i.e.</i> may absolutely deprive the victim <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>of consciousness. In lesser +degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often +very distressing.</p> + +<p>It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about +sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show.</p> + +<p>It may completely deënergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or +power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser +degree with the form of fear called worry.</p> + +<p>The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation +which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily +response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase +the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the +"psychical" processes, but also it may deënergize to an extraordinary +degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and +action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely, +produce death.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty +laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion +has probably for one of its main <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>functions the producing of an effect +on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger +is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring +about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one +smiles or laughs <i>at</i> some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, +anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that +his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to +their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when +joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered +when pessimistic deënergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a +nation becomes energized with good news and success and deënergized when +the battle seems lost.</p> + +<p>The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or +the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a +social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous +housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her +family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties +are greatly weakened.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I +recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and +afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room, +seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the +very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever +hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps +the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the +predominant note.</p> + +<p>Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler, +obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile, +everything is wrong. You are a <i>deleted deleted deleted deleted</i> +rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of +anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She +gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. +White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, +bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face, +and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the +gingerbread from the butcher's boy.<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a> And that still hungry juvenile +slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back +doorstep.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly +it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at +any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual +happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as +disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes +down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered +by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes +a king off his throne.</p> + +<p>So when we trace the deënergizing emotions of the housewife, we are +tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; +we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood, +her emotion, into the future, into history.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Types Of Housewife Predisposed To Nervousness</h3> + + +<p>There are three main factors in the production of the nervousness of the +housewife, and they weave and interweave in a very complex way to +produce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how +simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. +Our housewife's symptoms are no exception, whether they are mainly +pains, aches, and fatigue, or the deeply motivated doubt or feeling of +unreality.</p> + +<p>The nature of the housewife, the conditions of her life, and her +relations to her husband are these three factors. All enter into each +case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There +are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essential cause, +others where it is the conditions <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>of her life, and still others where +the husband stands out as the source of her symptoms.</p> + +<p>We are now to consider the nature of the housewife as our first factor. +We may preamble this by saying that a woman essentially normal in one +relationship in life may be abnormal in some other, may be the +traditional square peg in the round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on +the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large +extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are +alike"—and then follows the specific accusation—"in fickleness", "in +extravagance", "in unreasonableness", in this trick or that. The chief +effort of conservatism is to make them alike, to fit each one for the +same life by the same training in habits, knowledge, abilities, and +ideals.</p> + +<p>Talk about Prussianism! The great Prussianism, with its ideal of +uniformity, serviceability, and servility, has been the masculine ideal +of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to taste +all its experiences, but woman had her sphere, which belied all +mathematics by being a narrow groove.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>The nineteenth century changed all that,—or started the change which +is going on with extraordinary rapidity in the twentieth. There are all +kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman +tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative +middle-of-the-road biologically, while man spreads out, but no one can +be sure of this until woman's early training to some extent resembles +man's.</p> + +<p>1. From the very start woman is trained to vanity. Every mother loves to +doll up her girl baby, and the child is admired for her dress and +appearance. Now it is an essential quality of the normal human being +that he accepts as an ideal the quality most admired. To the young +child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, +Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The +pretty girls, the ones most courted, the ones surest on the whole to get +married and to become housewives are usually spoiled by indulgence, +petting, admiration, and this for a quality not at all related to strong +character, and therefore vanity of a trivial kind results.</p> + +<p>2. Moreover, woman is trained to <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>emotionality. It may be that she is by +nature more emotional than man, but again this can only be known when +she has been trained to repress emotional response as a man is trained. +If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or +another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if +a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taught that tears are +potent weapons, a fact she uses with extraordinary effect later on, +especially in dealing with men. If she shows fear, she is protected, +sheltered, and given a sort of indulged inferiority.</p> + +<p>3. The romantic ideal is constantly held before her in the private +counsel of her mother, in the books she reads, in the plays she +witnesses, in all the allurements of art. She is to await the lover, the +hero; he will take her off with him to dwell in love and happiness +forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops +the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible +preparation for married life, excepting perhaps the <i>courtship</i>. This +latter emphasizes a distorted chivalry that makes of woman a petty thing +on a pedestal, <a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>out of touch with reality; it is an exciting entrance +into what in the majority of cases is a rather monotonous existence.</p> + +<p>All these things—vanity, emotionality, romanticism, courtship—are poor +training for the home. They hinder even the strongest woman, they are +fetters for the more delicate.</p> + +<p>In taking up the special types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife it is to be emphasized that conditions may bring about the +neurosis in the normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of +women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the +neurosis much more easily and much more intensely than do the normal +women. They are the types most commonly seen in the hospital clinic or +in the private consulting room of the neurologist.</p> + +<p>First comes the hyperæsthetic type. One of the chief marks of advancing +civilization is an increasing refinement of taste and desire. The +fundamental human needs are food, shelter, clothes, sex relations, and +companionship. These the savage has as well as his civilized brother, +and he finds them not only necessary but agreeable. What <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>we call +progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, +elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With +each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, +and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, desire +keeps pace with improvement, so that although great advances materially +have been made, there has been little advance, if any, in contentment. +This is because as we progress in refinement little things come to be +important, manner becomes more essential than matter, and we get to the +hyperæsthetic stage.</p> + +<p>Thus the dinner becomes less important than the manner of serving it. In +the "highest circles" it is the <i>savoir faire</i>, the niceties of conduct, +that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with +thought rather than the means of expressing it, and thought itself +scorns the elemental and fundamental and busies itself with the vagaries +of existence.</p> + +<p>From another angle, to the hyperæsthetic more and more things have +become disagreeable. To the man of simple tastes and simple <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>feelings, +only the calamities are disagreeable; to the hyperæsthetic every breeze +has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the +reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess +boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in +delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So +with the hyperæsthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a +deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of its savor; +sounds become noises; a bit of litter, dirt; a little reality, +intolerable crudity.</p> + +<p>A woman with this temperament is a poor candidate for matrimony unless +there goes with it a capacity for adjustment, unusual in this type. Most +men have their habitual crudities, their daily lapses, and every home is +the theater of a constant struggle with the disagreeable. Intensely +pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for +the shortcomings. The hyperæsthetic woman is constantly the prey of the +most deënergizing of emotions,—disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an +exaggerated <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>expression of her feeling. And her afflicted household size +up the situation with the brief analysis, "Everything makes her +nervous." Every one in her household falls under the tyranny of her +disposition, mingling their concern with exasperation, their pity with a +silent almost subconscious contempt.</p> + +<p>Next comes the over-conscientious type. Whatever conscience is, whether +implanted by God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, +and a social nature, there can be no question that, as the Court of +Appeals, it does harm as well as good.</p> + +<p>There are people whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of +crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, +and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there +are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two +directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their +own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to +reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they +become, as it were, a sort of misdirected Providence, raising havoc with +the happiness and comfort of others. Whether the con<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>scienceless or +those overburdened with this type of conscience have done more harm in +the world is perhaps an open question, which I leave to the historians +for settlement.</p> + +<p>The other type of the overconscientious does definite harm to +themselves. This type I have called the "Seekers of Perfection" and it +is their affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are +particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by +hyperæsthetic. Constantly they examine and reëxamine what they have +done. "Is it the best I can do?" "Should I rest now; have I the right to +rest?"</p> + +<p>Into every moment of enjoyment they obtrude conscience, or rather +conscience obtrudes itself. They become wedded to a purpose, and then +that purpose becomes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief +pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; +nothing is good but the best. The sense of humor is conspicuously +lacking in this type, for one of the main functions of humor is to +season effort and straining purpose with proportion.</p> + +<p>Should one of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually +"picking <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, +"finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never +finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, +unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly +chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the +strain, even though she have a dozen servants to help. For to this type +each helper is not at all an aid. At once up goes the standard of what +is to be done, and each servant becomes an added care, an added +responsibility.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to go out with you," wails this housewife, "but there's +something I must finish to-day." The word <i>must</i>, self-imposed, becomes +the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word +drives her to the real neglect of her husband, who becomes irritated at +her constant and to him needless activity, coupled with her complaints.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you rest if you are tired," is his stock remonstrance; "the +house looks all right to me."</p> + +<p>But it is futile. She becomes irritated, perhaps cries and says, "Just +like a man.<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a> It's clean to you if there are no cobwebs on the walls."</p> + +<p>Whereupon the debate closes, but the woman is the more deënergized and +the man exasperated at the unreasonableness of women in general and his +wife in particular.</p> + +<p>It is probably true that woman has more conscience, in so far as detail +is concerned, than man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, +more wedded to decorum. Man loves comfort and his interest is more +specialized and analytical, and as a rule he hates fussiness.</p> + +<p>This hatred of fussiness makes him long for the masculine clubroom, +gives him the kind of uneasiness that sends him off on a fishing trip or +hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, +many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of the Wife, the +Husband, and the Other Woman owes its existence, not to the charms of +the other woman, but to the overconscientious wife.</p> + +<p>The third type predisposed to the neurosis of the housewife is the +overemotional woman.</p> + +<p>We have already considered the effect of certain types of emotion on +health and en<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>durance and may formulate it as follows: Emotion may act +as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function +of the body. What we call nervousness is largely made up of abnormal +emotional response, of persistent emotion, of the blocking of energy by +emotion.</p> + +<p>Now people differ from the very start of life in their response to +situations. One baby, if he does not get what he wants, turns his +attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he +gets it. One will manifest anger and strike at being blocked or impeded +in his desires, and the other will implore and plead in a baby way for +his wish.</p> + +<p>In the face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts +hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a +fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a +fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past +experience and seeking a definite plan to gain his end.</p> + +<p>A loss, a deprivation, plunges one type of person into deepest sorrow, a +helpless sorrow, inert and symbolic of the hopeless frustration <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>of +love. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him +deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great +philanthropy, a great memorial to his grief. For the one, sorrow has +deënergized; for the other it has energized, has raised the efforts to a +nobler plane.</p> + +<p>Now there are women, and also men, to whom emotion acts like an overdose +of a drug. Parenthetically, emotion and certain drugs have very similar +effects. No matter how joyous the occasion and how exuberant their joy, +a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. +This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vision +of possible disaster to one they love may appear before them through +some stray mental association. They are at the mercy of every sad memory +and of every look into the future.</p> + +<p>Preëminently, they are the victims of that form of chronic fear called +worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He implied by this +name that it was a sort of degenerated "forethought."</p> + +<p>If the baby has a cough, then it may have tuberculosis or pneumonia or +some disastrous <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>illness, of which death is the commonest ending. How +often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she +does keep his telephone busy! It is true that a cough may be early +tuberculosis, but this is the last possibility rather than the first.</p> + +<p>If the husband is late, Heaven knows what may have happened. She has +visions of him lying dead in some morgue, picked up by the police, or +he's in a hospital terribly injured by an automobile, or, perchance, a +robber has sandbagged him and dragged him into a dark alley. If she is a +bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that +way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at +home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession +of her to the exclusion of the more rational; <i>she has a sort of +affinity for the terrible</i>. And when her husband comes home, the +profound fear in many cases turns sharply and quickly to anger at him. +Her distorted sense of responsibility makes him the culprit for her +unnecessary fear.</p> + +<p>Now it is true that almost every woman has something of this tendency, +but it is only <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>the extreme case that I am here depicting. In this +extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. The +Jewish home reverberates with emotionality and largely through this +attitude of the Jewish housewife.</p> + +<p>Such a woman is apt to make a slave of her family through their fear of +arousing her emotions. How frequently people are chained by their +sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny +of some one else's weakness, would fill one of the biggest chapters in a +true history of the human race,—a book that will probably never be +written.</p> + +<p>Naturally enough, this housewife finds plenty to worry about, to react +to, and since these reactions are physical, they have a lowering effect +on her energy.</p> + +<p>To those familiar with the conception that every emotion, every feeling, +needs a discharge, it will seem heretical when I say that the excessive +discharge of emotion is harmful. Freud finds the root of most nervous +trouble in repressed emotion. That is in part true, but it is also true +that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emo<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>tional +discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act +too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is +one of the great objects of training. It has for its goal the supremacy +of the noblest organ of the human being, his brain. For proper living +there must be emotion—there always will be—but it must be tempered +with intelligence if the best good of the individual and the race is to +be reached.</p> + +<p>The type of woman we must now study is a very modern product, the +non-domestic type.</p> + +<p>That the great majority of women have a maternal instinct does not +nullify the fact that a small number have none whatever. One of the +facts of life, not taken into account with a fraction of its true +significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide +range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and tastes. A +quality is said to be normal when the majority of the group possess it, +but it may be utterly lacking in a smaller number who are thereby +declared abnormal.</p> + +<p>At present, it is normal for woman to be domestic, <i>i.e.</i> to yearn for +husband, home, and children; to want to be a housewife. Un<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>fortunately, +all these yearnings do not hang closely together, and a woman may want a +husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, +and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike the housekeeping +activities of marriage. The sex and other instincts upon which marriage +is based are not always linked with the maternal and home-keeping +instincts.</p> + +<p>While this has probably always been true, it mattered little in olden +days. A woman regarded the home as her destiny and generally had +experienced no other life. But as was shown in the first chapter, +industry and feminism have given woman a taste of other kinds of life +and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. +Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private +secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for +some house; or she has dabbled in art or literature; or she has been a +factory girl mingling with hundreds of others, working hard, but in a +large group; or a saleslady in a department store,—and domestic life is +expected of her as if she had been trained for it. In fact, she has been +trained away from it.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>The novelists delight to tell us of the woman who seeks a career and +enters the struggle of her profession and fails. And then there comes, +just when her failure is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, +the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, +oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and will be happy—long row of +asterisks, and have children; and if it is a movie, a year or more +elapses and we are permitted to gaze upon a charming domestic scene.</p> + +<p>But alas for reel life as against real life! We are not shown how she +yearns for the activities of her old career; we are not shown the +feeling she constantly has that she is too good for housekeeping. If she +has been fortunate enough to marry a rich and indulgent man, she becomes +a dilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first +vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she +marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty +and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker +worm in the bud,—and we have the neurosis of this type of housewife. Or +else her <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>experience in business makes her size up her husband more +keenly, and we find her rebelling against his failure, criticizing him +either openly to the point of domestic disharmony, or inwardly to her +own disgust.</p> + +<p>It is not meant that all business and professional women, all typists +and factory girls are dissatisfied with marriage or develop an abnormal +amount of neurosis. Many a girl of this type really loves housekeeping, +really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, +clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent +experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman, +then the neurosis appears in full bloom. Against the adulation given to +women singers and actresses, against the fancied rewards of literature +and business, the domestic lot seems drab to this non-domestic type.</p> + +<p>Here the question arises: Is there room in our society for matrimony and +a business career? That a large number of exceptional women have found +it possible to be mothers, housewives, authors, and singers at one and +the same time does not take away from the fact that in the majority of +cases such a <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>combination means either a childless marriage or the +turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the +abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few +cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have +children are poor and work in factories, there is the greatest infant +mortality, there is the greatest amount of juvenile delinquency, and +there is the greatest amount of marital difficulty. Our present +conception of matrimony demands that woman remains in the home until +such time at least as her children are able to care largely for +themselves.</p> + +<p>In the history of the worst cases of the housewife's neurosis one finds +previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized, +the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously +existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in +college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it +occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This +previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional +strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in +examinations. It may have <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>followed acute illness, like influenza or +pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung, +delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep +readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of +energy.</p> + +<p>This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best +product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and +ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress +and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What +happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?"</p> + +<p>As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how +she marries. For after all a woman does not marry <i>matrimony</i>, she +marries a <i>man</i>, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic +woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to +give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she +is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than +if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social +worker, typist, factory <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>hand the rest of her days,—and she has +fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an +unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the +first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short +periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, +the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really +sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust +himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To +differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness +is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some +show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And +the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the +genuineness of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between +wife and husband.</p> + +<p>That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this +type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an +increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question +is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases.<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a> He will marry her, is +the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. +Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil +that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,—delicate, with a play +of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim +physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about +this type; she is either very lovely or a freak.</p> + +<p>So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it +is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is +more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that +something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of +neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real +knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of +cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and +Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration.</p> + +<p>But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is +usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical +possibilities of his off<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>spring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman +as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really +needs what only the rich can have,—servants, variety, frequent +vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even +the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who +ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, +and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man.</p> + +<p>Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and +we here pass to the physically ill housewife.</p> + +<p>It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, +properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of +exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses +that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the +diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, +or kidney disease, or with derangements of the sexual organs, may act +precisely like a nervous housewife,—may have pains and aches, changes +in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deënergized.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a +natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to +the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external +parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth +occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately +is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very +small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small +experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large +experience and high authority.</p> + +<p>In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe +that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her +predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage +women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no +reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, +woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first +birth.</p> + +<p>Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is +more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>athletic girl who +falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, +old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy +motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the +occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the +truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point.</p> + +<p>A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as +flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes +of ill health to be ruled out before "nervousness" (or its medical +equivalents) is to be diagnosed.</p> + +<p>It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few +of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women +do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperæsthetic in one +sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She +may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be +willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for +her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her +energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>but be +willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The +overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over +trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the +neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work +for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a +fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike +men.</p> + +<p>One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman +envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter +thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of +human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their +difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of +the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of +mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, +and we shall so consider them in a later chapter.</p> + +<p>Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>that great forces of +society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible. +From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider +them frankly and fully.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housework And The Home As Factors In The Neurosis</h3> + + +<p>One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless +advancement of desire,—and consequently the never-ending search for +contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in +the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to +further weary climbing.</p> + +<p>This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm +water it <i>feels</i> warm only for a short time, and you must add still +warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand. +The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our +desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must +lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires.</p> + +<p>This is to be emphasized in the case of the <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>housewife, but with this +additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on +what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out +of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one +expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to +discontent.</p> + +<p>What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, +thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed +wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the +neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the +increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied +life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, +discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the +factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness +of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework.</p> + +<p>What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status +of the house work.</p> + +<p>It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford +it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>greater and +greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the +so-called servant class dislikes the work. No amount of argument +therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be +essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it +that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one +likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the +dusting, the dishwashing, the clothes washing and ironing, the work that +is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be +begun. To say nothing of the care of the children!</p> + +<p>I do not class as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a +butler, and a chauffeur,—the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager +for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or +nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid +with whom she wrestles to do her share,—who relieves her somewhat but +not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, +only one woman in ten has any help at all!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife +may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large +extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the +science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of +child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home +(capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, +but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage +collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and +civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable.</p> + +<p>"Fine words butter no parsnips." There are some rare souls who lend to +the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person +frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes +housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique +it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, +ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods.</p> + +<p>All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of +the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>to quarrel +with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel +hides nuts,—on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, +aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family +feeling demand it.</p> + +<p>This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the +woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home +and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the +main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads +almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are +essentials, in the housework,—monotony, daydreaming, and introspection.</p> + +<p>Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a +paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst +punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need +the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies +the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the +presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of +interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>itself is +pleasurable only in rare snatches, for short periods of time or for rare +and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes +uneasy when confronted by itself.</p> + +<p>The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, +is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom +or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It +is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and +fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exotic +in his vain search for what is logically impossible,—lasting novelty. +Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of +interest and concentrated purpose as well.</p> + +<p>People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this +is often a constitutional matter as well as a matter of education. What +is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same +value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge +interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, +taught to expect cer<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>tain things, may find no need of other newer +things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need +a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it.</p> + +<p>The most important stimuli are other <i>persons</i>, capable of setting into +action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham +Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas",—ideas called into +being by words, moods, and deeds of others.</p> + +<p>It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. +"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It +is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to +talk <i>at</i>; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the +flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds +are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of +which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly +disastrous to others.</p> + +<p>If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection +may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>beginning of +marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of +understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children +that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her +thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements +of her life.</p> + +<p>But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams +pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back +to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The +daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A +struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep +in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest +disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and +weariness of life often results.</p> + +<p>One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little +group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit +sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a +person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, +and all are bright, <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the +monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, +the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the +unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,—the hearth. But for the +housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her +husband does.</p> + +<p>Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the +woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is +the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of +women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more +strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework +a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman +depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and +the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing +number of women to settle down to home-keeping.</p> + +<p>The housewife is <i>par excellence</i> a sedentary creature. She goes to work +when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, +very frequently without <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>having stirred from the home. A great many +women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next +to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as +hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery.</p> + +<p>It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are +possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent +conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If +there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, +seem the logical way of resting up.</p> + +<p>Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It +tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. +Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the +exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. +Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, +running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before +civilization made necessary and pleasurable.</p> + +<p>With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. +Frequently <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite +every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a +female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better +still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good +part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent +enough result to find him "logy" on Monday.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely +eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each +course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The +dishes <i>must</i> be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that +peace of mind so necessary for good digestion.</p> + +<p>An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the +family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and +various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of +oilcloth,—then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much +of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous +waste of human energy and happiness.</p> + +<p>An important result of the sedentary life <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>is constipation. Woman, under +the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her +mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged +beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate +structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the +hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are +not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism +amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated +biped."</p> + +<p>While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also +true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as +a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it +destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the +efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an +autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the +importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon +mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia.</p> + +<p>These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of +sedentary life <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>bear with especial weight upon the woman of little +means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth. +There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, +as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and +deënergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a +sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as +inflicting injury on the personality.</p> + +<p>Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. "It's hell to be poor" is +the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical +injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still +more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the +physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery +and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of +childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without +conveniences and necessities.</p> + +<p>That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens +is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would +be a wreck morally, physically, <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>and mentally if he coped with his +wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get +down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and +cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs +of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as +non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little +animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in +the home would disappear.</p> + +<p>Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only +in spots coöperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I +think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which +they enjoy in their clubs.</p> + +<p>This digression aside, there are debilitating factors in the housewife's +lot which need some amplification. We have referred to the insufficient +time for convalescence from childbirth. There are <i>sequelæ</i> of +childbirth, such as varicose veins, flat feet, back strain, that render +the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest +enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to +rest, and with recourse <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>either to her overbusy family doctor or to the +overburdened, careless, out-patient department of some hospital, drags +along with her troubles year in and year out, becomes old before her +time, and loses through constant pain and distress the freshness of +life.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to separate the psychical factors from the physical, +largely because there is no separation. One of the aims of a woman's +life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest +days this is held out to her as a way to praise, flattery, and power. It +becomes a cardinal purpose, a goal, even an ideal.</p> + +<p>Unlike the purposes of men this goal is attained early, if at all, and +then Nature or Life strip it away. The well-to-do woman or the +exceptional poor woman may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial +beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have +usually given up the struggle. For the poor woman the fading comes +early,—household work, bearing children, sedentary life, worry, and a +non-appreciative husband bringing about the fatal change.</p> + +<p>I doubt if men see their youth slipping <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>away with the anguish of women. +To men, maturity means success, greater proficiency, more +achievement,—means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main +purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical hold on +their mate, loss of the longed for and delightful admiration of others; +it means substantially the frustration of purpose.</p> + +<p>And I have noticed that the very worst cases of neurosis of the +housewife come in the early thirties, in women previously beautiful or +extraordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine +wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something +of the anguish that the general watches the enemy cutting off his lines +of communication or a statesman marks the rise of an implacable rival.</p> + +<p>Popular literature, popular art, and popular drama, including in this by +a vigorous stretching of the idea the movie, are in a conspiracy against +reality. This is of course because of the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." +While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in +so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what +really happens is that the disagreeable <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>phases of life, not being +faced, persist. To have a blind side for the disagreeable does not rule +it out of existence; in fact, it thus gains in effect.</p> + +<p>To say that housekeeping is looked upon essentially as menial, to say +that it is monotonous, that it is sedentary, and has the ill effects +that arise from these characteristics, is not to deny that it has +agreeable phases. It has an agreeable side in its privacy, its +individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. +That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and +scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt +on these. The agreeable phases of the housewife's work do not cause her +neurosis; it is the disagreeable in her life that do. Or rather it is +what any individual housewife finds disagreeable that is of importance, +and it is my task to show what these things are, how they work, and +finally what to do about it.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Reaction To The Disagreeable</h3> + + +<p>A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot +will be of value.</p> + +<p>We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three +groups,—the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two +men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or +disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are +people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another +man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what +one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not +cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. +And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent.</p> + +<p>1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to +cause fear.<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a> This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal +reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as +the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. +Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out +of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not +experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in +sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor +religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact fear is <i>a</i> (I almost said <i>the</i>) great motive force +of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear +of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of +disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is +the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of +thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life +insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our +fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity +with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works +hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by +sentimentalists,—anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by +obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze +forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, +or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with +thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may +range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation +against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. +Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or +other it would never be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different +times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or +thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is +paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deënergization.</p> + +<p>Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be +met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive +<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>action, or it may be met with a deënergization, confusion, paralysis, +hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high +constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and +the peculiar agony of doubt.</p> + +<p>This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For +the situation is never clear-cut for decision—there is the ideal +implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to +live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, +weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This +conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can +neither accept nor reject the situation.</p> + +<p>This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of +view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, +some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind +and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon +some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of +his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing +of time.<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a> This passing of time can be received equably by the one +conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and +purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases +which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are +reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in +mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where +they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle +is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of +impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a +neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that +a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring +about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, +hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt.</p> + +<p>With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us +turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may +cause her neurosis.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the +biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been +recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of +human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the +mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the +maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love +and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their +natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While +the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for +all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source +of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children.</p> + +<p>Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the +maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the +interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle +between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in +the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. +All the world honors the mother, but few children <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>return in anything +like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother.</p> + +<p>Is the maternal instinct waning in intensity in this period of +feminization? There have always been some bad, careless, selfish +mothers; has their number increased? Probably not, yet the maternal +instinct now has competition in the heart of the modern woman. The +desire to participate in the world's activity, the desire to learn, to +acquire culture, engenders a restless impatience with the closed-in life +of the mother-housewife. This interferes with single-minded motherhood, +brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of +course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of +the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of +many.</p> + +<p>The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her +children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been +touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as +a group.</p> + +<p>We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman +has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>ancestress. If +this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are +often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in +their memories) there are several explanations.</p> + +<p>First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first +child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and +that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing +difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body, +loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for +childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular +organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows +older.</p> + +<p>Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of +the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic +nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important +factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are +part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion +plays a rôle of importance in childbearing. The modern <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>woman <i>fears</i> +childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater +knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life.</p> + +<p>Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a +need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more +difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and +yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often +seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to +nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it +cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened +sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's +supply.</p> + +<p>The feeling of great responsibility for her child's welfare that the +modern woman has acquired, as a result of popular education in these +matters, undoubtedly saves infants' lives and is therefore worth the +price. A secondary result of importance, and one not good, is the added +liability to fatigue and breakdown that the mother acquires. This factor +we meet again in the next phase of our <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>subject, the education and +training of children.</p> + +<p>Though the number of children has conspicuously decreased, the care and +attention given them has increased in inverse proportion. The woman with +six children or more turned over the younger children to the older ones, +so that her burden, though heavy, was much less than it may seem. +Further, though she loved and cared for them, she knew far less of +hygiene than her descendant; she did not try to bring them up in a +germless way; and her household activities kept her too busy to allow +her to notice each running nose, or each "festering sore." Not having +nearly so much knowledge of disease, she had much less fear and was +spared this type of deënergization. Her daughter views with alarm each +cough and sneeze, has sinister forebodings with each rash; pays an +enormous attention to the children's food, and through an increasing +attention to detail in her child's life and actions has a greater +liability to break under the greater responsibility and +conscientiousness.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered that the feeling of responsibility and +apprehensive attention is <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>not merely "mental." It means fatigue, more +disturbance of appetite, and less restful sleep. These are things of +great importance in causing nervousness; in fact, they constitute a +large part of it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps another generation will find that hygiene can be taught without +producing fussiness and fear. Certainly popular education has its value, +but it has a morbid side that now needs attention. This morbid side is +not only bad for the mother but is unqualifiedly bad for the child.</p> + +<p>For the child of to-day, the center of the family stage in his +attention, is often either spoiled or made neurasthenic by his +treatment. Either he is frankly indulged, or else an over-critical +attitude is taken toward him. "Bad habits must not be formed" is the +actuating motive of the overconscientious parents, for they do not seem +to know that the "trial and error" method is the natural way of +learning. Children take up one habit after another for the sake of +experience and discard them by themselves. For a child to lie, to steal, +to fight, to be selfish, to be self-willed is not at all unnatural; for +him to have bad table manners and to forget admonition <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>in general and +against these manners in particular is his birthright, so to speak.</p> + +<p>Yet many a mother of to-day torments her child into a bad introspection +and self-consciousness, herself into neurasthenia, and her husband into +seething rebellion, because of her desire for perfection, because of her +fear that a "bad act" may form into a habit and thence into a vicious +character.</p> + +<p>Especially is this true of the overæsthetic, overconscientious types +described in Chapter III. I have seen women who made the dinner table +less a place to eat than a place where a child was pilloried for his +manners,—pilloried into sullen, appetiteless state.</p> + +<p>So, too, an unfortunate publicity given to child prodigies brought with +it for a short time an epidemic of forced intellectual feeding of +children, that produced only a precocious neurasthenia as its great +result. Similarly the Montessori method of child training which made +every woman into a kindergarten teacher did a hundred times more harm +than good, despite the merits of the system. That a child needs to +experiment with life himself means that it will be a long time before +the average mother will know how to help him.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>A factor that tends to perplex the mother and hurts the training of the +child is her doubt as how "to discipline." Shall it be the old-fashioned +corporal punishment of a past generation, the appeal to pain and blame? +Shall it be the nowadays emphasized moral suasion, the appeal to +conscience and reason? With all the preachers of new methods filling her +ear she finds that moral suasion fails in her own child's case, and yet +she is afraid of physical punishment.</p> + +<p>This is not the place to study child training in any extensive manner, +yet it needs be said that praise and blame, pleasure and pain, are the +great incentives to conduct. One cannot drive a horse with one rein; +neither can one drive a child into social ways, social conformity by one +emotion or feeling. Corporal punishment is a necessity, sparingly used +but vigorously used when indicated. Of course praise is needed and so is +reward.</p> + +<p>What is here to be emphasized is that a sense of great responsibility +and an over-critical attitude toward the children is a factor of +importance in the nervous state of the modern housewife. Increasing +knowledge and increasing demand have brought <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>with them bad as well as +good results. Here as elsewhere a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, +but a more serious difficulty is this,—though fads in training arise +that are loudly proclaimed as the only way, there is as yet no real +science of character or of character growth.</p> + +<p>The tragedy of illness is acute everywhere, and the sick child is in +every household. In many cases I have traced the source of the +housewife's neurosis to the care and worry furnished by one child. There +are truly delicate children who "catch everything", who start off by +being difficult to nurse, and who pass from one infection to another +until the worried mother suspects disease with every change in the +child's color. A sick child is often a changed child, changed in all the +fundamental emotions,—cranky, capricious, unaffectionate, difficult to +care for. A sick child means, except where servants and nurses can be +commanded, disturbed sleep, extra work, confinement to the house, heavy +expense, and a heightened tension that has as its aftermath, in many +cases, collapse. The savor of life seems to go, each day is a throbbing +suspense.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>With recovery, if the woman can rest, in the majority of cases no +marked degree of deënergization follows. But in too many cases rest is +not possible, though it is urgently needed. The mother needs the care of +convalescence more than does the child.</p> + +<p>There is an extraordinary lack of provision for the tired housewife. +True there are sanataria galore, with beautiful names, in pretty places, +well equipped with nurses and doctors to care for their patients. But +these are prohibitive in price, and at the present writing the cheapest +place is about forty dollars per week. This rate puts them out of the +reach of the great majority who need them.</p> + +<p>Moreover, where there are small children and where there is no trusty +servant or some kindly relative or friend it seems impossible for the +housewife to leave the home. Her husband must work daily for their bread +and unless they are willing to turn to the charitable organizations, it +is necessary for the housewife to carry on, despite her fatigue. So at +the best she gets an hour or two extra rest a day, takes a "little +tonic" from the family doctor and gets along with her pains, her aches, +and moods as best she can.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>But the sick do not always recover. Fortunately, the average human +being grieves a while over death, but the life struggle soon absorbs +him, and the bereavement itself becomes a memory. But now and then one +meets mothers whose griefs and deprivations seem without end. No +religion, no philosophy can bring them back into continuity with their +lives. They go about in a sorrowful dream, hugging their affliction, +resenting any effort to comfort or console; without interest in the +daily task or in those whom they should love. They offer the severest +problem in readjustment, in reënergization, for they actively resent +being helped. Sometimes one believes their grief is an effort to atone +for neglect real or fancied, a self-punishment which is not remitted +until full atonement has been made.</p> + +<p>Aside from the physical difficulties in the bearing and rearing of +children, and in addition to the ordinary mental difficulties, such as +judging what discipline to use, there are especial problems of some +importance. Men vary in character from the saint to the villain, in +ability from the genius to the idiot. The children they once were vary +as much.<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a> There are children who go through the worst of homes, the +worst of environments, the worst of trainings,—and come out pure gold, +with characters all the better for the struggle. There are others whom +no amount of love, discipline, training, and benefits help; they are +despicable from the ordinary viewpoint from the first of life to the +last. Some children, adversely situated as to poverty and health, become +geniuses, and their reverse is in the poor child whom heredity, early +disease, or some freak of nature dooms to feeble-mindedness.</p> + +<p>The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, +and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be +overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her +maternal love.</p> + +<p>It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who +evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the +housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love +injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a +nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children.</p> + +<p>The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>destructive, and quarrelsome, +or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually +runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time +goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between +hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc +with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife +neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with +mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results.</p> + +<p>Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the +child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and +the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous +illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the +teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time +the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that +"the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he +should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the +pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and +feeble-mindedness is recognized.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust +themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all +the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their +normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I +am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or +incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with +the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of +fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly +reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental +hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes +with the legitimate work.</p> + +<p>There is no offhand solution for the case of the incorrigible boy or +girl. Of course the largest number sooner or later reform, sometimes +overnight, and in a way to remind one of the religious conversions that +James speaks of in his "Varieties of Religious Experiences." So long as +a child has a social streak in his make-up, so long as he at least is +responsive to the praise and blame of others and understands that he +does wrong, so <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>long may one hope for him. But the child to whom the +opinion of others seems of no value, who follows his own egoism without +check or control by the accepted standard of conduct, by the moral law, +by the praise and blame of those near to him, is almost hopeless. Some +day intelligence may keep him out of trouble, but by itself it cannot +change his nature.</p> + +<p>It is not sufficiently realized that while there has been a rise of +feminism there has also been a great change in the status of children, a +change that makes their care far more difficult than in the past. They +have risen from subordinate figures in the household, schooled in +absolute obedience, "to be seen and not heard," to the central figures +in the household. One of the strangest of revolutions has taken place in +America, taken place in almost every household, and without the notice +of historians or sociologists. That is because these professional +students of humanity have their attention focused on little groups of +figures called the leaders, and not nearly enough on that mass which +gives the leaders their direction and power.</p> + +<p>The age of the child! His development <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>parallels that of women, in that +an individualization has taken place. In the past education and training +took notice of the child-group, not of the individual child. But +child-culture has taken on new aspects, punishment has been largely +superseded, individual study and treatment are the thing. Personality is +the aim of education, especial aptitudes are recognized in the various +types of schools that have arisen: commercial, industrial, classical; +yes, and even schools for the feeble-minded.</p> + +<p>All this is admirable, and in another century will bring remarkable +results. Even to-day some good has come, but this is largely vitiated by +other influences.</p> + +<p>Aside from the fact that the attention paid the child often increases +his self-importance and makes his wishes more capricious, there are +factors that tend to rob him of his naïveté.</p> + +<p>These factors are the movies, the newspapers, and the spread of +luxurious habits amongst children.</p> + +<p>The movies are marvelous agents for the spread of information and +misinformation. Because of the natural settings they give to the most +absurd and unnatural stories, <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>their essential falsity and unreality is +often made the more pernicious. Their possibilities for good are +enormous, their actual performance is conspicuously to lower the public +taste, to create a habit which discourages earnest reading or +intelligent entertainment. For children they act as a stimulant of an +unwholesome kind, acquainting them with realistic crime, vice, and +vulgarity, giving them a distaste for childlike enjoyment. One sees +nowadays altogether too often the satiated child who seeks excitement, +the cynical, overwise child filled with the lore of the movies.</p> + +<p>In similar fashion the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an +extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the +funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor +is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and +thoroughly enjoyable to those whom it cannot harm.</p> + +<p>If the historians of, say, 4500 A.D. were by chance to get hold of a few +copies of our newspapers of 1920 they might legitimately conclude that +the denizen of this remote period expressed surprise by falling backward +out of <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>his shoes, expressed disagreement by striking the other person +over the head with a brick or a club; that women were always taller than +their mates and usually "beat them up"; that all husbands, especially if +elderly, chased after every young and pretty girl. They might conclude +that the language of the mass of the people was of such remarkable types +as this: "You tell them Casket, I'm Coffin", or "the Storm and Strife is +coming; beat it!"</p> + +<p>No one I think enjoys the comic page more than the present writer,—yet +it spreads a demoralizing virus amongst children. Of what use is it to +teach children good English when the newspaper deliberately teaches them +the cheapest slang? Of what use is it to teach them manners and +kindliness when the newspaper constantly spreads boorishness and "rough +house" conduct? Of what use is it to raise taste when this is injured at +the very outset of life by giving bad taste a fascinating attraction?</p> + +<p>Throughout the community there is a stir and excitement that is +reflecting on the children. There are so many desirable luxuries in the +world now, so many revealed by movie and symbolized by the automobile, +<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>the cabaret, the increasing vulgarity of the theater (the disappearance +of the drama and the omnipresent girl and music show), a restless search +for pleasure throughout the community even before the War, have not +missed the child.</p> + +<p>All these things make the lot of the housewife harder in so far as the +training of her children is concerned. She is dealing with a more alert, +more sophisticated, more sensuous child,—and one who knows his place +and power. The press and the theater both have knowledge of this and a +recent witty play dealt with the sins of the children, paraphrasing of +course the classic of a bygone day, "Sins of the Fathers." And a wise +old gentleman said to his grandson recently, when the lad complained +about his mother, "Of course you are right. Every son has a right to be +obeyed by his mother."</p> + +<p>I am by no means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but +nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we +shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the +value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a rôle in the world of +great im<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>portance,—but the spread of education and opportunity to the +mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to +survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the +agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the +woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think +are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and +replaced, but which are yet of importance.</p> + +<p>And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep +from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him +from sophistication.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Poverty And Its Psychical Results</h3> + + +<p>In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning +of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save +mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty. +Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of +poverty,—the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven, +and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of +reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha +knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the +desperate struggle to reach riches.</p> + +<p>We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of +poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged +or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,—that +would be <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack +of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth +are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect +traceable in the conditions we are studying.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the +cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of +housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does +more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what +the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing +objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That +is the long and short of it,—the Emancipation Proclamation did not +include them.</p> + +<p>Aside from the physical effects of poverty on the housewife, there are +factors of psychical importance that call for a hearing. After all, what +is poverty in one age is riches in another; what is poverty for one man +is wealth to his neighbor. More than that, what a man considers riches +in anticipation is poverty in realization. Here again we deal with the +mounting of desire.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>The philosophical, contented woman, satisfied with her life even though +it is poor, is exempted from one great factor making for breakdown. +Contentment is the great shield of the nervous system, the great bulwark +against fatigue and obsession. But contentment leads away from +achievement, which springs from discontent, from yearning desire. +Whether civilization in the sense of our achievements is worth the price +paid is a matter upon which the present writer will not presume to pass +judgment. Whether it is or not, Mankind is committed to struggle onward, +regardless of the result to his peace of mind.</p> + +<p>There are two principal psychical injuries with poverty—fear and +worry—and we must pass to their consideration as factors in the +neuroses of some women.</p> + +<p>Worry is chronic fear directed against a life situation, usually +anticipated. Man the foreseeing must worry or he dies,—dies of +starvation, disease, disaster. It is true that worry may be excessive +and directed either against imaginary or inevitable ills; ills that +never come, ills that must come, like old age and death.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>Men in comfortable places cry "Why worry?" meaning of course that the +most of worry is about ills that are never realized. That is true, but +the person living just on the brink of disaster, ruined or made +dependent on charity by unemployment, a long illness, or any failure of +power and strength, cannot be as philosophical as the man fortified by a +nice bank account or dividend-paying investments. These well-to-do +advisers of the poor remind one of the heroes of ancient fables who, +having magic weapons and impenetrable armor, showed no fear in battle. +One wonders how much courage they would have had if armed as their +foemen were.</p> + +<p>For the poor housewife who sees no escape from poverty, whose husband is +either a workman or a struggling business man always on the edge of +failure, life often seems like a wall closing in, a losing battle +without end.</p> + +<p>Especially in the middle-aged, in those approaching fifty, does this +happen. Aside from the condition produced by "change of life", the +so-called involution period, there is a reaction of the "time of life" +that is found very commonly. For old age is no longer far off on the +horizon; it is close at hand, <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>around the corner, and the looking-glass +proclaims its coming. The woman wonders whether her husband will long be +able to keep up,—and then "what will become of us?"</p> + +<p>To be thrown on the benevolence of children is a sad ending to +independent natures, to people of experience. Crudely put, those who +have been dependents are now sustainers; those who have been led now +guide; the inferiors are the superiors. This is not cynicism, for with +the best intentions in the world, if the children are also poor, the +care of the parents is a burden that they cannot help showing, sooner or +later.</p> + +<p>Looking forward to such an ending to the hard work and struggle of a +lifetime is part of the worry of poverty, to be classed with the fear of +sickness and unemployment.</p> + +<p>We may loudly proclaim that one honest man is as good as another, that +character is the measure of worth, that success cannot be measured by +money. These things are true; the difficulty is not to make people +believe it, it is to make people <i>feel</i> it. Deeply ingrained in poverty +is not alone to be deprived of things desired; more important is the +feeling of inferiority that goes with the condi<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>tion. Only in the +Bohemia of the novelists do the poor feel equal to the rich.</p> + +<p>One of the fundamental strivings of the human being is the enlargement +of the self-feeling, which fundamentally is the wish to be superior, to +have the admiration and homage of others. All daydreaming builds this +air castle; all ambition has this as its goal. No matter how we disguise +it to ourselves and others, the main ends of purpose are power and +place. True, we may wish for power and place so as to help others; we +may wish them as the result of constructive work and achievement, but +the enlargement of self-feeling is the end result of the striving.</p> + +<p>To be poor is to be inferior in feeling and applies equally to men and +women. Man is a competitive-social animal and competes in everything, +from the cleverness and beauty of his children to the excellence of his +taste in hats. Money has the advantage of being the symbol of value, of +being concrete and definite, and of having the inestimable property of +purchasing power.</p> + +<p>Now woman is as competitive as her mate. A housewife vies with her +neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>youth, her +husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,—vies with +her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women +(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry +only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the +greater part of it has this origin.</p> + +<p>Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a +great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from +these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends +unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is +envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from +himself.</p> + +<p>Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be +satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that +is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of +the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous +sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of +her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when +she is out<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>stripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by +her relatives and intimate friends.</p> + +<p>Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their +children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a +good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all +their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the +bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children +respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of +their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have +drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then +the breakdown is tragic.</p> + +<p>A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his +children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but +he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,—that the +average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them +for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on +their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother +usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares +this desire except in a mild way.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>It may be that there was a time when classes were more fixed, that +poverty had less of humiliation and blocked desire than it has at +present. That society of all grades is restless with the desire for +luxury seems without doubt. How profoundly the psychology of the masses +is being altered by education, by the newspaper, the magazine, the +movie, the automobile, the fashion changes that make a dress obsolete in +a season and above all the department store and the alluring +advertisement, no one can hope to even estimate. Modern capitalism reaps +great wealth by developing the luxurious, the spendthrift tastes of the +poor. It would be a peculiar poetic justice that will make that +development into the basis of revolution.</p> + +<p>The women of the poor are perhaps even more restless than the men. In +fact, it is the women that set the pace in these matters. This is +because to woman has fallen the spending of the family funds, a fact of +great importance in bringing about discord in the house. As the shopper +the poor woman now sees the beautiful things that her ancestors knew +nothing of, since there were no department stores in those days. To-day +desires are <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>awakened that cannot be fulfilled; she sees other women +buying what she can only long for, and an active discontent with her lot +appears.</p> + +<p>Unphilosophical this, and severely to be deprecated as unworthy of +woman. This has been done so often and so effectively(?) by divines, +reformers, press, that a mere physician begs leave to remark that it is +a natural sequence of the publicity luxury to-day has. <i>The most +successful commercial minds of America are in a conspiracy against the +poor Housewife to make her discontented with her lot by increasing her +desires</i>; they are on the job day and night and invade every corner of +her world; well, they have succeeded. The divines, etc., who thunder +against luxury have no word to say against the department store and the +advertising manager.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housewife And Her Husband</h3> + + +<p>The husband differs from the wife in this fundamental,—that essentially +he is not a house man as she is a house woman. For the man the home is +the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here +also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity. +Man writes songs and books about the home, but the woman lives there. +Perhaps that is why women have not written sentimental verse about it.</p> + +<p>Marriage is variously regarded. "It is a sacrament, a religious +sanction, and not to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very +large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered +into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is +the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat +this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction +alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics +is an undisputed fact.</p> + +<p>It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has +been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict +between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This +conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life +of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their +attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate.</p> + +<p>For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean +merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in +the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has +become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their +energies.</p> + +<p>Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its +eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil +relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches +that if it is <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, +brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a +source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out +their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with +daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods +and emotions of all of us.</p> + +<p>This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part +of the neurosis of the housewife.</p> + +<p>After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with +whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she +becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss +as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live +apart, have no children and meet occasionally,—for obvious purposes. +Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the +virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties.</p> + +<p>This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and +successful the happiest human experience. Soberly speak<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>ing, it is then +the flower of existence, satisfying biologically and humanly, giving +peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy +ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of +youth leave us. Warm, cozy, intense domesticity, where passion is +legitimate and love and friendship eternal; where children play around +the hearth fire; of which death only is the ending!</p> + +<p>This ideal is not realized largely because no ideal is. How often is it +closely approximated? Experience says seldom. That implies no reproach +against marriage, for we are to judge marriage by the rest of life and +not by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which +economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never +absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in +the larger policies and where folly occupies the high places,—why +expect marriage to be more nearly perfect than the life of which it is a +part? To be reasonably comfortable and happy in marriage is all we may +expect.</p> + +<p>What are the difficulties confronting the partners which impede +happiness and espe<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>cially which bring the neurosis of the housewife? For +after all we can only examine the field for our own purpose.</p> + +<p>We may divide the difficulties as follows from the standpoint of the +neurosis of the housewife:</p> + +<p>1. Those that arise from the sex relationship itself.</p> + +<p>2. Those that arise from conflicts of will, purpose, ideas.</p> + +<p>3. Those that arise from the types of husbands.</p> + +<p>4. Those that arise from the types of wives. (This has already been +considered under the heading Types Predisposed to the Neurosis.)</p> + +<p>Before we go on to the consideration of these various factors we must +repeat what has been emphasized frequently in this book.</p> + +<p>That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the +marriage relationship. If only <i>one</i> will is expected to be dominant in +the household, the man's, then there can arise no conflict. If the form +of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or +expects equality, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat +her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>the case and still is in +some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes +of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an +unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest +disagreement. In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a +woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, +ideas, and ideals have never been developed,—the ancient woman; it is +very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister.</p> + +<p>Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex. +Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than +frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy +has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence +shrouding the wrecks of many a life.</p> + +<p>The sex relationship is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of +Rosalind still holds good. The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for +coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of +possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated +by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no +marriage <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless +of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first +year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for +companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen. Complementary +to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the +woman, arises from the first marital embrace.</p> + +<p>This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance +wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before +marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore +knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has +been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to +deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected +of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and +even those who know are unprepared for reality.</p> + +<p>Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a +paramount "Jus Primis Noctis." True, the majority of men are abashed in +the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,—but others follow in +a <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of +experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman +can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night.</p> + +<p>There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an +elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, +but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the +ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and +expert, is needed by our civilization.</p> + +<p>The sex appetite varies as widely as any other human character. +Generally speaking, it is believed that sexual passion in women is more +episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many +cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life +until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. +Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less +conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his +feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of +boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>passion than to +the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him +devolves not only courtship but the fundamental activity in the sexual +act. A passionless woman may have sexual relation, a passionless man +cannot.</p> + +<p>The disparity in sex desire between a husband and wife may be slight or +great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very +nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity +exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is +suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a +subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring +about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue. +Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is +lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked +nature.</p> + +<p>A woman sexually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy +mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good +woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the sex +attachment. Demureness of appearance, re<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>finement of manner, noble +ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is +no reason why strong, well-controlled passion should be considered +anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the sexual field should, +under the social restriction, be regarded as impure.</p> + +<p>Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often +govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to +live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological +reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. +Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one +roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous +counsel to dissipate.</p> + +<p>This purely occidental idea that sexual pleasure is somehow unworthy is +responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the +physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, +though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. +Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the +part of the man to bring about that adjust<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>ment. This part of the +adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are +explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of +our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without +gratification brings about nervous instability.</p> + +<p>Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, +is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first +ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single +chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room +is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find +comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner +sleeps beside them. Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, +there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does +not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons.</p> + +<p>A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are +politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly +changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that +necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>concerned here +with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman +undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be +voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity +and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living +as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her +husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to +adjust themselves to this situation.</p> + +<p>The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a +woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her +monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk +almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of +the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely +allayed it.</p> + +<p>Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every +"solution" breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness. +Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction. +Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and +some are left excited and <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, +neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in +many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the +neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of +neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The +channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old. And this new +development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to +deënergize the organism.</p> + +<p>At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as +women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually +called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively +belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, +collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of +men,—smoking, drinking,—are building up a club life, live in bachelor +apartments, call each other by their last names, etc.</p> + +<p>Whether with this goes a greater sexual license or not it is difficult +to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a +decrease in female chastity,—that<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a> the entrance of women in industrial +life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater +freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have +brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's.</p> + +<p>The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked +by a hyper-sexuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more +common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The +dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for sex +allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that +only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of +the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the +day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music +show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost +disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the +risqué; with titles that are sometimes much more clever than their +contents.</p> + +<p>Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is +doubtful if they <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>ever affected so large a number of people. The +excitement of the daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this +brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. +She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as +well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more +dissatisfied and therefore more nervous.</p> + +<p>Altogether the sexual relationship of modern marriage needs a candid +examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in sexual +affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure +of the sex-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. +Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from +the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is +being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the +fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in +the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is +more disastrous if possible than prudery.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housewife And Her Household Conflicts</h3> + + +<p>The problems of life are not all sexual, and in fact even in the +relations of men and women there are more important factors. After all, +as Spencer pointed out in a marvelous chapter, love itself is a +composite of many things, some, of the earth, earthy, and some of the +finest stuff our human life holds. The aspirations, the ideals, the +yearnings of the girl attach themselves to some man as their +fulfillment; the chivalrous feelings, the desire to protect and cherish, +the passion for beauty of the man lead to some girl as their goal. There +are few for whom the glow and ardor of their young love bring no +refinement of their passion; there are few who have not felt a pulsating +unity with all that love and live, at least for some ecstatic moments. +Something of what James has so beautifully <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>designated as the "aura of +infinity that hangs over a young girl" also lingers over the love of men +and women.</p> + +<p>All the cynics and epigram makers in the world agree that love ends with +marriage, and this not only in modern times but even back into those +days of the French Court of Love, when Margaret de Valois decided that +the lover had more claims than the husband. Romance dies with marriage +is the plaint of poet and novelists; the charm of woman disappears with +her mystery, with possession. And the typical humorist speaks of the +curl papers and kimono of the wife, the snores and unshaven beard of the +husband. "Familiarity is the death of passion" is the theme of countless +writers who bemoan its passing in the matrimonial state.</p> + +<p>How much harm the romantic tales have done to marriage and the +sober-satisfying everyday life, no one can estimate, no one can +overestimate. Romanticism, which extols sex as the prime and only thing +of life, prudery which closes its eyes to it and makes sour faces, need +special places in Dante's Inferno. Neither has dealt with +reality,—reality, which is satisfying and pleasant unless <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>examined +with the prejudices instilled by the hypersexual romance writer and the +perverted sexuality of the prude.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless that two people brought up entirely differently, and having +different attitudes towards love and life, should come into sharp +conflict is to be expected. Further, that disillusionment follows after +the excitement and heightened expectation of courtship is inevitable. +Marriage at the best includes a settlement to routine; it carries with +it an adjustment to reality, a getting down to earth that is painful and +disappointing to minds fed to expect thrill and passion with each +moment.</p> + +<p>The idealization of the mate—the man or woman—gives way to a gradually +increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, +earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save +the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more +solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality +what it loses in intensity.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, in many cases to a great extent and in all to some +extent, there arises dissension natural wherever two human beings meet +on anything like equal terms.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>In times past (and in many countries at the present time), the +patriarchal household prevailed. The Head of the House was the father, a +sovereign either stern or indulgent according to his nature. Perhaps his +wife ruled him through his love for her, as women have ruled from the +beginning of things, but if she did it was not by right but by +privilege.</p> + +<p>America has changed all that, so say all native and foreign observers. +Here the woman rules; here she drags her husband after her like a tail +to a kite; here she is mistress and he obeys, though nominally still +head of the household. All the humorists emphasize this, and the +novelist depicts it as the common situation. The husband is represented +as yoked to the wheel of his wife's whims, tyrannized over by the one he +works for.</p> + +<p>This is surely a gross exaggeration, though it furnishes excellent +material for satire. The man still makes the main conditions of life for +both; his name is taken, his work sustains the household, his purse +supplies the means of existence, his industrial business situation +determines the residence, his social standing is theirs. This does not +prevent <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>him from being "henpecked" in many cases, but on the whole it +assures his superior status.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless it is true that the American woman of whatever origin has a +will of her own as no other woman has. Since the expression of will is +one of the chief sources of human pleasures, one of the chief, most +persistent activities, man and wife enter into a contest for supremacy +in the household. It may be settled quietly and without even recognizing +its existence, on the common plan that the woman shall have charge of +the home and the man of his business; it may rage with violence over the +fundamental as well as the trivial things of home. After all, it is not +the importance of a thing that determines the size of the row it may +raise; men have killed each other over a nickel because defeat over even +this trifle was intolerable.</p> + +<p>What are the chief sources of conflict? For to name them all would be +simply to name every possible source of difference of opinion that +exists. Let us take as an example Extravagance.</p> + +<p>This is a new development. In the former <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>days the bulk of purchases was +made by the husband, in whose hands the purse strings were tightly +clutched. With the growth of the cities and industry, the development of +the department store and rise of shopping as an institution, the man +gave place to his wife largely because industry would not let him off +during the daytime. So the housewife disbursed most of the funds of her +home,—and there arose one of the fiercest and most persistent of +domestic conflicts.</p> + +<p>Despite the fact that most American husbands turn over their purses to +their wives, they still regard the money as their own. The desire to +"get ahead" is an insistent one, returning with redoubled force after +each expenditure. He finds his entire income gone each week or month, or +finds less left than he expected. "Where does it all go?" is his cry; +"Must we spend as much as we do?" "How do people get along who get less +than we do?"</p> + +<p>To this his wife has the answer, "We must have <i>this</i>, and we <i>must</i> +have that. We must live as our neighbors do."</p> + +<p>Here is the keynote to the situation. There has been a democratization +of society <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>of this nature; there has been a spread throughout the +community of aristocratic tastes. The woman of even the poor and the +middle classes must have her spring and autumn suits, her dresses for +summer, her summer and winter hats. Her husband too must change his +clothes with each shift of the season. For this the enterprise of the +clothing trade, the splendid display of the department stores are +responsible, awakening desire and dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>While the man accuses the woman of extravagance, he is as guilty as she. +He too spends money freely,—on his cigars and cigarettes, on every +edition of the newspapers, on the shine which he might easily apply +himself, on a thousand and one nickels that become a muckle. The +American is lavish, hates to stint, detests being a "piker", says, "Oh, +what's the difference; it will all be the same in a hundred years," but +kicks himself mentally afterwards.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile he quarrels with his wife, who really is extravagant. In this +battle the man wins, even if he loses, for he rarely broods over the +defeat. But it brings about a sense of tension in his wife; it brings +about <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>a disunion in her heart, because she wants to please her husband, +and at the same time she wants to "keep up" with her neighbors and +friends. And who sets the pace for her, for all of her group; who +establishes the standard of expenditure? Not the thrifty, saving woman, +not the one who mends her clothes and makes her own hats, but the +extravagant woman, the rich woman perhaps of recently acquired wealth +who cares little for a dollar. Against her better judgment the woman of +the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely +dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills.</p> + +<p>This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do,—it +predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes +the relations with her husband more difficult. It takes away pleasure +and leaves discontent and doubt,—the mother-stuff of nervousness.</p> + +<p>While most American husbands are generous, there are enough stingy ones +to set off their neighbors. To these men the goal of life is the +accumulation of money, as indeed it is with the majority. But to them +that goal is to be reached by saving every penny, by <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>denying themselves +and theirs all expenditures beyond the necessities.</p> + +<p>The woman who marries such a man is humiliated to the quick by his +attitude. That a man values a dollar more than he does her wish is an +insult to the sensitive woman. There ensues either a never-ending battle +with estrangement, or else a beaten woman (for the stingy are stubborn) +accepts her lot with a broken spirit, sad and deënergized. Or perhaps, +it should be added, a third result may come about; the woman accepts the +man's ideal of life and joins with him in their scrimping campaign. With +this agreement life goes on happily enough.</p> + +<p>It is not of course meant that all or a great majority of American women +have difficulties with their husbands over money. But I have in mind +several patients who would be happy if this never-ending problem were +settled. The struggle "gets on the nerves" of the partners; they say +things they regret and act with an impatience that has its root in +fatigue.</p> + +<p>This difficulty over money and its spending gets worse in the late +thirties and early forties, for it is then the man realizes with a +<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>startled spirit that he is getting into middle age, that sickness and +death are taking their toll of his friends, and that he has not got on. +The sense of failure irritates him, depresses him. He finds that he and +his wife look at the money situation from a different angle.</p> + +<p>"If you loved me," says she, "you would see things a little more my +way."</p> + +<p>"If you loved me," says he, "you would not act to worry me so."</p> + +<p>Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of +life. Capital and Labor are at each other's throats; men cry "profiteer" +at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take +advantage of the world crisis. The air is filled with the whispers that +a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile +manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display +the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns. That the marital happiness of +the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the +discussions on the subject. Yet this phase of the high cost of living is +perhaps its most important result.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>The housewife's money difficulties are not confined to the question of +expenditure. For there is a factor not consciously put forward but +evident upon a little probing.</p> + +<p>If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows +some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she +has a woman friend whose husband has become successful. A subtle sort of +regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle +disrespect for her husband because of his failure. The husband becomes +aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest +place, his pride. One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in +a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and +contempt until exhausted. For she came of a successful family, she had +married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an +entire failure financially. Measuring men by their success, she found +her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge +her error. Out of this division in feelings came a complete +deënergization.</p> + +<p>Whether or not such a housewife deserves <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>any sympathy in her trouble, +it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her.</p> + +<p>While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which +nervousness arises, there are others of importance.</p> + +<p>Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of +the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman—<i>e.g.</i> to +a boy's pranks—causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace +of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too +fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he +is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,—tough, +mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father +who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel +results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow. It is when the woman +fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with +vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way +repeatedly described.</p> + +<p>Next perhaps to actual disloyalty women feel most the cessation of the +attentions, <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>courtesies, and remembrances of their unmarried life. Women +expect this to happen and usually they forgive it in the man who devotes +himself to his family, struggles for a livelihood or better, and helps +in the care of the children. It is the hyperæsthetic type of housewife +spoken of previously who weighs against her husband's devotion a minor +dereliction in courtesy.</p> + +<p>For it is too common in women to let a momentary neglect or +absent-minded discourtesy outweigh a lifetime of devotion. This is part +of a feminine devotion to manner and form, of which men are, +comparatively speaking, innocent.</p> + +<p>Aside from this phase of woman's character there are men who either +rapidly or gradually resume after marriage their bachelor freedom, to +the neglect of their wives. Though for some time after marriage they +give up their "freedom" to play consort and escort, sooner or later they +sink back into finding their recreation with their male friends,—at +club, lodge, saloon, pool room, etc. When night comes they are restless. +At first one excuse or another takes them out, later they break boldly +from the domestic <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ties and only occasionally and under protest do they +stay at home or escort the housewife to church, visiting, or the +theater.</p> + +<p>(It needs be said at this point that in America married life often +proceeds too far in the domestication of the man, in his complete +separation from male companionship, in a never-broken companionship +between man and wife. This is distinctly unhealthy for the man, for he +requires in his recreation the sense of freedom from restraint that he +can have only in masculine company; where the difficult attitude of +chivalry can be discarded for an equality and a frankness impossible +even with his wife.)</p> + +<p>The housewife, thus left alone, though wounded, may adjust herself. She +may build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her +neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become +unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote +herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene +life against odds.</p> + +<p>But often she does none of these things. Hurt in her pride, she +struggles to gain back her husband. Tears and reproaches fail, <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>sickness +sometimes succeeds. If she is childless she becomes obsessed with the +belief that a child would hold her husband home. If she is failing in +the freshness of her beauty she makes a pathetic effort to hold her +indifferent mate through cosmetics and beauty specialists. Without the +courage and character to make or break the situation she falls into a +feeling of inferiority from which originates her headaches, her feelings +of unreality, her loss of enthusiasm, her depressed mind and body.</p> + +<p>This type of woman, dependent upon the love and affection of her husband +for her health and strength, mental and physical, is the type that +woman's education and training, at least in the past, have tended to +make. She has not been taught, she has not the power, to stand in life +alone; she is the clinging vine to the man's oak, she is the traditional +woman. She is happy and well with the right man, but Heaven help her if +the marriage ceremony links her with a philanderer! For she has been +taught to accept as true and right that mischievous couplet:</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love is of man's life a thing apart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis woman's whole existence.</span><br /></p> + +<p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>We need for our womanhood a braver standpoint than that, one more +firmly based, less apt to bring failure and disaster. For neither man +nor woman should love be the whole existence. It should be a fundamental +purpose interwoven with other purposes.</p> + +<p>Fortunately one source of domestic difficulty will soon pass from +America,—alcoholism. Politicians and theorizers may speak of the blow +to individual liberty and satirically prophesy that soon coffee and +tobacco will be legislated out also. They need to read Gilbert +Chesterton and learn that though "a tree grows upward it stops growing +and never reaches the sky." To see, as I do, the almost complete absence +of delirium tremens from the emergency and city hospitals, where once +every Sunday morning found a dozen or two of raving men; to witness the +disappearance of alcoholic insanity from our asylums, where once it +constituted fifteen per cent of the male admissions; to see cruelty to +children drop to one tenth of its former incidence; to know that former +drunkards are steadily at work to the joy of their wives and the good of +their own souls,—this is to make one bitterly impatient with the +chatter about the<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a> "joy and pleasure of life gone," etc. etc., that has +become the stock-in-trade of the stage and the press. Though alcoholism +did not cause all poverty, it stupefied men's minds so that they +permitted much preventable poverty; though it did not cause all +immorality, a few drinks often sent a good man to the brothel; and what +is more, many of the brothel inmates endured their life largely because +of the stupefying use of alcohol.</p> + +<p>No one knows the evil of alcohol more than the poor housewife. Of course +the woman brought up to believe that drunkenness was to be expected in a +man—and who often drank with him—was a victim without severe mental +anguish, though her whole life was ruined by drink. But for the refined +woman who married a clean, clever young fellow only to have him come +home some day reeking of liquor,—silly, obscene, helpless,—<i>her</i> +contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life. +She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a +chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted.</p> + +<p>A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a +century that <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the +X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could +make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the +habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity.</p> + +<p>After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of +the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness +to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion +against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,—these are the basic +elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are +unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly +to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two +five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many +husbands and wives.</p> + +<p>Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not +leadership), overready temper and overready tears,—these cause more +domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The +education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these +defects, which are not <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>necessarily feminine, from her character. In the +domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman +has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet +demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses.</p> + +<p>Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her +mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds +her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy +of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which +we shall deal with later.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Symptoms As Weapons Against The Husband</h3> + + +<p>Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of +human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to +Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire +to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth +(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a +religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human +effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to +gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle +of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial +(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the +statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a +boundary line and <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that +benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate +the ego,—love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire +for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in +many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his +fellows.</p> + +<p>Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and +interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the +group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need +of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly +feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are +essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others. +This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and +young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together.</p> + +<p>There are those who find no difference between the <i>egoism</i> of the will +to power and the <i>altruism</i> of the will to fellowship. They assert that +if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you +have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>of a larger ego. +However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may +separate these two trends in human nature.</p> + +<p>In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between +the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality +is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the +teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by +which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power +is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science, +benevolence, invention, government, money.</p> + +<p>Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness, +cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character. +Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile, +and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him +aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the +life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men +who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will +to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>thwarted will to +fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world +benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of +altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally +lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will +for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn +philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an +egotist.</p> + +<p>How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there +are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends.</p> + +<p>There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man +disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right" +is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering +voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes; +they follow the primitive line of direct attack.</p> + +<p>There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the +disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent +to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is +nine points <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is <i>not</i> +the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what +<i>seems</i> valuable for what <i>is</i> valuable and then fall back on the adage, +"A fair exchange is no robbery."</p> + +<p>Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into +friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours. +Compromise is the keynote, coöperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to +fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?"</p> + +<p>Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness, +through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the +discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an +implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial; +tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an +equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched +social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and +desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief +and sorrow by which to plague him into sub<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>mission, into yielding. +Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop +symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened +punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel +parents is a favorite one.</p> + +<p>This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of +weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long +been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of +woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought +about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain +similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in +these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a +substitute for tears in the marital conflict.</p> + +<p>Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it +causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them!</p> + +<p>Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where +the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow +long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman +<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or +becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her +will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but +helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place +almost at once.</p> + +<p>In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism +can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the +attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not +take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the +condition to turn soon for the better.</p> + +<p>I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the +medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every +experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the +satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point +is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the +disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when—he gets her +the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc. +etc.</p> + +<p>Discreditable to women? Discreditable to <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>those women who use it? Men +would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills +that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the +strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our +present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will +abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever +women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort +to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where +the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type +uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain +her point.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Histories Of Some Severe Cases</h3> + + +<p>The cases that follow represent mainly the severe types of nervousness +in the housewife. To every case that comes to the neurologist there are +a hundred that explain their symptoms as "stomach trouble", "backache", +etc., who remain well enough to carry on, and who think their pains and +aches inevitably wrapped with the lot of woman.</p> + +<p>It will be seen, upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic +attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a +series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that +by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it +would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the +majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a +number cannot be essentially benefited.<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a> Some of them have temperaments +utterly incompatible with matrimony, others have husbands of the +incorrigible type, others have life situations to change which would +make it necessary to change society. Therefore in these cases all a +doctor can do is to <i>relieve symptoms</i>, relieve some of the distress and +rest content with that.</p> + +<p>I am essentially neither pessimist nor optimist in the presentation of +these cases, nor do I seek to present the man or woman's case with +prejudice. In life a realistic attitude is the best, for if we were to +remove much of the sentimental self-deception at present so prevalent, +huge reforms would occur almost overnight. Sentimentality decorates and +disguises all kinds of horridness and makes us feel kindly toward evil. +Strip it away, and we would immediately break down the evil.</p> + +<p>There is always this danger in presenting "cases" to a lay public, that +symptoms are suggested to a great many people. How deeply suggestible +the mass of people can be is only appreciated when one sees the result +of public health lectures and books. Many persons tend to develop all +the symptoms they hear of, from pains and aches to mental <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>failure. Even +in the medical schools this is so, and every medical teacher is +consulted each year by students who feel sure they have the diseases he +has described.</p> + +<p>So in presenting the following cases symptoms will be largely omitted. +What will be presented is history and to a certain extent treatment. +That part of treatment which is strictly medical can only be indicated.</p> + +<p>It may be said that in obtaining the intimate history of a woman a +difficulty is met with in the natural reluctance to telling what often +seems to the patient painful and unnecessary details. To some people it +seems inconceivable that fears, pains and aches, sleeplessness, etc., +can arise out of difficulties like the monotony of housework, +temperament, or troubles with the husband. Furthermore, though some +women understand well enough the source of their conflicts, they are +ashamed to tell and rest mainly on the surface of their symptoms. To +obtain the truth it is necessary to see the patient over and over again, +to get somewhat closer to her. This is especially easy to do after the +physician has to a certain extent relieved the patient. In other words, +except in the cases where the <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>woman is quite prepared to tell of her +intimate difficulties, it is best to go slowly from the medical to the +social-psychological point of view.</p> + +<p><b>Case I.</b> The overworked, under-rested type of housewife.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A.J., thirty years old, is a woman of American birth and ancestry. +Her parents were poor, her father being a mechanic in a factory town of +Massachusetts. She had several brothers and sisters, all of whom reached +maturity and most of whom married.</p> + +<p>Before marriage she was a salesgirl in a department store, worked fairly +hard for rather small pay, but was strong, jolly, liked dancing and +amusements, liked men and had her girl friends.</p> + +<p>At the age of twenty-two she married a mechanic of twenty-four, a good, +sober, steady man, devoted to her and very domestic. Unfortunately he +was not very well for some time following a pneumonia in the third year +of their marriage. They drew upon all their savings and fell seriously +in debt. This meant borrowing and scrimping for several years,—a fact +which had great bearing on the wife's illness later.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>They had three children, born the twelfth month, the third year, and +the fourth year after marriage. After the first child the mother was +very well, nursed the baby successfully, and the little family +flourished. Then came the unfortunate illness of the husband, which +threw him out of work for six months, during which time they lived on an +allowance from his union, his savings, and finally ran into debt. This +greatly grieved the man and depressed the woman, but both bore up well +under it until the birth of the second child, when their circumstances +forced them to move to a poorer apartment. The wife was delivered by a +dispensary physician, who did his duty well but allowed the woman, who +protested she felt well, to get up and care for her husband and baby +much earlier than she should have done.</p> + +<p>The nursing of this baby was more difficult. The mother's breasts did +not seem to be nearly as active as in the previous case. The baby cried +a great deal and needed attention a good part of the night. The husband +was unable to help as he had previously done and the fatigue of the care +of child and man brought a condition where the woman was <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>tired all the +time. Still she bore up well, though when the summer came she greatly +missed the little two weeks' vacation that she and her husband had +yearly taken together from the days of their courtship.</p> + +<p>The husband recovered, but his strength came back very slowly. He went +to work as soon as possible but worked only part time for six months. At +night he came home utterly exhausted and could not help his wife at all.</p> + +<p>During the next year both children were sick, first with scarlet fever +and then with whooping cough. The mother did most of the nursing, though +by this time the father was able to help and did. The necessary expenses +so depleted the family treasury that when the summer came neither could +afford to go away.</p> + +<p>Both noticed that the mother was getting more irritable than was natural +to her. She went out very seldom and her youthful good looks had largely +been replaced by a sharp-featured anxiety. Though she carried on +faithfully she had to rest frequently and at night tossed restlessly, +though greatly fatigued.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>She became pregnant again, much to her dismay and to the great regret +of her husband. At times she thought of abortion, but only in a +desperate way. The last few months of her term were in the very hot +months of the year and she was very uncomfortable. However, she was +delivered safely, got up in a week to help in the care of her other two +children and to get the house into shape again. Her milk was fairly +plentiful, despite her fatigue and "jumpy nerves." Unfortunately at this +time, when they had accumulated a little surplus and she was looking +forward to better clothes for her family and more comforts, the plant at +which her husband was employed suspended operations because of some +"high finance" mix-up. Coming at this time, the news struck terror into +her heart; she broke down, became "hysterical" <i>i.e.</i> had an emotional +outburst. This passed away, but now she was sleepless, had no appetite, +complained of headache and great fatigue.</p> + +<p>Though she was assured that the plant would reopen soon (in fact it soon +did), she made little progress. That she was suffering from a +psychoneurosis was evident; <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>what remained was to bring about treatment.</p> + +<p>This was done by enlisting a development of recent days,—the Social +Service agencies. Out of the old-time charity has come a fine successor, +social service; out of the amateurish, self-consciously gracious and +sweet Lady Bountiful has come the social worker. Unfortunately social +service has not yet dropped the name "Charity", perhaps has not been +able to do so, largely because the well-to-do from whom the money must +come like to think of themselves as charitable, rather than as the +beneficiaries of the social system giving to the unfortunates of that +system.</p> + +<p>Let me say one more word about social service and the social worker, +though I feel that a volume of praise would be more fitting. The social +worker has become an indispensable part of the hospital organization, an +investigator to bring in facts, a social adjuster to bring about cure. +For a hospital to be without a social service department is to confess +itself behind the times and inefficient.</p> + +<p>Briefly, this is what was done for this family.<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a></p> + +<p>Their prejudices against social aid were removed by emphasizing that +they were not recipients of charity. The husband was allowed to pay, or +arrange to pay, for a six weeks' stay in the country for the mother and +the new baby. The home for this purpose was found by the agency and was +that of a kindly elderly couple who took the woman into their hearts as +well as over their threshold. The social worker arranged with a nursing +organization to send a worker to the man's house each day to clean up +the home while the children stayed in a nursery. One way or another the +husband and children were made comfortable, and the wife came back from +her stay, made over, eager to get back to her work.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that in such a case as this the physician is largely +diagnostician and director, the actual treatment consisting in getting a +selfish and inert social system to help out one of its victims. That a +sick man should be left to sink or swim, though he has previously been +industrious and a good member of society, is injustice and social +inefficiency. That a woman, under such circumstances, should be left +with the entire burden on her <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>hands is part of the stupidity and +cruelty of society.</p> + +<p>How avert such a thing? For one thing do away with the name "Charity" in +relief work,—and find some system by which industry will adequately +care for its victims. What system will do that? I fear it may be called +socialistic to suggest that some of the fifteen billions spent last year +on luxuries might better be shifted to social amelioration. The record +in automobile production would be more pleasing if it did not mean a +shift from real social wealth to individual luxury.</p> + +<p><b>Case II.</b> The over-rich, purposeless woman.</p> + +<p>This type is of course the direct opposite of the woman in Case I and +represents the kind of woman usually held up as most commonly afflicted +with "nervousness." "If she really had something to do," say the +critics, "she would not be nervous."</p> + +<p>This is fundamentally true of her, though not true of the majority of +women whom we have discussed. It seems difficult to believe that hard +work and worry may bring the same results as idleness and +dissatisfaction, but it is true that both deënergize the organism, the +body and mind, and so are <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>kindred evils. What's the matter with the +poor is their poverty, while the matter with the rich is their wealth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A. De L. is of middle-class people whose parents lived beyond their +means and educated their only daughter to do the same. Here is one of +the anomalies of life: bitterly aware of their folly, the extravagant +and struggling deliberately push their children into the same road. Mrs. +De L. learned early that the chief objects of life in general were to +keep up appearances and kill time; that as a means to success a woman +must get a rich husband and keep beautiful. Being an intelligent girl +and pretty she managed to get the rich husband,—and settled down to the +rich housewife's neurosis.</p> + +<p>Her husband was old-fashioned despite his rather new wealth, and they +had two children,—a large modern American family. Though he allowed her +to have servants he insisted that she manage their household, which she +did with rebellion for a short time, and then rather quickly broke away +from it by turning over the household to a housekeeper. This brought +about the silent disapproval of her husband, who let her<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a> "have her own +way", as he said, "because it's the fashion nowadays."</p> + +<p>She became a seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of +amusement to the other in an intricately mixed coöperation and rivalry +with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old +Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished +dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, +subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, +dabbled in new religions, became enthusiastic: about social work for a +month or two,—and became a professional at bridge. Summers she rested +by chasing pleasure and flirting with male <i>habitués</i> of fashionable +summer resorts; part of the winter she recuperated at Palm Beach, where +she vied for the leadership of her set with her dearest enemy.</p> + +<p>Her husband financed all her ventures with a disillusioned shrug of his +shoulders. As she entered the thirties she became intensely dissatisfied +with herself and her life, tried to get back to active supervision of +her home but found herself in the way, though her children were greatly +pleased and her husband scep<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>tical. The need of excitement and change +persisted; gradually an intense boredom came over her. Her interest in +life was dulled and she began a mad search for some sensation that would +take away the distressing self-reproach and dissatisfaction. Shortly +after this she lost the power to sleep and had a host of symptoms which +need not be detailed here.</p> + +<p>The medical treatment was first to restore sleep. I may say that this is +a first step of great importance, no matter how the sleeplessness +originates. For even if an idea or a disturbing emotion is its cause, +the sleeplessness may become a habit and needs energetic attention.</p> + +<p>With this done, attention was paid to the social situation, the life +habits. It was pointed out that all the philosophies of life were based +on simple living and work, and that all the wise men from the beginning +of the written word to our own times have shown the futility of seeking +pleasure. It was shown that to be a sensation seeker was to court +boredom and apathy, and that these had deënergized her.</p> + +<p>For interest in the world is the great source <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>of energy and the great +marshaler of energy. From the child bored by lack of playmates, who +brightens up at the sight of a woolly little dog, to the old and +vigorous man who makes the mistake of resigning from work, this function +of interest can be shown.</p> + +<p>She was advised to get a fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that +would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally +she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that +from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in +reasonableness and purpose.</p> + +<p>That she improved greatly and came back to her normal health I know. +Whether she continued to remain well and how far she followed the advice +given I cannot say. From the earliest time to this, necessity has been +the main spur to purpose, and probably the lure of social competition +drew the lady back to her old life. Experience, though the best teacher, +seems to have the same need of repetition that all teaching does.</p> + +<p><b>Case III.</b> The physically sick woman who displays nervousness.</p> + +<p>Though this is one of the most important <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>of the types of nervous +housewife the subject is essentially medical. We shall therefore not +detail any case, but it is wise to reemphasize some facts.</p> + +<p>There are bodily diseases of which the early and predominant symptoms +are classed as "nervousness." Hyperthyroidism, or Graves' Disease, a +condition in which there is overactivity of the thyroid gland and which +is particularly prevalent among young women, is one of those diseases. +In this condition excitability, irritability, emotional outbursts, +fatigue, restlessness, digestive disorders, vasomotor disorders, appear +before the characteristic symptoms do.</p> + +<p>Neuro-syphilis is another such disease. This is an involvement of the +nervous system by syphilis. One of the tragedies that distresses even +hardened doctors is to find some fine woman who has acquired +neuro-syphilis through her husband, though he himself may remain well. +In the early stages this disease not only has neurasthenic symptoms but +is very responsive to treatment, and thus the early diagnosis is of +great importance.</p> + +<p>What is known as reflex nervousness arises as a result of minor local +conditions, such as <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>astigmatism and other eye conditions, trouble with +the nose and throat and trouble with the organs of generation. The +latter is especially important in any consideration of nervousness in +the housewife, particularly in the woman who has borne children. +Frequently too the existence of hemorrhoids, resulting from +constipation, acts to increase the irritability of a woman who is +perhaps too modest to consult a physician regarding such trouble. Where +such modesty exists (and it is found in the very women one would be apt +to think were the very last to be swayed by it), then a competent woman +physician should be consulted. With good women physicians and surgeons +in every large community there is no reason for reluctance to be +examined on the part of any woman.</p> + +<p>Further details are not necessary. Enough has been said to emphasize the +fact that the nervousness of the housewife is first a medical problem +and then a social-psychological one.</p> + +<p><b>Case IV.</b> A case presenting bad hygiene as the essential factor.</p> + +<p>Bad hygiene is something more than exposure to bad air, poor food, +contaminated water, etc. It includes habits and times of <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>eating, +attention to the bowels, outdoor exercise, sleep, and in the marital +state it includes the sexual indulgence.</p> + +<p>The housewife under consideration, Mrs. T.F., aged twenty-eight, married +five years, two children, complained mainly of headache, occasional +dizziness, great irritability, and fatigue, so that quarrels with her +husband were very common, though there seemed nothing to quarrel about. +The family was not rich, but lived in a comfortable apartment; there +were no serious financial burdens, the children were reasonably healthy +and good, and the closest questioning revealed the husband as a kindly +man who never took the initiative in quarrels but who was never able to +keep silent under provocation. The couple was still in love and there +seemed to be no essential incompatibility.</p> + +<p>Questioned as to her habits, Mrs. F. said she did all her own housework +except the washing and ironing and scrubbing. She had a little girl +three times a week to take the baby out. Before marriage she had been a +stenographer, but never earned high pay and had no love for her work. In +fact she gave it up with relief and found housework <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>with its +disagreeable features much more to her taste than business. She had been +of a placid, pleasant temperament and could not understand the change in +her.</p> + +<p>Since all this did not explain her symptoms, closer inquiry was made +into her habits. She arose with her husband at seven-thirty, prepared +his breakfast, sent the oldest child off to kindergarten and then had +her own breakfast, which usually consisted of toast and coffee. At noon +she had a very small piece of meat or an egg and a few potatoes with +tea. At night she ate sparingly of the dinner, which usually was meat, +potatoes, another vegetable, and a dessert. Her husband here stated that +she ate at this meal less than the boy of four and a half.</p> + +<p>Comparing her buxom figure with the diet a discrepancy was at once +apparent. She then confessed with shame that she was a constant nibbler, +eating a bit of this or that every half hour or so, and consequently +never had an appetite. The food thus nibbled usually was either spicy or +sweet, and she consumed quite a bit of candy. Her bowels moved +infrequently and she always needed laxatives. In her spare time she felt +rather "logy", <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>rarely went out, except now and then at night with her +husband, and spent her leisure hours on the couch reading or nibbling.</p> + +<p>This in itself would have quite explained much of her trouble. It has +been pointed out that body and mind are not separable; that mental +functions are based on the bodily functions, and that mood may rest on +no more exalted cause then the condition of the bowels. But a more +intimate questioning revealed sexual habits which are easily drifted +into by people of an amorous turn of character and who are really fond +of one another. These both husband and wife frankly said they had not +meant to speak of, but with their disclosure it was evident that a good +deal of importance was to be attached to them.</p> + +<p>The correction of the life habits was of course the fundamental need. +The young woman was instructed in detail as to diet, the care of the +bowels and outdoor exercise. Since she was in perfect condition except +for stoutness she could easily look for recovery, and as an added +incentive the restoration of youthful good looks was held out as +certain.</p> + +<p>The sexual life was frankly discussed, and necessary restrictions were +imposed. Both <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>the husband and wife agreed willingly to the changes +ordered and promised faithfully to carry out instructions.</p> + +<p>The patient made a splendid recovery and very rapidly. Here was a +deënergization dependent solely upon the sedentary life of the housewife +and upon ignorance of sex hygiene. Here were quarreling and impending +marital disaster removed by attention to details in living. Here was a +complete proof that not only does a sound mind need a sound body, but +that a sound marriage needs one as well.</p> + +<p><b>Case V.</b> The hyperæsthetic woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. J.F. is twenty-seven years of age. She was born in the United +States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty +man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the +like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was +an old-fashioned housewife, fond of her home and family, in fact perhaps +more attached to the former than the latter. She hated servants and got +along without them (except for a day woman) until she became rather too +old to do the work.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>J.'s sister and two brothers were duplicates of the parents,—hearty, +stolid, and remarkably plain looking. J., the younger sister, though not +the youngest in the family, was as different from her family as if she +had sprung from another stock. She was slender, very pretty, with a +quick, alert mind which jumped at conclusions, because labored analysis +fatigued it. Above all, from the very start of life she was sensitive to +a degree that perplexed her family, who were however intensely +sympathetic because they adored her. This adoration arose from the fact +that J. was brighter and prettier than most of her friends, and that her +cleverness in many directions—music, writing, talking, handiwork—was +the talk of their little group.</p> + +<p>This sensitiveness arose from two main factors. First, an egoism +fostered by the worship of her friends and the leadership of her +group,—an egoism which led her to regard as a sort of insult anything +disagreeable. Accustomed to praise, the least criticism implied or +outspoken cut like a knife; accustomed to being waited upon, she +resented physical discomfort of the slightest kind. Second, there must +also have been an <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>actual physical sensitiveness to sights, sounds, +smells, tastes, etc. that made her perceive what others failed to +notice. This led to an artistry manifested by her nice work in music and +decoration and also by an excessive displeasure at the inartistic.</p> + +<p>With this training, experience, and natural temperament she should have +married a rich collector of art products, who would have added her to +his collection and cherished her as his most fragile possession. +Instead, through the working of that strange law of contraries by which +Nature strikes averages between extremes, she fell in love with a hulk +of a man whose ideas on art were limited to calling a picture "pretty", +who loved sports and the pleasures of the table, and whose business +motto was "Beat the other guy to it." A successful man, troubled with +few subtleties either of approach or conscience, he viewed the marriage +relationship in the old-fashioned way and the new American indulgence. A +man's wife was to be given all the clothes she wanted, servants to help +run the home, ought to bear two or three children, and love her +indulgent husband. As for any real intimacy, he knew nothing <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>of it. +Kindly, self-indulgent, wife-indulgent, child-indulgent, ruthless in +business, he may stand as something America has produced without any +effort.</p> + +<p>From the very first night J.'s world was shattered. We need not enter +into details in this matter, but a woman of this type needs finesse in +the initiation into marriage more than at any other time. Cave-man style +outraged her every fiber, and the man was dumbfounded at her reaction. +Though he tried to make amends his very effort and lack of understanding +complicated matters.</p> + +<p>Aside from this matter, which in the course of time became adjusted, so +that though she rebelled desire arose in her, she found herself at odds +with her husband's tastes and conduct in little things. Though his table +manners were good enough, the gusto of his eating annoyed her and took +away her own appetite. When they went to a play together the coarse +jokes and the plainly sensuous aroused his enthusiasm. He lacked +subtlety and could not understand the "finer" things of life. As he grew +settled in matrimony, which he enjoyed in spite of her nerves (which he +took for granted as <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>like a woman), he grew stouter and this irritated +and jarred her.</p> + +<p>She finally realized she no longer loved him. It is doubtful if she +realized this before the birth of her first and only child. She lacked +maternal feeling and rebelled with a bitter rebellion against the +distortion of her figure that came with the pregnancy. The nursing +ordered by the doctor and expected by all around her nearly drove her +"wild", she said, for she felt like a "cow", a "female." Indeed she +reacted bitterly against the femaleness that marriage forced on her and +hated the essential maleness of her husband. Her emotional reaction +against nursing took away her milk, and finally the disgusted family +doctor ordered the baby weaned and he was turned over to a servant.</p> + +<p>She went back to her own life, determined to become a housewife, to see +if she could not love her husband and her home. But everything he did +irritated her, and everything in the house made her feel as in a +"luxurious cage." Yet she was by no means a feminist; she detested +"noisy suffragettes", thought women doctors and lawyers ridiculous, and +had been brought up to regard marriage as indissoluble.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>Gradually out of the conflict, the chilling fear that she had made a +mistake which could not be rectified, the constant irritation and +annoyances, the revolt against her own sex feeling and her life +situation, arose the neurosis. It took the form mainly of sudden +unaccountable fears with faint dizzy feelings. The family physician on +the aside told me that it was "just a case of a damn fool woman with +everybody too good to her."</p> + +<p>What constitutes a "damn fool" will include every person in the world, +according to some one else. It seemed obvious to me that J. was not +meant by nature to be a housewife or any kind of wife. Matrimonially she +was a misfit, unless she met some man of a type like herself, though I +doubt if any man could have pleased her. I doubt if her over-exacting +taste would not rebel against the animal in life itself. For though the +animal of life is essentially as fine as the human, certain types find +it impossible to acknowledge it in themselves.</p> + +<p>At any rate I advised separation for a time,—six months at least. I +told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She +answered that she knew this <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>but could not conceive of any change. We +discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her +husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold +her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a +temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The +outlook is therefore a poor one.</p> + +<p><b>Case VI.</b> The over-conscientious housewife,—the seeker of perfection.</p> + +<p>The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New +England stock, <i>i.e.</i> the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England +climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. +This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily +radical, has this prevailing trait,—standards of right and wrong are +set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to +maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not +peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, +Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal.</p> + +<p>This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>of age, with three children, +was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she +and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something +was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a +type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. +She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious +appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a +physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a +dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any +importance—yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one."</p> + +<p>Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a +small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and +admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was +exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his +wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching +things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc.</p> + +<p>She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her +husband, with <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her +hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained +cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were +quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat +was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared +to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That +clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude +she completely rejected.</p> + +<p>It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,—from the +beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a +maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed +over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless <i>all the time</i>; +she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early +morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, +etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated +efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children +bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for +it.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy +about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul +their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely +because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes +after them picking up and cleaning."</p> + +<p>This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the +effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners +from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She +thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; +any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, +any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime.</p> + +<p>Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in +children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a +day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out +words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new +experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their +quest for experiment,—and they learn thereby. Not every <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>mickle grows +into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as +unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits.</p> + +<p>So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, +developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, +self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never +perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had +become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she +read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show.</p> + +<p>It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own +ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her +neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some +stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not +prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for +everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst +dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic.</p> + +<p>In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and +to such advice <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that +dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed +always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better +dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the +ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a +relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, +admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was +sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin +idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", +"extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence +of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her +home.</p> + +<p>This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a +gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as +she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." +Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine +housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an +over-zealous conscience.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Other Typical Cases</h3> + + +<p><b>Case VII.</b> The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability.</p> + +<p>In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the +man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business +partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and +many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the +leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American +method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior +women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's +advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the +trousers" themselves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, +had excellent health before marriage. Her family, orig<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>inally poor, had +been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important +places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is +married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an +executive in a department store.</p> + +<p>Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time +of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who +inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic +over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never +followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own +way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all +financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of +people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her +counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect +for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt +crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time +went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused +<a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had +not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached +the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they +enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude +toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and +envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly +view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are +near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such +disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend +involuntarily to arouse.</p> + +<p>With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a +complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that +brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal +to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he +accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to +the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute +nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and +fatigue.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much +surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection +immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old +feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of +business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that +she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was +necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime +essential to cure in such cases,—an ignorant or unintelligent woman +with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence +took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it +may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic +observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism +and hostility.</p> + +<p><b>Case VII.</b> The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law.</p> + +<p>That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of +feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in +the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted +financial <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>success, settling down may be possible, but is much more +difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably +has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,—and +she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all +this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of +doubt and rebellion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. +She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a +business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal +gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did +and was treated with deference by the entire organization.</p> + +<p>She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior +official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal +habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and +went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and +mother.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. +She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>home with the son for +some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range +of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost +inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.</p> + +<p>Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his +wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father +presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to +a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other +woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. +Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good +enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to +feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household +or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old +Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one +roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and +daughter-in-law live together.</p> + +<p>The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger +woman. There <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>was enough to find fault with, since the wife was +absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, +and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try +all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took +diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were +some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took +possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found +herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the +office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. +Further, the distracted husband, in his rôles of husband and son, found +himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the +girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible +for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her +pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house +seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she +expressed it.</p> + +<p>Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs +seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>attends it. No +outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should +be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It +sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all +love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it +animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in +this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a +crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman +found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found +herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied +on.</p> + +<p>The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical +strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited +spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to +matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband +intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a +circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be +dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the +symptoms were headache, sleepless<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>ness, etc., for which the neurologist +was consulted.</p> + +<p>How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It +probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made +that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law <i>vs.</i> +daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. +Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to +take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a +well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the +mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the +mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a +son's wife.</p> + +<p>This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment +to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was +delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed +that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger +world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and +convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less +amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an un<a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>consciously humorous +compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly +efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better +conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a +servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no +children.</p> + +<p><b>Case VIII.</b> The childless, neglected woman.</p> + +<p>It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in +a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an +identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case +might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable +difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as +childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the +main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and +sleeplessness.</p> + +<p>The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the +age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well +and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental +disease in her family. She married <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>a man of twenty-four, who had also +been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in +business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty +in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the +earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end +of his long day and the pair were quite happy.</p> + +<p>At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at +her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the +course of the next three years underwent three operations with no +result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time +her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He +would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing +cards,—in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first +discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York +where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him +for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he +remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged +deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four +days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times +the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and +agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties +to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would +reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, +gifts, etc., for a week or so,—and then backsliding. Finally even the +brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered +hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a +widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them +both.</p> + +<p>The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling +alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love +and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the +sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun +other women and their company, the fear that her husband was un<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>faithful +(which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or +definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought +on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium.</p> + +<p>This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her +frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to +the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. +Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery.</p> + +<p>Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the +chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The +lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm +has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the +inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he +is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and +his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one +<i>constant</i> attraction,—Chance.</p> + +<p>The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was +fortunate <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her +doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went +back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete +satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to +take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was +impossible in her lonely home.</p> + +<p><b>Case IX.</b> The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the +home.</p> + +<p>This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the +woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, +and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical +American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain +type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at +first in many cases of conflict between man and wife.</p> + +<p>The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but +thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class +rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm +and was a mechanic in a small city.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As +a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", <i>i.e.</i> to displease +her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her +family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased +when she married off their hands and left the home.</p> + +<p>Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her +husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He +was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for +which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the +theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became +greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband +tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit.</p> + +<p>They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,—she +became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around +to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will +he would go with her to her friends.</p> + +<p>Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he +set his will <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming +set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion +had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, +speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill.</p> + +<p>The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence +of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of +symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but +which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true +paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech.</p> + +<p>When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and +her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will +was thwarted, and <i>that</i> part of their function was to bring the man to +his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come +any more to see me,—a not unnatural reaction.</p> + +<p>The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and +dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, +in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a +<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not +warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to +give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional +crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms +that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, +fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are +frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and +discomfort of others.</p> + +<p>Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a +character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about +hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical +reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be +found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the +same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review +of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." +But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly +from her disposition and not from the kitchen.</p> + + +<p><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a><b>Case X.</b> The unfaithful husband.</p> + +<p>Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a +single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has +this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable +that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been +strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the +important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as +themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on +the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the +theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the +keener.</p> + +<p>The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, +the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her +health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she +has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make +both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the +border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples +do", were as much in love "as other couples are", <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>to use her phrases. +She was above her class in education, read what are usually called +advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good +housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their +sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she +thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman.</p> + +<p>Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the +part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes +fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she +found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the +bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to +the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped +maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, +unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an +unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, +contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate +reason for living and became a helpless prey to her <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>troubled mind. "A +temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could +understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole +scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her +children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for.</p> + +<p>Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central +physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular +campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, +the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression +remained.</p> + +<p>Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at +reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it +was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found +out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never +trust him again; I would die before I lived with him."</p> + +<p>Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest +wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>life is +to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by +others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of +one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering +a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as +by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of +memories.</p> + +<p>With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her +children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part +of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize +the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that +she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the +children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, +she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans +made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to +its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, +and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part +of the recovery process.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should +have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his +repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she +would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had <i>acted</i> +the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust +him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the +children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong +argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest +separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest +reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong.</p> + +<p><b>Case XI.</b> The unfaithful wife.</p> + +<p>In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the +difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into +ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor +saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow +orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical +health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the +present-day code of morals.<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a> This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In +such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the +physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a +doctor."</p> + +<p>A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a +physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as +well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an +intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the +conflicts of health and ethics.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married +since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten +years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one +thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined +to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful +in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, +of Swiss parentage.</p> + +<p>Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home +life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>settled life, got +on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed +to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I +married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married +except"—Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging +her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity +against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but +romantically so, not realistic.</p> + +<p>There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest +in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers +are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession +and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the +married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to +whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these +gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is +sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a +philosophy of life that justifies them.</p> + +<p>Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these +men found his <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he +proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical +disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who +had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke +off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and +disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought +about a profound neurasthenia.</p> + +<p>Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her +unfaithfulness,—largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not +in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little +realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of +infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, +rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was +evident to me that something was obsessing her.</p> + +<p>When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her +husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; +but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to +tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>result to him, for +she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind +arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to +confession.</p> + +<p>As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very +foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was +that of an <i>essentially moral</i> person; that an essentially immoral woman +would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so +remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she +came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make +it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the +quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of +veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget +her pain.</p> + +<p>It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two +professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would +disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that +Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, +that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>heroic +measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent +that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to +extremes.</p> + +<p>The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has +previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many +of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the +place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of +experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among +both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters +relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be +discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of +nutrition.</p> + +<p>No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional +ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the +United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and +dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but +whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where +division of opinion will occur. A <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>transition from long skirts to dress +that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a +feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would +remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of +woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding +movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means +a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a +costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if +women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, +wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in +over tight short skirts.</p> + +<p>Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, +the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free +discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man +and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle +rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial +triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every +newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most +<a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any +responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the +epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex +is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it.</p> + +<p>Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its +spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its +realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, +and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot +of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the +housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not +fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, +art, and stage,—it unfits people for sex reality.</p> + +<p>In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is +almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a +certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the +fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the +household, and the man <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or +no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than +in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of +divorce records.</p> + +<p>That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing +in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock +in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological +effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of +cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that +contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our +jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own +families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind +consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the +neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial +problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book.</p> + +<p>Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the +engaged." The freedom of the engaged <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>couple is part of the emancipation +of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just +short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are +aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. +Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild +exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On +the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a +good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without +interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But +it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the +necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of +service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised +concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family +friend, or the family physician.</p> + +<p>Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped +with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. +That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be +obviated if wisdom and experience instructed <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>the husband and wife in +the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the +domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the +pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That +reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on +a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who +believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, +the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge +should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better +than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Treatment Of The Individual Cases</h3> + + +<p>It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be +wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do +yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large +proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently +the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing +to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the +taking of medicine.</p> + +<p>Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of +their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are +uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I +believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that +can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation +involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this +means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of +women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to +the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, +and the major diseases,—these must be remembered as factors that may +determine nervousness.</p> + +<p>With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such +difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the +life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, +where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as +tact, are the essentials.</p> + +<p>It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich +woman may have settled down to a deënergizing life, with too much time +in bed, too many matinées, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. +Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad +for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the +sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, +the whole structure of misery may rest.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a +small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas +into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent +several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic +remedies,—a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I +investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an +inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath +the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime +and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists +had failed.</p> + +<p>So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman +which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its +significance and importance.</p> + +<p>An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an +underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of +mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular +indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel +functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through +irri<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>tability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all +the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such +that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with +others who are in most ways perfectly normal.</p> + +<p>Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life +Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of +eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical +difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life.</p> + +<p>If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, +the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and +recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous +chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement +home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women +down does not prove that they do not break <i>some</i> women down, women with +finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The +most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can +see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for +its victims.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or +more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves +by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from +morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting +them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What +right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does +not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately +philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and +saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American +civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much +philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found.</p> + +<p>One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies +interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a +woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and +even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient +has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. +But unfortunately the consulting room for the <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>poor is in the crowded +clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to +give the time and energy necessary?</p> + +<p>For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with +the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy +that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either +slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such +stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself +gives out.</p> + +<p>In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more +weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more +ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork +in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or +other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some +difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a +rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a +temperament to a situation.</p> + +<p>Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are +insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>in the very +largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as +the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics +help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much +as one may expect.</p> + +<p>But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be +accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to +realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, +and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her +symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has +blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis.</p> + +<p>If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The +intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, +they seek counsel as well as treatment.</p> + +<p>It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control +instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not +unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or +her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the +personal efforts to change.</p> + +<p>A new philosophy of life must be presented.<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a> Less fussiness, less fear, +more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are +necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught +to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should +life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" +What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal +of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,—old-fashioned words, +but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face +with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly +that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a +selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and +aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding.</p> + +<p>If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, +then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end +doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to +end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic +situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity +with those of more means and ability.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the coöperation +of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife +consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men +are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic +wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he +is anxious enough to help cure her.</p> + +<p>Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by +the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear +down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician +cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less +neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict +rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband +deënergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was +induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,—a highly +strung, very efficient self.</p> + +<p>In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the +individual woman and then the painstaking <i>adjustment</i> of that +in<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>dividual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life +situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the +housewife to the life situation.</p> + +<p>In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as +in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the +orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." +Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego +in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; +people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the +ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a +disguised way of naming their desire.</p> + +<p>One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every +woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of +irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,—these are the hopeless +situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is +the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the +disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst +offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>to be the scold +and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his +revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another +story.</p> + +<p>At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference +between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in +make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential +need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly +expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become +matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death +of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and +sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of +feeling, that the major duties were of less importance.</p> + +<p>On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets +impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it +unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to +think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains +out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the +devotion of the husband is the woman's <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>anchor to windward, her grip on +safety,—that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and +she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their +husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch +them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling +off of the lover's spirit and feeling.</p> + +<p>After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than +in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she +fears the rivalry of business,—and with reason. So she craves +attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She +ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married +life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a +great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great +majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also +minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play +demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to +their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the +time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>work marries +a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical +for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving +up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of +justice and the race.</p> + +<p>In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of +increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is +this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, +which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and +efficiency.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Future Of Woman, The Home, And Marriage</h3> + + +<p>No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in +favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days +of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to +reproach or mock him.</p> + +<p>Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of +woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come +along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in +the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the +largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women +alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the +outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many +reactionary centuries and eras <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>as well as successful reformations and +progressive ages.</p> + +<p>Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, +feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more +diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they +will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who +work will be specialized and individualized—- the woman executive, the +writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and +sociologist—will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The +woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in +ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement +whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear +children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in +which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend +the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might.</p> + +<p>Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of +the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the +race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their +sex.<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a> Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of +the children they might have had no one can say.</p> + +<p>But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and +remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. +The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there +comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a +counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of +their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will +enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing +enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since +they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the +conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually.</p> + +<p>So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an +increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing +reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion +against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will +increase rather than diminish, <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>and it must be faced without prejudice +and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, +that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or +doing.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as +fact,—the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or +bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the +modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is +one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there +seems little to do but accept the situation.</p> + +<p>That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to +the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by +most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject +in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply +important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for +contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and +Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all +classes in society except the <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>feeble-minded are learning the +procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, +and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility +artificially.</p> + +<p>What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family +will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or +before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. +What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? +Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while +away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women +to-day?</p> + +<p>It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever +before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way +of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great +advantage,—the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter +politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will +deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment +and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even +for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social +structure <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded +mother can bring.</p> + +<p>Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To +some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a +refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of +temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by +divorce,—rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for +which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons +for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel +and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not +grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in +the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go +even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or +venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some +States.</p> + +<p>Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until +the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time +comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply +en<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>courages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty.</p> + +<p>Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness +can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the rôles of mother +and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman +will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife +and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and +special education, and she will continue to find the rôle of the +traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and +the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis.</p> + +<p>In other words what we must seek to do—those of us who are not bound by +tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings +rather than the reverse—is to find out what changes in the home and +matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century +is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant +the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore +<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has +been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and +individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was +eliminated, in a sense was coöperative. This coöperation is increasing; +more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. +In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent +hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible.</p> + +<p>Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do +woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the +smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number +of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette +apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it +is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or +two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the +huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and +second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched +in the Introduction.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its +heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but +recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, +and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In +it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of +brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its +source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle +and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a +sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the +English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a +reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are +thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of +its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged.</p> + +<p>Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than +anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its +indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable +from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are +often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the +cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes +by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each +woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest +waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the +intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and +housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from +feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, +unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol +home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many +kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory +and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, +and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking +and feeding to break from.</p> + +<p>Take as one minor example the gorging <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>encouraged on Sunday and certain +holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all +Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her +family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is +directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, +Christmas,—the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed +into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has +its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer.</p> + +<p>While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and +inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster +importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, +because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet +individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service.</p> + +<p>There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, +even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which +drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, +brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak +too <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>much in generalities—the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, +Mankind—forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are +homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and +having only one thing in common,—that they are segregated social units, +based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said +approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who +<i>knows</i> shakes hands with individuals."</p> + +<p>In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to +generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown +to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is +exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the +lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the +quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either +positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or +develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is +traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, +overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as +possible conventional morals and manners. Such per<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>sons have simply +overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their +teaching by building counter-prejudices.</p> + +<p>Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be +kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the +course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; +the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic +purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real +life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one +and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted +to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so +intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, +but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the +hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the +poor fellows in the blizzard.</p> + +<p>Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it +becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that +break away from home and home ties who do the great things.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great +virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its +very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the +bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is +proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of +the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of +largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are +born in the home.</p> + +<p>It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional +violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the +restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the +family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would +bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete +disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest +bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between +the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height.</p> + +<p>That courtesy to each other might be <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>taught the children, might be +insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not +exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the +marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out +almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, +courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example.</p> + +<p>Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet +maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human +heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is +easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into +programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of +treatment,—so in society at large.</p> + +<p>Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men +and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and +drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the +sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by +some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger +coöperation, <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built +so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as coöperative +stores are springing up, so coöperative kitchens, community kitchens +organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, +without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her +own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a +development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens +now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the +housewife in most need,—the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real +social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, +nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be +eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would +disappear in a generation.</p> + +<p>That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the +disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius +has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. +Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even +the lower middle <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of +them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device +ought to be judged are these:</p> + +<p>First—Is it efficient?</p> + +<p>Second—Is it labor saving?</p> + +<p>Third—Is it time saving?</p> + +<p>We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional +diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating +ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, +fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the +housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would +also be of great benefit to her husband. The cult of hearty eating, +which results in keeping a woman (mistress or maid) in the kitchen for +three or more hours that a man may eat for twenty or thirty minutes is +folly. The type of meal that either takes only a short time for +preparation and devices which render the attention of the housewife +unnecessary are ethical and healthy, both for the family and society. +The joys of the table are not to be despised, and only the dyspeptic or +the ascetic hold them in con<a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>tempt; but simplicity in eating is the very +heart of the joy of the table.</p> + +<p>Elaboration and gluttony are alike in this,—they increase the housework +and decrease the well-being of the diner.</p> + +<p>How to maintain the sweetness of the family spirit of the home and yet +bring into it a wider social spirit, break down its isolated +individualistic character, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to +solve. Ancient nations emphasized the social-national aspect of life +overmuch, as for example the Spartans; the modern home overemphasizes +the family aspect. We must avoid extremes by clinging to the virtues and +correcting the vices of the home.</p> + +<p>Alarmists are constantly raising the cry that marriage is declining and +that society is thereby threatened at its very heart. There is the +pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; +there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds +in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding +old-fashioned morality. Divorce, late marriage, and child-restriction +are the manifestations of this decadence, and the press, the <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>pulpit, +science, and the State all have taken notice of these modern phenomena, +though with widely differing attitudes.</p> + +<p>That matrimony is changing cannot be questioned or denied. The main +change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose +rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no +longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, +when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in +exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the +horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to +this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely +enough, seemed to glory in it.</p> + +<p>With the rise of woman into the status of a human being (a revolution +not yet accomplished in entirety) the property relationship weakened but +lingers very strongly as a tradition that molds the lives of husband and +wife. Women are still held more rigidly to their duties as wives than +men to their duties as husbands, and the will of the husband still rules +in the major affairs of life, even though in a thousand details the wife +rules. Theoret<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>ically every man willingly acknowledges the importance of +his wife as mother and homekeeper, but practically he acts as if his +work were the really important activity of the family. The obedience of +the wife is still asked for by most of the religious ceremonies of the +times. Two great opinions are therefore still struggling in the home and +in society; one that matrimony implies the dependence and essential +inferiority of woman, and the other that the man and woman are equal +partners in the relationship. I fully realize that the advocate of the +first opinion will deny that the inferiority of woman is at all implied +in their standpoint. But it is an inferior who vows obedience, it is the +inferior who loses legal rights, it is the inferior who yields to +another the "headship" of the home.</p> + +<p>The struggle of these two opinions will have only one outcome, the +complete victory of the modern belief that the sexes are, all in all, +equal, and that therefore marriage is a contract of equals. Meanwhile +the struggling opinions, with the scene of conflict in every home, in +every heart, cause disorder as all struggles do. When the victory is +complete, then conduct will be definite <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>and clear-cut, then the home +will be reorganized in relation to the new belief, and then new problems +will arise and be met. How conduct will be changed, what the new +problems will be and how they will be met, I do not pretend to know.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there is this to say,—that marriage should be guarded so that +the grossly unfit do not marry. A thorough physical examination is as +necessary for matrimony as it is for civil service, and many of the +horrors every generation of doctors has witnessed could be eliminated at +once and for all time.</p> + +<p>Further, if marriage is a desirable state, and on the whole it must be +preferred to a single existence, surely so long as our code of morals +remains unchanged, and so long as we believe the race must be +perpetuated, then the too late marriage should be discouraged. The ideal +age for women to enter matrimony is from twenty-two to twenty-five; the +ideal age for men is from twenty-five to twenty-eight. It is not my +province to deal at length with this subject, but I may state that I +believe that continence beyond these ages becomes increasingly +difficult, that immorality <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>is encouraged, that adaptability becomes +lessened, and that wiser selection of mates does <i>not</i> occur. But how +bring about early marriages in a time when the luxuries seem to have +become necessities, and therefore the necessity of marriage is eyed more +and more as an extravagance of the foolhardy? How bring about early +marriage when women are earning pay almost equal to that of the men and +are therefore more reluctant to enter matrimony unless at a high +standard of living. The late marriage is an evil, but how it can be +displaced by the early marriage under the present social scheme I do not +see.</p> + +<p>We have considered divorce before this. It is not an evil but a symptom +of evil; not a disease in itself. It cannot be lessened or abolished +unless we are willing to state that a man and a woman should live +together as husband and wife, hating, despising, or fearing one another. +We cannot countenance brutality, unfaithfulness, or temperamental +mismating. It is true that divorces are often obtained for trivial +reasons, but usually the partners are not adapted to one another, +according to modern ways of thinking and <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>feeling. What is commonplace +in one age is cruelty in the next, and this is a matter not of argument +but of expectation and feeling.</p> + +<p>Nothing more need be said of contraceptive measures than this: they are +inevitably increasing in use and soon will be part of the average +marriage. Society must recognize this, and the lawmakers must legalize +what they themselves practise.</p> + +<p>Matrimony, the home, woman, these are nodal points in the network of our +human lives. But they are not fixed centers, and the great weaver, Time, +changes the design constantly. Through them run the threads of the great +instincts, of tradition, of economic change, of the ideas, ideals, and +activities of man the restless. Man will always love woman, woman will +always love man; children will be born and reared, and sex conflict, +maladjustment, will always be secondary to these great facts. How men +and women will live together, how they will arrange for the children, +will be questions that women will help the world answer as well as their +mates. That the main trend of things is for better, more ethical, more +just relationship, I do not doubt. The secondary, most noisy <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>changes +are perhaps evil, the main primary change is good.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile in the hurly-burly of new things, of complex relationships, +working blindly, is the nervous housewife. This book has been written +that she may know herself better and thus move towards the light; that +her husband may win sympathy and understanding and be bound to her in a +closer, better union, and that the physician and Society may seek the +direct and the remote means to helping her.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<ul><li>Alcoholism and housewife, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> +<li>Anger, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Beauty, loss of, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> +<li>Birth control, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>-<a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> +<li>Birth control measures and nervousness, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Cases, treatment of, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>-<a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> +<li>Child and cartoons, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a> +<ul><li> and movies, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> +<li>Childbearing and modern woman, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Children and the neurosis, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>-<a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Daydreaming, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> +<li>Diet and Cooking, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> +<li>Disagreeable, reaction to the, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li> +<li>Divorce, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Emotions, effects of, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>-<a href='#Page_30'>30</a>; <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>-<a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li> +<li>Engagement period, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> +<li>Extravagance of the housewife, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Fear, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> +<li>Feminism and individualization of woman, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>-<a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Happiness and high cost of living, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> +<li>Histories of cases: +<ul><li> case with bad hygiene, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>-<a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> +<li> hyperæsthetic woman, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>-<a href='#Page_193'>193</a><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a></li> +<li> over-rich, purposeless type, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>-<a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> +<li> overworked, under-rested type, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>-<a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> +<li> physically ill type, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>-<a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li> +<li>Home, +<ul><li> aboriginal, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li> +<li> faults of, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> +<li> future of, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> +<li> isolation of, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Household conflicts, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-<a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li> +<li>Housewife, +<ul><li> hyperæsthetic type of, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> +<li> non-domestic type of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> +<li> overconscientious type of, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> +<li> overemotional type of, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li> +<li> physically ill, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> +<li> previously neurotic, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> +<li> types predisposed to nervousness, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>-<a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housewife and abnormal child, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a> +<ul><li> and childbearing, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> +<li> and neglect, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> +<li> and poverty, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housewife of past generation, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> +<li>Housework, +<ul><li> evolution of, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>-<a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> +<li> nature of, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housework and factory, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> +<li>Husband and housewife, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> +<li>Hysteria, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Jealousy and envy, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Marriage, conflicting views of, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> +<li>Marriage and sex relationship, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>-<a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li> +<li>Monotony, effects of, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> +<li>Nervousness, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>-<a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> +<li>Nervousness and child hygiene, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> +<li>Nervousness and sick child, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a></li> +<li>Neurasthenia, +<ul><li> causes, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> +<li> symptoms, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Neurasthenia and fear, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Pruriency of our times, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> +<li>Psychasthenia, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> +<li>Psychoneuroses, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Sedentary life, effects of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> +<li>Sex and society, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> +<li>Subconscious, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> +<li>Symptoms as weapons against husband, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Voltaire and constipation, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Will to power through weakness, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li> +<li>Woman, arts and crafts, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>-<a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> +<li>Woman, +<ul><li> discontent of, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +<li> future of, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> +<li> training of, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>-<a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Woman, industry and home, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>-<a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> +<li>Worry, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> +</ul> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a><i>By the Author of "RELIGION and HEALTH"</i></h3> + +<h2>=HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER=</h2> + +<h3><i>By</i> JAMES J. WALSH, M.D.</h3> + +<h4><i>Medical Director of Fordham University School of Sociology</i></h4> + +<h5>12mo. Cloth. 288 pages.</h5> + +<hr /> + +<p>"The American Public sorely needs the gospel of health that Dr. Walsh +preaches to it in his new book."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Pilot, Boston.</i></p> + + +<p>"I do not wonder that your splendid book 'Health Through Will Power' has +met with such great success. I know that I could hardly leave the book +out of my hands, it was so interesting and instructive."</p> + +<p>—<i>Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, of New York.</i></p> + + +<p>"'Health Through Will Power' is packed with medical wisdom translated +into the vernacular of common sense."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Ave Maria.</i></p> + + +<p>"Your book is capable of adding largely to happiness, as well as health. +It is also wonderful, spiritually. I feel like recommending the book to +everyone I know."</p> + +<p>—<i>Mgr. M.J. Lavelle, of New York.</i></p> + + +<p>"This book should find a place in every home, as it will help to bring +us back to a more natural manner of living."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Rosary Magazine.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<h4>LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS</h4> + +<h5>34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON</h5> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14196 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..899ad4b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14196 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14196) diff --git a/old/14196-8.txt b/old/14196-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ce0187 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14196-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5762 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nervous Housewife + +Author: Abraham Myerson + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14196] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE + + + +BY + +ABRAHAM MYERSON, M.D. + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +1920 + + + + +Published November, 1920 + + +Norwood Press + +Set up and electrotyped by J.S. Cushing Co. + +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I INTRODUCTORY 1 + II THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" 17 + III TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS 46 + IV THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS 74 + V REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE 91 + VI POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS 116 + VII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND 126 + VIII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS 141 + IX THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND 160 + X HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES 168 + XI OTHER TYPICAL CASES 199 + XII TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES 231 + XIII THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE 244 + INDEX 269 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife? + +Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific +creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse +all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the +youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a +headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost +his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge? + +We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference +to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the +present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in every +man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do, +for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor +Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of +occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her +a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes +from specialist to specialist,--orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray +man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment +she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her +feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her +insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics, +electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science! + +Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with +pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and +saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young +girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her +man, into the housewife of a decade,--complaining, fatigued, and +disillusioned. Bound to her husband by the ties the years and the +children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them. + +"Men don't understand," cries she. "Women are unreasonable," says he. + +What are the causes of the change? Did the housewife of a past +generation go through the same stage? Ask any man you meet and he will +tell you his mother is or was more enduring than his wife. "She bore +three times as many children; she did all her own housework; she baked +more, cooked more, sewed more; she got up at five o'clock in the morning +and went to bed at ten at night; she never went out, never had a +vacation, did not know the meaning of manicure, pedicure, coiffure. She +was contented, never extravagant, and rarely sick." + +So the average man will say, and then: "Those were the good old days of +simple living, gone like the dodo!" To-day,--well, it reminds me of a +joke I heard. One man meets another and says: 'By the way, I heard that +your wife was the champion athlete at college.' 'Ah, yes,' said the +husband; 'now she is too weak to wash the dishes.' + +Is the average man's impression the correct one? Or are we dealing with +the incorrigible disposition of man to glorify the past? To the majority +of people their youth was an era of stronger, braver men, more +wholesome, beautiful women. People were better, times were more natural, +and there is a grim satisfaction in predicting that the "world is going +to the dogs." "The good old days" has been the cry of man from the very +earliest times. + +Yet read what a contemporary of the housewife of three quarters of a +century ago says,--the wisest, wittiest, sanest doctor of the day, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. The genial autocrat of the breakfast table +observes: "Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid of all work, with the title of mistress and an American +female constitution which collapses just in the middle third of life, +comes out vulcanized India rubber, if it happens to live through the +period when health and strength are most wanted?" + +And then, if one looks in the advertisements of half a century ago, one +finds the nostrum dealer loudly proclaiming his capacity to cure what +is evidently the Nervous Housewife. In America at least she has always +existed, perhaps in lesser numbers than at present. And one remembers in +a dim sort of way that the married woman of olden days was altogether +faded at thirty-five, that she entered on middle life at a time when at +least many of our women of to-day still think themselves young. + +It becomes interesting and necessary at this point to trace the +evolution of the home, because this is to trace the evolution of our +housewife. We are apt to think of the home as originating in a sort of +cave, where the little unit--the Man, the Woman, and the Children--dwelt +in isolation, ever on the watch against marauders, either animal or +human. In this cave the woman was the chattel of man; he had seized her +by force and ruled by force. + +Perhaps there was such a stage, but much more likely the home was a +communal residence, where the man-herd, the group, the clan, the Family +in the larger sense dwelt. Only a large group would be safe, and the +strong social instinct, the herd feeling, was the basis of the home. +Here the men and women dwelt in a promiscuity that through the ages +went through an evolution which finally became the father-controlled +monogamy of to-day. Here the women lived; here they span, sewed, built; +here they started the arts, the handicrafts, and the religions. And from +here the men went forth to fish and hunt and fight, grim males to whom a +maiden was a thing to court and a wife a thing to enslave. + +Just how the home became more and more segregated and the family life +more individualized is not in the province of this book to detail. This +is certain: that the home was not only a place where man and woman +mated, where their children were born and reared, where food was +prepared and cooked, and where shelter from the elements was obtained; +it was also the first great workshop, where all the manifold industries +had their inception and early development. The housewife was then not +only mother, wife, cook, and nurse; she was the spinner, the weaver, the +tanner, the dyer, the brewer, the druggist. + +Even in the high civilization of the Jews this wide scope of the +housewife prevailed. Read what the wisest, perhaps because most +married, of men says: + + She seeketh wool and flax, + And worketh willingly with her hands. + She is like the merchant ships; + She bringeth her food from afar. + She considereth a field, and buyeth it. + With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. + She girdeth her loins with strength, + And maketh strong her arms. + She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. + Her lamp goeth not out by night. + She layeth her hands to the distaff + And her hands hold the spindle. + + * * * * * + + She is not afraid of the snow for her household: + For all her household are clothed with scarlet. + She maketh for herself coverlets, + She maketh linen garments and selleth them, + And delivereth girdles unto the merchants. + +No wonder "her children rise up and call her blessed" and it is somewhat +condescending of her husband when he "praiseth her." All we learn of him +is that he "is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of +the land." With a wife like her, this was all he had to do. + +This combination of industrialism and domesticity continued until +gradually men stepped into the field of work, perhaps as a result of +their wives' example, and became farmers on a larger scale, merchants of +a wider scope, artisans, handicraftsmen, guild members of a more +developed technique. Woman started these things in the home or near it; +man, through his restless energy, specialized and thus developed an +intenser civilization. But even up till the nineteenth century woman +carried on all her occupations at the home, which still continued to be +workshop and hearth. + +Then man invented the machine, harnessed steam, wired electricity, and +there was born the Factory, the specialized house of industry, in which +there works no artisan, only factory hands. The home could not compete +with this man's monster, into which flowed one river of raw material and +out of which poured another of finished products. But not only did the +factory dye, weave, spin, tan, etc.; it also invaded the innermost +sphere of woman's work. For her loaf of bread it turned out thousands, +until finally she is beginning to give up baking; for her hit-or-miss +jellies, preserves, jams, it invented scientific canning with absolute +methods, handy forms, tempting flavors. And canning did not stop there; +meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the +housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no +longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern +time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has +stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own +creation, the factory. + +Thus it has come to pass that in our day the housewife does but little +dyeing, spinning, weaving, is no longer a handicraftsman, and in +addition is turning over a large part of her food preparation and +cooking to the factory. + +But the factory is not content with thus disarranging the ancient scheme +of things by invading the housewife's province; it has dragged a large +number of women, yearly increasing in number and proportion, into +industry. Thus it has made this condition of affairs: that it takes the +young girl from the home for the few years that intervene before her +marriage. She is thus initiated into wage-earning before she becomes a +man's wife, the housewife. + +This industrial period of a girl's life is important psychologically, +for it profoundly influences her reaction to her status and work as +homekeeper. + +Of even greater importance to our study than the influence of the +factory is the rise of what is known as feminism. Of all the living +creatures in the world the female of the human species has been the most +downtrodden, for to every wretched class of man there was a still +inferior, more wretched group, their wives. She was a slave to the +slaves, a dependent of the abjectly poor. When men passed through the +stage where woman's life might be taken at a whim, she remained a +creature without rights of the wider kind. Men debated whether she had a +soul, made cynical proverbs about her, called her the "weaker vessel," +and debarred her from political and economic equality, classing her up +to this very moment in rights with the idiot, the imbecile, and the +criminal. Worse than this, they gave her a spurious homage, created a +lop-sided chivalry, and caused her to accept as her ideal goal of +womanhood the achievement of beauty and the entrance into wifehood. +After they tied her hand and foot with restrictions and belittling +ideals, they capped the climax by calling her weak and petty by nature +and even got her to believe it! + +It is not my intention to trace the rise of feminism. Brave women arose +from age to age to glorify the world and their sex, and men here and +there championed them. Man started to emancipate himself from slavery, +and noble ideals of the equality of mankind first were whispered, then +shouted as battle cries, and finally chiseled with enduring letters into +the foundations of States. "But if all this was good for men, why not +for women--why should they be fettered by illiteracy, pettiness, +dependence; why should they be voiceless in the state and world?" So +asked the feminists. The factory called for women as labor; they became +the clerks, the teachers, the typists, the nurses. Medicine and the law +opened their doors, at least in part. And now we are on the verge of +universal suffrage, with women entering into the affairs of the world, +theoretically at least the equals of man. + +But with the entrance of woman into many varied professions and +occupations, with a wider access to experience and knowledge, arose +what may be called the era of the "individualization of woman." For if +any group of people are kept under more or less uniform conditions in +early life, if one goal is held out as the only legitimate aim and end, +in a word, if their training and purposes are made alike, they become +alike and individuality never develops. With individuality comes +rebellion at old-established conditions, dissatisfaction, discontent, +and especially if the old ideal still remains in force. This new type of +woman is not so well fitted for the old type of marriage as her +predecessors. There arises a group of consequences based psychologically +on this, a fact which we shall find of great importance later on. + +Women still regard marriage as their chief goal in life, still enter +homes, still bear children, and take their husband's name. But having +become more individualized they demand more definite individual +treatment and rebel more at what they consider an infringement of their +rights as human beings. Also, and unfortunately, they still wish the +right to be whimsical, they continue to reserve for themselves the +weapons of tears, reproaches, and unreasonable demands. This has +brought about the divorce evil. + +Briefly the "divorce" evil arises first from the rebellion of woman +against marital drunkenness, unfaithfulness, neglect, brutality that a +former generation of wives tolerated and even expected. Second, it +arises from a conflict between the institution of marriage which still +carries with it the chattel idea--that woman is property--and a +generation of women that does not accept this. Third, it arises from the +ill-balanced demands of women to be treated as equals and also as +irresponsible, petty, and indulged tyrants. Men are unable to adjust +themselves to the shattering of the romantic ideal, and the home +disintegrates. Though divorce is the top of the crest of marital +unhappiness, it really represents only the extreme cases, and behind it +is a huge body of quarreling and divided homes. + +We shall later see that our Nervous Housewife has symptoms and pains and +aches and changes in mood and feeling that are born of the conflict that +is in part pictured by divorce. _Divorce is a manifestation of the +discontent of women, and so is the nervousness of the housewife._ + +There arises as a result of this individualization of woman, as a +result of increasing physiological knowledge, the hugely important fact +of restricted child bearing. The woman will no longer bear children +indiscriminately,--and the large family is soon to be a thing of the +past in America and in all the civilized world. The-woman-that-knows-how +shrinks from the long nine months of pregnancy, the agony of the birth, +and the weary restricted months of nursing. Had the woman of a past time +known how, she too would have refused to bear. In this the housewife of +to-day is seconded by her husband, for where he has sympathy for his +wife he prefers to let her decide the number of children, and also he is +impressed by the high cost of rearing them. + +One gets cynical about the influence of church, patriotism, and press +when one sees how the housewife has disregarded these influences. For +all the religions preach that race suicide is a sin, all the statesmen +point out that only decadent nations restrict families, and all or +nearly all the press thunder against it. It is even against the law for +a physician or other person to instruct in the methods of birth +restriction, and yet--the birth rate steadily drops. An immigrant mother +has six, eight, or ten children and her daughter has one, two, or three, +very rarely more, and often enough none. This is true even of races +close to religious teaching, such as the Irish Catholic and the Jew. + +One can well be cynical of the power of religion and teaching and law +when one finds that even the families of ministers, rabbis, editors, and +lawmakers, all of whom stand publicly for natural birth, have shown a +great reduction in their size, that has taken place in a single +generation. + +Is the modern woman more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy,--less +resistant to the strain of childbearing and childbirth? It is a quite +general impression amongst obstetricians that this is a fact and also +that fewer women are able to nurse their babies. If so, these phenomena +are of the highest importance to the race and likewise to the problem of +the new housewife. For we shall learn that the lowering of energy is +both a cause and symptom of her neuroses. + +If then we summarize what has been thus far outlined, we find two +currents in the evolution of the housewife. _First_, she has yielded a +large part of her work to the factory, practically all of that part of +it which is industrial and a considerable portion of the food +preparation. + +_Second_, there has been a rise in the dignity and position of woman in +the past one hundred and fifty years which has had many results. She has +considerably widened the scope of her experience with life through work +in the factory, in the office, in the schoolhouse, and in the +professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original +occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. +She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has +declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce +has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability +to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the +declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization +and is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of +freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" + + +Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we +must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness +in general. + +Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place +whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition +is so loosely used as this one. + +People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of +anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of +fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is +restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting +his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the +ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who +branded his baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A +"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of +the sinister faces of insanity itself. + +It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous +housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the +general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the +intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the +causes. + +Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous +disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no +alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part +of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such +diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, +etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter +troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed +oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,--as against one in which a +vital part was broken. + +The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is +concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although two other +diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance. + +It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as +a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the +eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the +stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every +part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an +accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is +probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that +modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever +present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved. + +Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as +compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of +neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving, +_i.e._ distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, +telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to +increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy man with +his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but +by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving +_himself_. + +The keynote of neurasthenia is _increased liability to fatigue_. The +tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising +than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should +remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his +day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious +drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or +sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body. +Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and +this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words +as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a +listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more +distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with +over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild +kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for +the things formerly held dearest. And finally the fatigue is often +marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger +blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a +slight vexation. _To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks +of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that +is neither health nor disease._ + +The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything +imaginable. + +1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache, +backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs, +pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings +rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to +disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue +plays the principal part in evoking them. + +2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels, +are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a +capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. +The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for +disagreeable emotions, such as worry, fear, vexation, have long been +known as the chief enemies of appetite. + +With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by +"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these +lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the +stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the +nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the +disorder of emotion. + +3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is +primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once +it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism +by its interference with the mood. + +The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread +knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical +discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the +agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness. +Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named +the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared +with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be +seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he +found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life +and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said +the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to +commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my +bowels moved well." + +4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful, +dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the +bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded +our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary +functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work, +and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not +only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness. + +5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes +two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, +that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health +and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has +even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is +almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the +possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a +symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability +to worry becomes greatly increased. + +Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors +hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The +hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease, +every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis, +every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache +into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze +inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of +sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant +for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily +processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the +little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the +gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of +cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they +multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal +groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily +disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally +enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or +perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The +faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then +proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of +treatment. + +What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back +of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in +relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad +training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for +sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, +over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, +passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and +doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, +wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc. + +Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that +either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after +a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of +energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some +thought, some life situation of a depressing kind. + +It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our +subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over +the wider field of the human being. + +The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the +building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is +digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into +the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion. +The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the +human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other +words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our +later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of +our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our +love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought +battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and +achievement. + +Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in +tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition +there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor +and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, +laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work +with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the +battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a +stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The +feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a +new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, +which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end. + +There are _deënergizing emotions and experiences_ as well, things that +suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a certain type +is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs +become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, +and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, +either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the +strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the +frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and +injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and +inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,--the mistaken +marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental +pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure of +interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of +enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with +loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic, +deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We +shall discover how this comes about farther on. + +What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in +further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it? + +In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists +affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only +mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of +writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a +new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed--that every human +being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes, +ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly +admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he +would deny. + +These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with +another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for +the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an +illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose +to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may +struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,--a husband, +a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one +refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to +suppress jealousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring, +forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may +(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast. + +In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings, +passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses +of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but +nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it. + +However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast +and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the +neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided +against himself, deënergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict. + +And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a +creature, with a host of deënergizing influences playing on her, +buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to +discover how they work. + +I have stated that in medical practice two other types are +described,--psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely +related to the happenings of life as to the inborn disposition of the +patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the +neurasthenic, deënergized state. However, they are usually of more +serious nature, and as such merit a description. + +By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which +the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, +etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are +overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms. + +These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to +recurring fears,--fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of +leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt, +so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of +disease--especially such as syphilis--and a host of other fears, all of +which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles +but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and +comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense +of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has +actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear +of any vehicle after an automobile accident. + +There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas +and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such +as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a +chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly +turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts +occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them +continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In +extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of +deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal +debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his +meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing, +and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an +inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the +name that is often applied,--"anxiety neurosis." + +Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd +impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch +the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. +The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick +that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic +adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and +cracking joints of the inveterate _ticquer_. Against some of these habit +spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for +there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will +of the patient is powerless. + +Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow +exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The +ground is prepared for these conditions, _e.g._ by the strain of long +attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a +queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is +brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful +expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease +starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage, +recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful +struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or +obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases +according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of +causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and +repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not +at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of +nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in +life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian +factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they +should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are +bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires +frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face +they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way +or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance. +These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have +been considering. + +Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is +probably the one having its source mainly in the character of the +patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is +secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of +diseases and has probably played a very important rôle in the history of +man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, +for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of +religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in +their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical +blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away +his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every +faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de +Beaupré. + +In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as +well as in her single sisters and brothers. + +There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to +prolonged and freakish manifestations,--the well-known hysterics with +laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics +is this instability, this emotionality, which is however secondary to +an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and +often unable legitimately to earn them. + +A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called +paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a +moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg, +face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to +worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the +nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call +"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, +ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and +a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any +energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a +physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious +danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of +people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat +of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well. + +Similar in type to the paralyses are losses of sensation in various +parts of the body,--losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep +into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting +the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they +found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of +witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or +drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and +happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their +ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually +mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or +wretches deserving severest punishment. + +Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness +that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to +long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is +apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden +days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of +throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague +statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descendants +in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers +that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and +credulous. + +For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of +themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are +theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are +weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient. + +In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now +consider in more detail certain phases of emotion. + +Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow +flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the +floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's +soul. + +Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly +against the problems of nature, much more rarely against _his own_ +problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense +of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and +desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied +emotions,--hunger, sex, property, competition, coöperation. The +intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the +case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any +great decision is to be made. + +We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely +psychical,--purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great +descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart +thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold +chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth +was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man +stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force +only equaled by its truth. + +William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that +emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain +its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly +feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing, +and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling +of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or +anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,--immediately the +jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench +and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in +what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. +Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over +you a feeling not unlike anger. + +In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying +because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we +cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy +because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of +things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of +fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling +itself. + +This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable +theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is +largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat, +lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion +is a very important matter in our study of the housewife as of every +other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance +that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what +may be called the physical basis of emotion. + +What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to +well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It +may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and +excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the +appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This +is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions. +(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.) + +It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may +change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It +may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent +their evacuation. + +It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head +without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell; +_i.e._ may absolutely deprive the victim of consciousness. In lesser +degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often +very distressing. + +It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about +sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show. + +It may completely deënergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or +power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser +degree with the form of fear called worry. + +The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation +which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily +response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase +the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the +"psychical" processes, but also it may deënergize to an extraordinary +degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and +action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely, +produce death. + +Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty +laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion +has probably for one of its main functions the producing of an effect +on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger +is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring +about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one +smiles or laughs _at_ some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, +anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that +his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to +their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when +joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered +when pessimistic deënergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a +nation becomes energized with good news and success and deënergized when +the battle seems lost. + +The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or +the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a +social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous +housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her +family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties +are greatly weakened. + +This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I +recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and +afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room, +seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the +very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever +hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps +the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the +predominant note. + +Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler, +obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile, +everything is wrong. You are a _deleted deleted deleted deleted_ +rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of +anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She +gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. +White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, +bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face, +and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the +gingerbread from the butcher's boy. And that still hungry juvenile +slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back +doorstep. + +Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly +it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at +any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual +happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as +disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes +down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered +by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes +a king off his throne. + +So when we trace the deënergizing emotions of the housewife, we are +tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; +we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood, +her emotion, into the future, into history. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS + + +There are three main factors in the production of the nervousness of the +housewife, and they weave and interweave in a very complex way to +produce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how +simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. +Our housewife's symptoms are no exception, whether they are mainly +pains, aches, and fatigue, or the deeply motivated doubt or feeling of +unreality. + +The nature of the housewife, the conditions of her life, and her +relations to her husband are these three factors. All enter into each +case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There +are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essential cause, +others where it is the conditions of her life, and still others where +the husband stands out as the source of her symptoms. + +We are now to consider the nature of the housewife as our first factor. +We may preamble this by saying that a woman essentially normal in one +relationship in life may be abnormal in some other, may be the +traditional square peg in the round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on +the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large +extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are +alike"--and then follows the specific accusation--"in fickleness", "in +extravagance", "in unreasonableness", in this trick or that. The chief +effort of conservatism is to make them alike, to fit each one for the +same life by the same training in habits, knowledge, abilities, and +ideals. + +Talk about Prussianism! The great Prussianism, with its ideal of +uniformity, serviceability, and servility, has been the masculine ideal +of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to taste +all its experiences, but woman had her sphere, which belied all +mathematics by being a narrow groove. + +The nineteenth century changed all that,--or started the change which +is going on with extraordinary rapidity in the twentieth. There are all +kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman +tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative +middle-of-the-road biologically, while man spreads out, but no one can +be sure of this until woman's early training to some extent resembles +man's. + +1. From the very start woman is trained to vanity. Every mother loves to +doll up her girl baby, and the child is admired for her dress and +appearance. Now it is an essential quality of the normal human being +that he accepts as an ideal the quality most admired. To the young +child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, +Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The +pretty girls, the ones most courted, the ones surest on the whole to get +married and to become housewives are usually spoiled by indulgence, +petting, admiration, and this for a quality not at all related to strong +character, and therefore vanity of a trivial kind results. + +2. Moreover, woman is trained to emotionality. It may be that she is by +nature more emotional than man, but again this can only be known when +she has been trained to repress emotional response as a man is trained. +If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or +another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if +a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taught that tears are +potent weapons, a fact she uses with extraordinary effect later on, +especially in dealing with men. If she shows fear, she is protected, +sheltered, and given a sort of indulged inferiority. + +3. The romantic ideal is constantly held before her in the private +counsel of her mother, in the books she reads, in the plays she +witnesses, in all the allurements of art. She is to await the lover, the +hero; he will take her off with him to dwell in love and happiness +forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops +the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible +preparation for married life, excepting perhaps the _courtship_. This +latter emphasizes a distorted chivalry that makes of woman a petty thing +on a pedestal, out of touch with reality; it is an exciting entrance +into what in the majority of cases is a rather monotonous existence. + +All these things--vanity, emotionality, romanticism, courtship--are poor +training for the home. They hinder even the strongest woman, they are +fetters for the more delicate. + +In taking up the special types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife it is to be emphasized that conditions may bring about the +neurosis in the normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of +women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the +neurosis much more easily and much more intensely than do the normal +women. They are the types most commonly seen in the hospital clinic or +in the private consulting room of the neurologist. + +First comes the hyperæsthetic type. One of the chief marks of advancing +civilization is an increasing refinement of taste and desire. The +fundamental human needs are food, shelter, clothes, sex relations, and +companionship. These the savage has as well as his civilized brother, +and he finds them not only necessary but agreeable. What we call +progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, +elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With +each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, +and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, desire +keeps pace with improvement, so that although great advances materially +have been made, there has been little advance, if any, in contentment. +This is because as we progress in refinement little things come to be +important, manner becomes more essential than matter, and we get to the +hyperæsthetic stage. + +Thus the dinner becomes less important than the manner of serving it. In +the "highest circles" it is the _savoir faire_, the niceties of conduct, +that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with +thought rather than the means of expressing it, and thought itself +scorns the elemental and fundamental and busies itself with the vagaries +of existence. + +From another angle, to the hyperæsthetic more and more things have +become disagreeable. To the man of simple tastes and simple feelings, +only the calamities are disagreeable; to the hyperæsthetic every breeze +has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the +reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess +boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in +delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So +with the hyperæsthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a +deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of its savor; +sounds become noises; a bit of litter, dirt; a little reality, +intolerable crudity. + +A woman with this temperament is a poor candidate for matrimony unless +there goes with it a capacity for adjustment, unusual in this type. Most +men have their habitual crudities, their daily lapses, and every home is +the theater of a constant struggle with the disagreeable. Intensely +pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for +the shortcomings. The hyperæsthetic woman is constantly the prey of the +most deënergizing of emotions,--disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an +exaggerated expression of her feeling. And her afflicted household size +up the situation with the brief analysis, "Everything makes her +nervous." Every one in her household falls under the tyranny of her +disposition, mingling their concern with exasperation, their pity with a +silent almost subconscious contempt. + +Next comes the over-conscientious type. Whatever conscience is, whether +implanted by God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, +and a social nature, there can be no question that, as the Court of +Appeals, it does harm as well as good. + +There are people whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of +crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, +and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there +are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two +directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their +own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to +reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they +become, as it were, a sort of misdirected Providence, raising havoc with +the happiness and comfort of others. Whether the conscienceless or +those overburdened with this type of conscience have done more harm in +the world is perhaps an open question, which I leave to the historians +for settlement. + +The other type of the overconscientious does definite harm to +themselves. This type I have called the "Seekers of Perfection" and it +is their affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are +particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by +hyperæsthetic. Constantly they examine and reëxamine what they have +done. "Is it the best I can do?" "Should I rest now; have I the right to +rest?" + +Into every moment of enjoyment they obtrude conscience, or rather +conscience obtrudes itself. They become wedded to a purpose, and then +that purpose becomes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief +pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; +nothing is good but the best. The sense of humor is conspicuously +lacking in this type, for one of the main functions of humor is to +season effort and straining purpose with proportion. + +Should one of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually +"picking up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, +"finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never +finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, +unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly +chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the +strain, even though she have a dozen servants to help. For to this type +each helper is not at all an aid. At once up goes the standard of what +is to be done, and each servant becomes an added care, an added +responsibility. + +"I'd love to go out with you," wails this housewife, "but there's +something I must finish to-day." The word _must_, self-imposed, becomes +the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word +drives her to the real neglect of her husband, who becomes irritated at +her constant and to him needless activity, coupled with her complaints. + +"Why don't you rest if you are tired," is his stock remonstrance; "the +house looks all right to me." + +But it is futile. She becomes irritated, perhaps cries and says, "Just +like a man. It's clean to you if there are no cobwebs on the walls." + +Whereupon the debate closes, but the woman is the more deënergized and +the man exasperated at the unreasonableness of women in general and his +wife in particular. + +It is probably true that woman has more conscience, in so far as detail +is concerned, than man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, +more wedded to decorum. Man loves comfort and his interest is more +specialized and analytical, and as a rule he hates fussiness. + +This hatred of fussiness makes him long for the masculine clubroom, +gives him the kind of uneasiness that sends him off on a fishing trip or +hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, +many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of the Wife, the +Husband, and the Other Woman owes its existence, not to the charms of +the other woman, but to the overconscientious wife. + +The third type predisposed to the neurosis of the housewife is the +overemotional woman. + +We have already considered the effect of certain types of emotion on +health and endurance and may formulate it as follows: Emotion may act +as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function +of the body. What we call nervousness is largely made up of abnormal +emotional response, of persistent emotion, of the blocking of energy by +emotion. + +Now people differ from the very start of life in their response to +situations. One baby, if he does not get what he wants, turns his +attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he +gets it. One will manifest anger and strike at being blocked or impeded +in his desires, and the other will implore and plead in a baby way for +his wish. + +In the face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts +hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a +fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a +fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past +experience and seeking a definite plan to gain his end. + +A loss, a deprivation, plunges one type of person into deepest sorrow, a +helpless sorrow, inert and symbolic of the hopeless frustration of +love. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him +deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great +philanthropy, a great memorial to his grief. For the one, sorrow has +deënergized; for the other it has energized, has raised the efforts to a +nobler plane. + +Now there are women, and also men, to whom emotion acts like an overdose +of a drug. Parenthetically, emotion and certain drugs have very similar +effects. No matter how joyous the occasion and how exuberant their joy, +a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. +This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vision +of possible disaster to one they love may appear before them through +some stray mental association. They are at the mercy of every sad memory +and of every look into the future. + +Preëminently, they are the victims of that form of chronic fear called +worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He implied by this +name that it was a sort of degenerated "forethought." + +If the baby has a cough, then it may have tuberculosis or pneumonia or +some disastrous illness, of which death is the commonest ending. How +often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she +does keep his telephone busy! It is true that a cough may be early +tuberculosis, but this is the last possibility rather than the first. + +If the husband is late, Heaven knows what may have happened. She has +visions of him lying dead in some morgue, picked up by the police, or +he's in a hospital terribly injured by an automobile, or, perchance, a +robber has sandbagged him and dragged him into a dark alley. If she is a +bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that +way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at +home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession +of her to the exclusion of the more rational; _she has a sort of +affinity for the terrible_. And when her husband comes home, the +profound fear in many cases turns sharply and quickly to anger at him. +Her distorted sense of responsibility makes him the culprit for her +unnecessary fear. + +Now it is true that almost every woman has something of this tendency, +but it is only the extreme case that I am here depicting. In this +extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. The +Jewish home reverberates with emotionality and largely through this +attitude of the Jewish housewife. + +Such a woman is apt to make a slave of her family through their fear of +arousing her emotions. How frequently people are chained by their +sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny +of some one else's weakness, would fill one of the biggest chapters in a +true history of the human race,--a book that will probably never be +written. + +Naturally enough, this housewife finds plenty to worry about, to react +to, and since these reactions are physical, they have a lowering effect +on her energy. + +To those familiar with the conception that every emotion, every feeling, +needs a discharge, it will seem heretical when I say that the excessive +discharge of emotion is harmful. Freud finds the root of most nervous +trouble in repressed emotion. That is in part true, but it is also true +that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emotional +discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act +too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is +one of the great objects of training. It has for its goal the supremacy +of the noblest organ of the human being, his brain. For proper living +there must be emotion--there always will be--but it must be tempered +with intelligence if the best good of the individual and the race is to +be reached. + +The type of woman we must now study is a very modern product, the +non-domestic type. + +That the great majority of women have a maternal instinct does not +nullify the fact that a small number have none whatever. One of the +facts of life, not taken into account with a fraction of its true +significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide +range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and tastes. A +quality is said to be normal when the majority of the group possess it, +but it may be utterly lacking in a smaller number who are thereby +declared abnormal. + +At present, it is normal for woman to be domestic, _i.e._ to yearn for +husband, home, and children; to want to be a housewife. Unfortunately, +all these yearnings do not hang closely together, and a woman may want a +husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, +and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike the housekeeping +activities of marriage. The sex and other instincts upon which marriage +is based are not always linked with the maternal and home-keeping +instincts. + +While this has probably always been true, it mattered little in olden +days. A woman regarded the home as her destiny and generally had +experienced no other life. But as was shown in the first chapter, +industry and feminism have given woman a taste of other kinds of life +and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. +Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private +secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for +some house; or she has dabbled in art or literature; or she has been a +factory girl mingling with hundreds of others, working hard, but in a +large group; or a saleslady in a department store,--and domestic life is +expected of her as if she had been trained for it. In fact, she has been +trained away from it. + +The novelists delight to tell us of the woman who seeks a career and +enters the struggle of her profession and fails. And then there comes, +just when her failure is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, +the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, +oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and will be happy--long row of +asterisks, and have children; and if it is a movie, a year or more +elapses and we are permitted to gaze upon a charming domestic scene. + +But alas for reel life as against real life! We are not shown how she +yearns for the activities of her old career; we are not shown the +feeling she constantly has that she is too good for housekeeping. If she +has been fortunate enough to marry a rich and indulgent man, she becomes +a dilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first +vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she +marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty +and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker +worm in the bud,--and we have the neurosis of this type of housewife. Or +else her experience in business makes her size up her husband more +keenly, and we find her rebelling against his failure, criticizing him +either openly to the point of domestic disharmony, or inwardly to her +own disgust. + +It is not meant that all business and professional women, all typists +and factory girls are dissatisfied with marriage or develop an abnormal +amount of neurosis. Many a girl of this type really loves housekeeping, +really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, +clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent +experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman, +then the neurosis appears in full bloom. Against the adulation given to +women singers and actresses, against the fancied rewards of literature +and business, the domestic lot seems drab to this non-domestic type. + +Here the question arises: Is there room in our society for matrimony and +a business career? That a large number of exceptional women have found +it possible to be mothers, housewives, authors, and singers at one and +the same time does not take away from the fact that in the majority of +cases such a combination means either a childless marriage or the +turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the +abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few +cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have +children are poor and work in factories, there is the greatest infant +mortality, there is the greatest amount of juvenile delinquency, and +there is the greatest amount of marital difficulty. Our present +conception of matrimony demands that woman remains in the home until +such time at least as her children are able to care largely for +themselves. + +In the history of the worst cases of the housewife's neurosis one finds +previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized, +the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously +existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in +college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it +occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This +previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional +strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in +examinations. It may have followed acute illness, like influenza or +pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung, +delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep +readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of +energy. + +This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best +product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and +ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress +and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What +happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?" + +As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how +she marries. For after all a woman does not marry _matrimony_, she +marries a _man_, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic +woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to +give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she +is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than +if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social +worker, typist, factory hand the rest of her days,--and she has +fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an +unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the +first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short +periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, +the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really +sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust +himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To +differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness +is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some +show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And +the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the +genuineness of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between +wife and husband. + +That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this +type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an +increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question +is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases. He will marry her, is +the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. +Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil +that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,--delicate, with a play +of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim +physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about +this type; she is either very lovely or a freak. + +So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it +is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is +more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that +something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of +neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real +knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of +cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and +Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration. + +But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is +usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical +possibilities of his offspring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman +as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really +needs what only the rich can have,--servants, variety, frequent +vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even +the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who +ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, +and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man. + +Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and +we here pass to the physically ill housewife. + +It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, +properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of +exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses +that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the +diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, +or kidney disease, or with derangements of the sexual organs, may act +precisely like a nervous housewife,--may have pains and aches, changes +in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deënergized. + +It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a +natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to +the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external +parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth +occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately +is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very +small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small +experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large +experience and high authority. + +In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe +that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her +predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage +women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no +reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, +woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first +birth. + +Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is +more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, athletic girl who +falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, +old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy +motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the +occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the +truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point. + +A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as +flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes +of ill health to be ruled out before "nervousness" (or its medical +equivalents) is to be diagnosed. + +It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few +of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women +do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperæsthetic in one +sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She +may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be +willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for +her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her +energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house but be +willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The +overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over +trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the +neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work +for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a +fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike +men. + +One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman +envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter +thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of +human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their +difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of +the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of +mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, +and we shall so consider them in a later chapter. + +Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book that great forces of +society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible. +From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider +them frankly and fully. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS + + +One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless +advancement of desire,--and consequently the never-ending search for +contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in +the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to +further weary climbing. + +This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm +water it _feels_ warm only for a short time, and you must add still +warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand. +The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our +desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must +lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires. + +This is to be emphasized in the case of the housewife, but with this +additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on +what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out +of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one +expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to +discontent. + +What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, +thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed +wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the +neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the +increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied +life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, +discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the +factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness +of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework. + +What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status +of the house work. + +It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford +it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is greater and +greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the +so-called servant class dislikes the work. No amount of argument +therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be +essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it +that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one +likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the +dusting, the dishwashing, the clothes washing and ironing, the work that +is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be +begun. To say nothing of the care of the children! + +I do not class as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a +butler, and a chauffeur,--the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager +for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or +nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid +with whom she wrestles to do her share,--who relieves her somewhat but +not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, +only one woman in ten has any help at all! + +It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife +may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large +extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the +science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of +child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home +(capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, +but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage +collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and +civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable. + +"Fine words butter no parsnips." There are some rare souls who lend to +the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person +frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes +housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique +it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, +ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods. + +All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of +the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one to quarrel +with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel +hides nuts,--on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, +aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family +feeling demand it. + +This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the +woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home +and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the +main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads +almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are +essentials, in the housework,--monotony, daydreaming, and introspection. + +Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a +paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst +punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need +the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies +the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the +presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of +interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on itself is +pleasurable only in rare snatches, for short periods of time or for rare +and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes +uneasy when confronted by itself. + +The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, +is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom +or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It +is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and +fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exotic +in his vain search for what is logically impossible,--lasting novelty. +Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of +interest and concentrated purpose as well. + +People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this +is often a constitutional matter as well as a matter of education. What +is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same +value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge +interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, +taught to expect certain things, may find no need of other newer +things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need +a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it. + +The most important stimuli are other _persons_, capable of setting into +action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham +Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas",--ideas called into +being by words, moods, and deeds of others. + +It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. +"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It +is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to +talk _at_; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the +flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds +are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of +which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly +disastrous to others. + +If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection +may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of +marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of +understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children +that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her +thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements +of her life. + +But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams +pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back +to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The +daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A +struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep +in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest +disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and +weariness of life often results. + +One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little +group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit +sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a +person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, +and all are bright, energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the +monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, +the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the +unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,--the hearth. But for the +housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her +husband does. + +Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the +woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is +the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of +women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more +strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework +a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman +depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and +the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing +number of women to settle down to home-keeping. + +The housewife is _par excellence_ a sedentary creature. She goes to work +when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, +very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many +women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next +to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as +hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery. + +It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are +possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent +conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If +there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, +seem the logical way of resting up. + +Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It +tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. +Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the +exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. +Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, +running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before +civilization made necessary and pleasurable. + +With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. +Frequently the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite +every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a +female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better +still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good +part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent +enough result to find him "logy" on Monday. + +Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely +eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each +course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The +dishes _must_ be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that +peace of mind so necessary for good digestion. + +An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the +family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and +various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of +oilcloth,--then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much +of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous +waste of human energy and happiness. + +An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under +the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her +mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged +beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate +structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the +hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are +not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism +amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated +biped." + +While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also +true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as +a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it +destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the +efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an +autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the +importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon +mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia. + +These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of +sedentary life bear with especial weight upon the woman of little +means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth. +There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, +as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and +deënergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a +sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as +inflicting injury on the personality. + +Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. "It's hell to be poor" is +the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical +injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still +more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the +physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery +and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of +childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without +conveniences and necessities. + +That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens +is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would +be a wreck morally, physically, and mentally if he coped with his +wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get +down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and +cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs +of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as +non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little +animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in +the home would disappear. + +Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only +in spots coöperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I +think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which +they enjoy in their clubs. + +This digression aside, there are debilitating factors in the housewife's +lot which need some amplification. We have referred to the insufficient +time for convalescence from childbirth. There are _sequelæ_ of +childbirth, such as varicose veins, flat feet, back strain, that render +the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest +enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to +rest, and with recourse either to her overbusy family doctor or to the +overburdened, careless, out-patient department of some hospital, drags +along with her troubles year in and year out, becomes old before her +time, and loses through constant pain and distress the freshness of +life. + +It is impossible to separate the psychical factors from the physical, +largely because there is no separation. One of the aims of a woman's +life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest +days this is held out to her as a way to praise, flattery, and power. It +becomes a cardinal purpose, a goal, even an ideal. + +Unlike the purposes of men this goal is attained early, if at all, and +then Nature or Life strip it away. The well-to-do woman or the +exceptional poor woman may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial +beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have +usually given up the struggle. For the poor woman the fading comes +early,--household work, bearing children, sedentary life, worry, and a +non-appreciative husband bringing about the fatal change. + +I doubt if men see their youth slipping away with the anguish of women. +To men, maturity means success, greater proficiency, more +achievement,--means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main +purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical hold on +their mate, loss of the longed for and delightful admiration of others; +it means substantially the frustration of purpose. + +And I have noticed that the very worst cases of neurosis of the +housewife come in the early thirties, in women previously beautiful or +extraordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine +wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something +of the anguish that the general watches the enemy cutting off his lines +of communication or a statesman marks the rise of an implacable rival. + +Popular literature, popular art, and popular drama, including in this by +a vigorous stretching of the idea the movie, are in a conspiracy against +reality. This is of course because of the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." +While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in +so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what +really happens is that the disagreeable phases of life, not being +faced, persist. To have a blind side for the disagreeable does not rule +it out of existence; in fact, it thus gains in effect. + +To say that housekeeping is looked upon essentially as menial, to say +that it is monotonous, that it is sedentary, and has the ill effects +that arise from these characteristics, is not to deny that it has +agreeable phases. It has an agreeable side in its privacy, its +individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. +That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and +scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt +on these. The agreeable phases of the housewife's work do not cause her +neurosis; it is the disagreeable in her life that do. Or rather it is +what any individual housewife finds disagreeable that is of importance, +and it is my task to show what these things are, how they work, and +finally what to do about it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE + + +A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot +will be of value. + +We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three +groups,--the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two +men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or +disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are +people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another +man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what +one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not +cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. +And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent. + +1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to +cause fear. This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal +reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as +the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. +Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out +of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not +experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in +sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor +religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality. + +As a matter of fact fear is _a_ (I almost said _the_) great motive force +of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear +of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of +disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is +the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of +thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life +insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our +fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity +with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him! + +2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works +hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by +sentimentalists,--anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by +obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze +forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, +or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with +thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may +range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation +against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. +Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or +other it would never be fulfilled. + +3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different +times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or +thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is +paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deënergization. + +Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be +met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive +action, or it may be met with a deënergization, confusion, paralysis, +hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high +constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and +the peculiar agony of doubt. + +This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For +the situation is never clear-cut for decision--there is the ideal +implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to +live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, +weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This +conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can +neither accept nor reject the situation. + +This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of +view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, +some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind +and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon +some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of +his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing +of time. This passing of time can be received equably by the one +conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and +purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt. + +Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases +which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are +reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in +mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where +they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle +is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of +impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a +neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that +a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring +about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, +hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt. + +With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us +turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may +cause her neurosis. + +The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the +biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been +recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of +human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the +mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the +maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love +and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their +natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While +the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for +all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source +of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children. + +Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the +maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the +interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle +between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in +the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. +All the world honors the mother, but few children return in anything +like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother. + +Is the maternal instinct waning in intensity in this period of +feminization? There have always been some bad, careless, selfish +mothers; has their number increased? Probably not, yet the maternal +instinct now has competition in the heart of the modern woman. The +desire to participate in the world's activity, the desire to learn, to +acquire culture, engenders a restless impatience with the closed-in life +of the mother-housewife. This interferes with single-minded motherhood, +brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of +course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of +the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of +many. + +The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her +children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been +touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as +a group. + +We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman +has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her ancestress. If +this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are +often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in +their memories) there are several explanations. + +First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first +child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and +that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing +difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body, +loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for +childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular +organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows +older. + +Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of +the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic +nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important +factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are +part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion +plays a rôle of importance in childbearing. The modern woman _fears_ +childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater +knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life. + +Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a +need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more +difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and +yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often +seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to +nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it +cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened +sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's +supply. + +The feeling of great responsibility for her child's welfare that the +modern woman has acquired, as a result of popular education in these +matters, undoubtedly saves infants' lives and is therefore worth the +price. A secondary result of importance, and one not good, is the added +liability to fatigue and breakdown that the mother acquires. This factor +we meet again in the next phase of our subject, the education and +training of children. + +Though the number of children has conspicuously decreased, the care and +attention given them has increased in inverse proportion. The woman with +six children or more turned over the younger children to the older ones, +so that her burden, though heavy, was much less than it may seem. +Further, though she loved and cared for them, she knew far less of +hygiene than her descendant; she did not try to bring them up in a +germless way; and her household activities kept her too busy to allow +her to notice each running nose, or each "festering sore." Not having +nearly so much knowledge of disease, she had much less fear and was +spared this type of deënergization. Her daughter views with alarm each +cough and sneeze, has sinister forebodings with each rash; pays an +enormous attention to the children's food, and through an increasing +attention to detail in her child's life and actions has a greater +liability to break under the greater responsibility and +conscientiousness. + +It must be remembered that the feeling of responsibility and +apprehensive attention is not merely "mental." It means fatigue, more +disturbance of appetite, and less restful sleep. These are things of +great importance in causing nervousness; in fact, they constitute a +large part of it. + +Perhaps another generation will find that hygiene can be taught without +producing fussiness and fear. Certainly popular education has its value, +but it has a morbid side that now needs attention. This morbid side is +not only bad for the mother but is unqualifiedly bad for the child. + +For the child of to-day, the center of the family stage in his +attention, is often either spoiled or made neurasthenic by his +treatment. Either he is frankly indulged, or else an over-critical +attitude is taken toward him. "Bad habits must not be formed" is the +actuating motive of the overconscientious parents, for they do not seem +to know that the "trial and error" method is the natural way of +learning. Children take up one habit after another for the sake of +experience and discard them by themselves. For a child to lie, to steal, +to fight, to be selfish, to be self-willed is not at all unnatural; for +him to have bad table manners and to forget admonition in general and +against these manners in particular is his birthright, so to speak. + +Yet many a mother of to-day torments her child into a bad introspection +and self-consciousness, herself into neurasthenia, and her husband into +seething rebellion, because of her desire for perfection, because of her +fear that a "bad act" may form into a habit and thence into a vicious +character. + +Especially is this true of the overæsthetic, overconscientious types +described in Chapter III. I have seen women who made the dinner table +less a place to eat than a place where a child was pilloried for his +manners,--pilloried into sullen, appetiteless state. + +So, too, an unfortunate publicity given to child prodigies brought with +it for a short time an epidemic of forced intellectual feeding of +children, that produced only a precocious neurasthenia as its great +result. Similarly the Montessori method of child training which made +every woman into a kindergarten teacher did a hundred times more harm +than good, despite the merits of the system. That a child needs to +experiment with life himself means that it will be a long time before +the average mother will know how to help him. + +A factor that tends to perplex the mother and hurts the training of the +child is her doubt as how "to discipline." Shall it be the old-fashioned +corporal punishment of a past generation, the appeal to pain and blame? +Shall it be the nowadays emphasized moral suasion, the appeal to +conscience and reason? With all the preachers of new methods filling her +ear she finds that moral suasion fails in her own child's case, and yet +she is afraid of physical punishment. + +This is not the place to study child training in any extensive manner, +yet it needs be said that praise and blame, pleasure and pain, are the +great incentives to conduct. One cannot drive a horse with one rein; +neither can one drive a child into social ways, social conformity by one +emotion or feeling. Corporal punishment is a necessity, sparingly used +but vigorously used when indicated. Of course praise is needed and so is +reward. + +What is here to be emphasized is that a sense of great responsibility +and an over-critical attitude toward the children is a factor of +importance in the nervous state of the modern housewife. Increasing +knowledge and increasing demand have brought with them bad as well as +good results. Here as elsewhere a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, +but a more serious difficulty is this,--though fads in training arise +that are loudly proclaimed as the only way, there is as yet no real +science of character or of character growth. + +The tragedy of illness is acute everywhere, and the sick child is in +every household. In many cases I have traced the source of the +housewife's neurosis to the care and worry furnished by one child. There +are truly delicate children who "catch everything", who start off by +being difficult to nurse, and who pass from one infection to another +until the worried mother suspects disease with every change in the +child's color. A sick child is often a changed child, changed in all the +fundamental emotions,--cranky, capricious, unaffectionate, difficult to +care for. A sick child means, except where servants and nurses can be +commanded, disturbed sleep, extra work, confinement to the house, heavy +expense, and a heightened tension that has as its aftermath, in many +cases, collapse. The savor of life seems to go, each day is a throbbing +suspense. + +With recovery, if the woman can rest, in the majority of cases no +marked degree of deënergization follows. But in too many cases rest is +not possible, though it is urgently needed. The mother needs the care of +convalescence more than does the child. + +There is an extraordinary lack of provision for the tired housewife. +True there are sanataria galore, with beautiful names, in pretty places, +well equipped with nurses and doctors to care for their patients. But +these are prohibitive in price, and at the present writing the cheapest +place is about forty dollars per week. This rate puts them out of the +reach of the great majority who need them. + +Moreover, where there are small children and where there is no trusty +servant or some kindly relative or friend it seems impossible for the +housewife to leave the home. Her husband must work daily for their bread +and unless they are willing to turn to the charitable organizations, it +is necessary for the housewife to carry on, despite her fatigue. So at +the best she gets an hour or two extra rest a day, takes a "little +tonic" from the family doctor and gets along with her pains, her aches, +and moods as best she can. + +But the sick do not always recover. Fortunately, the average human +being grieves a while over death, but the life struggle soon absorbs +him, and the bereavement itself becomes a memory. But now and then one +meets mothers whose griefs and deprivations seem without end. No +religion, no philosophy can bring them back into continuity with their +lives. They go about in a sorrowful dream, hugging their affliction, +resenting any effort to comfort or console; without interest in the +daily task or in those whom they should love. They offer the severest +problem in readjustment, in reënergization, for they actively resent +being helped. Sometimes one believes their grief is an effort to atone +for neglect real or fancied, a self-punishment which is not remitted +until full atonement has been made. + +Aside from the physical difficulties in the bearing and rearing of +children, and in addition to the ordinary mental difficulties, such as +judging what discipline to use, there are especial problems of some +importance. Men vary in character from the saint to the villain, in +ability from the genius to the idiot. The children they once were vary +as much. There are children who go through the worst of homes, the +worst of environments, the worst of trainings,--and come out pure gold, +with characters all the better for the struggle. There are others whom +no amount of love, discipline, training, and benefits help; they are +despicable from the ordinary viewpoint from the first of life to the +last. Some children, adversely situated as to poverty and health, become +geniuses, and their reverse is in the poor child whom heredity, early +disease, or some freak of nature dooms to feeble-mindedness. + +The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, +and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be +overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her +maternal love. + +It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who +evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the +housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love +injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a +nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children. + +The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, destructive, and quarrelsome, +or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually +runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time +goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between +hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc +with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife +neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with +mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results. + +Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the +child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and +the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous +illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the +teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time +the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that +"the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he +should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the +pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and +feeble-mindedness is recognized. + +There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust +themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all +the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their +normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I +am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or +incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with +the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of +fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly +reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental +hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes +with the legitimate work. + +There is no offhand solution for the case of the incorrigible boy or +girl. Of course the largest number sooner or later reform, sometimes +overnight, and in a way to remind one of the religious conversions that +James speaks of in his "Varieties of Religious Experiences." So long as +a child has a social streak in his make-up, so long as he at least is +responsive to the praise and blame of others and understands that he +does wrong, so long may one hope for him. But the child to whom the +opinion of others seems of no value, who follows his own egoism without +check or control by the accepted standard of conduct, by the moral law, +by the praise and blame of those near to him, is almost hopeless. Some +day intelligence may keep him out of trouble, but by itself it cannot +change his nature. + +It is not sufficiently realized that while there has been a rise of +feminism there has also been a great change in the status of children, a +change that makes their care far more difficult than in the past. They +have risen from subordinate figures in the household, schooled in +absolute obedience, "to be seen and not heard," to the central figures +in the household. One of the strangest of revolutions has taken place in +America, taken place in almost every household, and without the notice +of historians or sociologists. That is because these professional +students of humanity have their attention focused on little groups of +figures called the leaders, and not nearly enough on that mass which +gives the leaders their direction and power. + +The age of the child! His development parallels that of women, in that +an individualization has taken place. In the past education and training +took notice of the child-group, not of the individual child. But +child-culture has taken on new aspects, punishment has been largely +superseded, individual study and treatment are the thing. Personality is +the aim of education, especial aptitudes are recognized in the various +types of schools that have arisen: commercial, industrial, classical; +yes, and even schools for the feeble-minded. + +All this is admirable, and in another century will bring remarkable +results. Even to-day some good has come, but this is largely vitiated by +other influences. + +Aside from the fact that the attention paid the child often increases +his self-importance and makes his wishes more capricious, there are +factors that tend to rob him of his naïveté. + +These factors are the movies, the newspapers, and the spread of +luxurious habits amongst children. + +The movies are marvelous agents for the spread of information and +misinformation. Because of the natural settings they give to the most +absurd and unnatural stories, their essential falsity and unreality is +often made the more pernicious. Their possibilities for good are +enormous, their actual performance is conspicuously to lower the public +taste, to create a habit which discourages earnest reading or +intelligent entertainment. For children they act as a stimulant of an +unwholesome kind, acquainting them with realistic crime, vice, and +vulgarity, giving them a distaste for childlike enjoyment. One sees +nowadays altogether too often the satiated child who seeks excitement, +the cynical, overwise child filled with the lore of the movies. + +In similar fashion the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an +extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the +funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor +is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and +thoroughly enjoyable to those whom it cannot harm. + +If the historians of, say, 4500 A.D. were by chance to get hold of a few +copies of our newspapers of 1920 they might legitimately conclude that +the denizen of this remote period expressed surprise by falling backward +out of his shoes, expressed disagreement by striking the other person +over the head with a brick or a club; that women were always taller than +their mates and usually "beat them up"; that all husbands, especially if +elderly, chased after every young and pretty girl. They might conclude +that the language of the mass of the people was of such remarkable types +as this: "You tell them Casket, I'm Coffin", or "the Storm and Strife is +coming; beat it!" + +No one I think enjoys the comic page more than the present writer,--yet +it spreads a demoralizing virus amongst children. Of what use is it to +teach children good English when the newspaper deliberately teaches them +the cheapest slang? Of what use is it to teach them manners and +kindliness when the newspaper constantly spreads boorishness and "rough +house" conduct? Of what use is it to raise taste when this is injured at +the very outset of life by giving bad taste a fascinating attraction? + +Throughout the community there is a stir and excitement that is +reflecting on the children. There are so many desirable luxuries in the +world now, so many revealed by movie and symbolized by the automobile, +the cabaret, the increasing vulgarity of the theater (the disappearance +of the drama and the omnipresent girl and music show), a restless search +for pleasure throughout the community even before the War, have not +missed the child. + +All these things make the lot of the housewife harder in so far as the +training of her children is concerned. She is dealing with a more alert, +more sophisticated, more sensuous child,--and one who knows his place +and power. The press and the theater both have knowledge of this and a +recent witty play dealt with the sins of the children, paraphrasing of +course the classic of a bygone day, "Sins of the Fathers." And a wise +old gentleman said to his grandson recently, when the lad complained +about his mother, "Of course you are right. Every son has a right to be +obeyed by his mother." + +I am by no means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but +nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we +shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the +value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a rôle in the world of +great importance,--but the spread of education and opportunity to the +mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to +survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the +agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the +woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think +are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and +replaced, but which are yet of importance. + +And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep +from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him +from sophistication. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS + + +In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning +of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save +mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty. +Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of +poverty,--the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven, +and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of +reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha +knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the +desperate struggle to reach riches. + +We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of +poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged +or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,--that +would be nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack +of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth +are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect +traceable in the conditions we are studying. + +Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the +cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of +housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does +more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what +the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing +objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That +is the long and short of it,--the Emancipation Proclamation did not +include them. + +Aside from the physical effects of poverty on the housewife, there are +factors of psychical importance that call for a hearing. After all, what +is poverty in one age is riches in another; what is poverty for one man +is wealth to his neighbor. More than that, what a man considers riches +in anticipation is poverty in realization. Here again we deal with the +mounting of desire. + +The philosophical, contented woman, satisfied with her life even though +it is poor, is exempted from one great factor making for breakdown. +Contentment is the great shield of the nervous system, the great bulwark +against fatigue and obsession. But contentment leads away from +achievement, which springs from discontent, from yearning desire. +Whether civilization in the sense of our achievements is worth the price +paid is a matter upon which the present writer will not presume to pass +judgment. Whether it is or not, Mankind is committed to struggle onward, +regardless of the result to his peace of mind. + +There are two principal psychical injuries with poverty--fear and +worry--and we must pass to their consideration as factors in the +neuroses of some women. + +Worry is chronic fear directed against a life situation, usually +anticipated. Man the foreseeing must worry or he dies,--dies of +starvation, disease, disaster. It is true that worry may be excessive +and directed either against imaginary or inevitable ills; ills that +never come, ills that must come, like old age and death. + +Men in comfortable places cry "Why worry?" meaning of course that the +most of worry is about ills that are never realized. That is true, but +the person living just on the brink of disaster, ruined or made +dependent on charity by unemployment, a long illness, or any failure of +power and strength, cannot be as philosophical as the man fortified by a +nice bank account or dividend-paying investments. These well-to-do +advisers of the poor remind one of the heroes of ancient fables who, +having magic weapons and impenetrable armor, showed no fear in battle. +One wonders how much courage they would have had if armed as their +foemen were. + +For the poor housewife who sees no escape from poverty, whose husband is +either a workman or a struggling business man always on the edge of +failure, life often seems like a wall closing in, a losing battle +without end. + +Especially in the middle-aged, in those approaching fifty, does this +happen. Aside from the condition produced by "change of life", the +so-called involution period, there is a reaction of the "time of life" +that is found very commonly. For old age is no longer far off on the +horizon; it is close at hand, around the corner, and the looking-glass +proclaims its coming. The woman wonders whether her husband will long be +able to keep up,--and then "what will become of us?" + +To be thrown on the benevolence of children is a sad ending to +independent natures, to people of experience. Crudely put, those who +have been dependents are now sustainers; those who have been led now +guide; the inferiors are the superiors. This is not cynicism, for with +the best intentions in the world, if the children are also poor, the +care of the parents is a burden that they cannot help showing, sooner or +later. + +Looking forward to such an ending to the hard work and struggle of a +lifetime is part of the worry of poverty, to be classed with the fear of +sickness and unemployment. + +We may loudly proclaim that one honest man is as good as another, that +character is the measure of worth, that success cannot be measured by +money. These things are true; the difficulty is not to make people +believe it, it is to make people _feel_ it. Deeply ingrained in poverty +is not alone to be deprived of things desired; more important is the +feeling of inferiority that goes with the condition. Only in the +Bohemia of the novelists do the poor feel equal to the rich. + +One of the fundamental strivings of the human being is the enlargement +of the self-feeling, which fundamentally is the wish to be superior, to +have the admiration and homage of others. All daydreaming builds this +air castle; all ambition has this as its goal. No matter how we disguise +it to ourselves and others, the main ends of purpose are power and +place. True, we may wish for power and place so as to help others; we +may wish them as the result of constructive work and achievement, but +the enlargement of self-feeling is the end result of the striving. + +To be poor is to be inferior in feeling and applies equally to men and +women. Man is a competitive-social animal and competes in everything, +from the cleverness and beauty of his children to the excellence of his +taste in hats. Money has the advantage of being the symbol of value, of +being concrete and definite, and of having the inestimable property of +purchasing power. + +Now woman is as competitive as her mate. A housewife vies with her +neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her youth, her +husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,--vies with +her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women +(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry +only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the +greater part of it has this origin. + +Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a +great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from +these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends +unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is +envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from +himself. + +Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be +satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that +is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of +the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous +sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of +her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when +she is outstripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by +her relatives and intimate friends. + +Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their +children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a +good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all +their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the +bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children +respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of +their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have +drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then +the breakdown is tragic. + +A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his +children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but +he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,--that the +average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them +for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on +their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother +usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares +this desire except in a mild way. + +It may be that there was a time when classes were more fixed, that +poverty had less of humiliation and blocked desire than it has at +present. That society of all grades is restless with the desire for +luxury seems without doubt. How profoundly the psychology of the masses +is being altered by education, by the newspaper, the magazine, the +movie, the automobile, the fashion changes that make a dress obsolete in +a season and above all the department store and the alluring +advertisement, no one can hope to even estimate. Modern capitalism reaps +great wealth by developing the luxurious, the spendthrift tastes of the +poor. It would be a peculiar poetic justice that will make that +development into the basis of revolution. + +The women of the poor are perhaps even more restless than the men. In +fact, it is the women that set the pace in these matters. This is +because to woman has fallen the spending of the family funds, a fact of +great importance in bringing about discord in the house. As the shopper +the poor woman now sees the beautiful things that her ancestors knew +nothing of, since there were no department stores in those days. To-day +desires are awakened that cannot be fulfilled; she sees other women +buying what she can only long for, and an active discontent with her lot +appears. + +Unphilosophical this, and severely to be deprecated as unworthy of +woman. This has been done so often and so effectively(?) by divines, +reformers, press, that a mere physician begs leave to remark that it is +a natural sequence of the publicity luxury to-day has. _The most +successful commercial minds of America are in a conspiracy against the +poor Housewife to make her discontented with her lot by increasing her +desires_; they are on the job day and night and invade every corner of +her world; well, they have succeeded. The divines, etc., who thunder +against luxury have no word to say against the department store and the +advertising manager. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND + + +The husband differs from the wife in this fundamental,--that essentially +he is not a house man as she is a house woman. For the man the home is +the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here +also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity. +Man writes songs and books about the home, but the woman lives there. +Perhaps that is why women have not written sentimental verse about it. + +Marriage is variously regarded. "It is a sacrament, a religious +sanction, and not to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very +large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered +into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is +the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly +is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat +this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction +alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics +is an undisputed fact. + +It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has +been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict +between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This +conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life +of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their +attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate. + +For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean +merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in +the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has +become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their +energies. + +Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its +eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil +relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches +that if it is sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, +brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a +source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out +their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with +daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods +and emotions of all of us. + +This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part +of the neurosis of the housewife. + +After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with +whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she +becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss +as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live +apart, have no children and meet occasionally,--for obvious purposes. +Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the +virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties. + +This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and +successful the happiest human experience. Soberly speaking, it is then +the flower of existence, satisfying biologically and humanly, giving +peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy +ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of +youth leave us. Warm, cozy, intense domesticity, where passion is +legitimate and love and friendship eternal; where children play around +the hearth fire; of which death only is the ending! + +This ideal is not realized largely because no ideal is. How often is it +closely approximated? Experience says seldom. That implies no reproach +against marriage, for we are to judge marriage by the rest of life and +not by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which +economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never +absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in +the larger policies and where folly occupies the high places,--why +expect marriage to be more nearly perfect than the life of which it is a +part? To be reasonably comfortable and happy in marriage is all we may +expect. + +What are the difficulties confronting the partners which impede +happiness and especially which bring the neurosis of the housewife? For +after all we can only examine the field for our own purpose. + +We may divide the difficulties as follows from the standpoint of the +neurosis of the housewife: + +1. Those that arise from the sex relationship itself. + +2. Those that arise from conflicts of will, purpose, ideas. + +3. Those that arise from the types of husbands. + +4. Those that arise from the types of wives. (This has already been +considered under the heading Types Predisposed to the Neurosis.) + +Before we go on to the consideration of these various factors we must +repeat what has been emphasized frequently in this book. + +That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the +marriage relationship. If only _one_ will is expected to be dominant in +the household, the man's, then there can arise no conflict. If the form +of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or +expects equality, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat +her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been the case and still is in +some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes +of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an +unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest +disagreement. In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a +woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, +ideas, and ideals have never been developed,--the ancient woman; it is +very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister. + +Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex. +Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than +frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy +has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence +shrouding the wrecks of many a life. + +The sex relationship is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of +Rosalind still holds good. The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for +coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of +possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated +by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no +marriage is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless +of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first +year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for +companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen. Complementary +to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the +woman, arises from the first marital embrace. + +This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance +wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before +marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore +knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has +been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to +deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected +of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and +even those who know are unprepared for reality. + +Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a +paramount "Jus Primis Noctis." True, the majority of men are abashed in +the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,--but others follow in +a repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of +experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman +can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night. + +There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an +elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, +but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the +ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and +expert, is needed by our civilization. + +The sex appetite varies as widely as any other human character. +Generally speaking, it is believed that sexual passion in women is more +episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many +cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life +until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. +Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less +conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his +feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of +boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent passion than to +the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him +devolves not only courtship but the fundamental activity in the sexual +act. A passionless woman may have sexual relation, a passionless man +cannot. + +The disparity in sex desire between a husband and wife may be slight or +great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very +nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity +exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is +suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a +subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring +about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue. +Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is +lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked +nature. + +A woman sexually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy +mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good +woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the sex +attachment. Demureness of appearance, refinement of manner, noble +ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is +no reason why strong, well-controlled passion should be considered +anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the sexual field should, +under the social restriction, be regarded as impure. + +Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often +govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to +live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological +reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. +Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one +roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous +counsel to dissipate. + +This purely occidental idea that sexual pleasure is somehow unworthy is +responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the +physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, +though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. +Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the +part of the man to bring about that adjustment. This part of the +adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are +explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of +our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without +gratification brings about nervous instability. + +Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, +is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first +ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single +chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room +is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find +comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner +sleeps beside them. Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, +there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does +not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons. + +A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are +politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly +changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that +necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not concerned here +with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman +undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be +voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity +and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living +as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her +husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to +adjust themselves to this situation. + +The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a +woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her +monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk +almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of +the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely +allayed it. + +Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every +"solution" breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness. +Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction. +Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and +some are left excited and unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, +neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in +many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the +neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of +neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The +channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old. And this new +development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to +deënergize the organism. + +At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as +women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually +called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively +belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, +collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of +men,--smoking, drinking,--are building up a club life, live in bachelor +apartments, call each other by their last names, etc. + +Whether with this goes a greater sexual license or not it is difficult +to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a +decrease in female chastity,--that the entrance of women in industrial +life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater +freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have +brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's. + +The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked +by a hyper-sexuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more +common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The +dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for sex +allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that +only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of +the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the +day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music +show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost +disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the +risqué; with titles that are sometimes much more clever than their +contents. + +Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is +doubtful if they ever affected so large a number of people. The +excitement of the daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this +brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. +She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as +well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more +dissatisfied and therefore more nervous. + +Altogether the sexual relationship of modern marriage needs a candid +examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in sexual +affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure +of the sex-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. +Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from +the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is +being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the +fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in +the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is +more disastrous if possible than prudery. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS + + +The problems of life are not all sexual, and in fact even in the +relations of men and women there are more important factors. After all, +as Spencer pointed out in a marvelous chapter, love itself is a +composite of many things, some, of the earth, earthy, and some of the +finest stuff our human life holds. The aspirations, the ideals, the +yearnings of the girl attach themselves to some man as their +fulfillment; the chivalrous feelings, the desire to protect and cherish, +the passion for beauty of the man lead to some girl as their goal. There +are few for whom the glow and ardor of their young love bring no +refinement of their passion; there are few who have not felt a pulsating +unity with all that love and live, at least for some ecstatic moments. +Something of what James has so beautifully designated as the "aura of +infinity that hangs over a young girl" also lingers over the love of men +and women. + +All the cynics and epigram makers in the world agree that love ends with +marriage, and this not only in modern times but even back into those +days of the French Court of Love, when Margaret de Valois decided that +the lover had more claims than the husband. Romance dies with marriage +is the plaint of poet and novelists; the charm of woman disappears with +her mystery, with possession. And the typical humorist speaks of the +curl papers and kimono of the wife, the snores and unshaven beard of the +husband. "Familiarity is the death of passion" is the theme of countless +writers who bemoan its passing in the matrimonial state. + +How much harm the romantic tales have done to marriage and the +sober-satisfying everyday life, no one can estimate, no one can +overestimate. Romanticism, which extols sex as the prime and only thing +of life, prudery which closes its eyes to it and makes sour faces, need +special places in Dante's Inferno. Neither has dealt with +reality,--reality, which is satisfying and pleasant unless examined +with the prejudices instilled by the hypersexual romance writer and the +perverted sexuality of the prude. + +Nevertheless that two people brought up entirely differently, and having +different attitudes towards love and life, should come into sharp +conflict is to be expected. Further, that disillusionment follows after +the excitement and heightened expectation of courtship is inevitable. +Marriage at the best includes a settlement to routine; it carries with +it an adjustment to reality, a getting down to earth that is painful and +disappointing to minds fed to expect thrill and passion with each +moment. + +The idealization of the mate--the man or woman--gives way to a gradually +increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, +earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save +the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more +solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality +what it loses in intensity. + +Unfortunately, in many cases to a great extent and in all to some +extent, there arises dissension natural wherever two human beings meet +on anything like equal terms. + +In times past (and in many countries at the present time), the +patriarchal household prevailed. The Head of the House was the father, a +sovereign either stern or indulgent according to his nature. Perhaps his +wife ruled him through his love for her, as women have ruled from the +beginning of things, but if she did it was not by right but by +privilege. + +America has changed all that, so say all native and foreign observers. +Here the woman rules; here she drags her husband after her like a tail +to a kite; here she is mistress and he obeys, though nominally still +head of the household. All the humorists emphasize this, and the +novelist depicts it as the common situation. The husband is represented +as yoked to the wheel of his wife's whims, tyrannized over by the one he +works for. + +This is surely a gross exaggeration, though it furnishes excellent +material for satire. The man still makes the main conditions of life for +both; his name is taken, his work sustains the household, his purse +supplies the means of existence, his industrial business situation +determines the residence, his social standing is theirs. This does not +prevent him from being "henpecked" in many cases, but on the whole it +assures his superior status. + +Nevertheless it is true that the American woman of whatever origin has a +will of her own as no other woman has. Since the expression of will is +one of the chief sources of human pleasures, one of the chief, most +persistent activities, man and wife enter into a contest for supremacy +in the household. It may be settled quietly and without even recognizing +its existence, on the common plan that the woman shall have charge of +the home and the man of his business; it may rage with violence over the +fundamental as well as the trivial things of home. After all, it is not +the importance of a thing that determines the size of the row it may +raise; men have killed each other over a nickel because defeat over even +this trifle was intolerable. + +What are the chief sources of conflict? For to name them all would be +simply to name every possible source of difference of opinion that +exists. Let us take as an example Extravagance. + +This is a new development. In the former days the bulk of purchases was +made by the husband, in whose hands the purse strings were tightly +clutched. With the growth of the cities and industry, the development of +the department store and rise of shopping as an institution, the man +gave place to his wife largely because industry would not let him off +during the daytime. So the housewife disbursed most of the funds of her +home,--and there arose one of the fiercest and most persistent of +domestic conflicts. + +Despite the fact that most American husbands turn over their purses to +their wives, they still regard the money as their own. The desire to +"get ahead" is an insistent one, returning with redoubled force after +each expenditure. He finds his entire income gone each week or month, or +finds less left than he expected. "Where does it all go?" is his cry; +"Must we spend as much as we do?" "How do people get along who get less +than we do?" + +To this his wife has the answer, "We must have _this_, and we _must_ +have that. We must live as our neighbors do." + +Here is the keynote to the situation. There has been a democratization +of society of this nature; there has been a spread throughout the +community of aristocratic tastes. The woman of even the poor and the +middle classes must have her spring and autumn suits, her dresses for +summer, her summer and winter hats. Her husband too must change his +clothes with each shift of the season. For this the enterprise of the +clothing trade, the splendid display of the department stores are +responsible, awakening desire and dissatisfaction. + +While the man accuses the woman of extravagance, he is as guilty as she. +He too spends money freely,--on his cigars and cigarettes, on every +edition of the newspapers, on the shine which he might easily apply +himself, on a thousand and one nickels that become a muckle. The +American is lavish, hates to stint, detests being a "piker", says, "Oh, +what's the difference; it will all be the same in a hundred years," but +kicks himself mentally afterwards. + +Meanwhile he quarrels with his wife, who really is extravagant. In this +battle the man wins, even if he loses, for he rarely broods over the +defeat. But it brings about a sense of tension in his wife; it brings +about a disunion in her heart, because she wants to please her husband, +and at the same time she wants to "keep up" with her neighbors and +friends. And who sets the pace for her, for all of her group; who +establishes the standard of expenditure? Not the thrifty, saving woman, +not the one who mends her clothes and makes her own hats, but the +extravagant woman, the rich woman perhaps of recently acquired wealth +who cares little for a dollar. Against her better judgment the woman of +the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely +dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills. + +This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do,--it +predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes +the relations with her husband more difficult. It takes away pleasure +and leaves discontent and doubt,--the mother-stuff of nervousness. + +While most American husbands are generous, there are enough stingy ones +to set off their neighbors. To these men the goal of life is the +accumulation of money, as indeed it is with the majority. But to them +that goal is to be reached by saving every penny, by denying themselves +and theirs all expenditures beyond the necessities. + +The woman who marries such a man is humiliated to the quick by his +attitude. That a man values a dollar more than he does her wish is an +insult to the sensitive woman. There ensues either a never-ending battle +with estrangement, or else a beaten woman (for the stingy are stubborn) +accepts her lot with a broken spirit, sad and deënergized. Or perhaps, +it should be added, a third result may come about; the woman accepts the +man's ideal of life and joins with him in their scrimping campaign. With +this agreement life goes on happily enough. + +It is not of course meant that all or a great majority of American women +have difficulties with their husbands over money. But I have in mind +several patients who would be happy if this never-ending problem were +settled. The struggle "gets on the nerves" of the partners; they say +things they regret and act with an impatience that has its root in +fatigue. + +This difficulty over money and its spending gets worse in the late +thirties and early forties, for it is then the man realizes with a +startled spirit that he is getting into middle age, that sickness and +death are taking their toll of his friends, and that he has not got on. +The sense of failure irritates him, depresses him. He finds that he and +his wife look at the money situation from a different angle. + +"If you loved me," says she, "you would see things a little more my +way." + +"If you loved me," says he, "you would not act to worry me so." + +Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of +life. Capital and Labor are at each other's throats; men cry "profiteer" +at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take +advantage of the world crisis. The air is filled with the whispers that +a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile +manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display +the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns. That the marital happiness of +the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the +discussions on the subject. Yet this phase of the high cost of living is +perhaps its most important result. + +The housewife's money difficulties are not confined to the question of +expenditure. For there is a factor not consciously put forward but +evident upon a little probing. + +If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows +some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she +has a woman friend whose husband has become successful. A subtle sort of +regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle +disrespect for her husband because of his failure. The husband becomes +aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest +place, his pride. One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in +a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and +contempt until exhausted. For she came of a successful family, she had +married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an +entire failure financially. Measuring men by their success, she found +her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge +her error. Out of this division in feelings came a complete +deënergization. + +Whether or not such a housewife deserves any sympathy in her trouble, +it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her. + +While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which +nervousness arises, there are others of importance. + +Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of +the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman--_e.g._ to +a boy's pranks--causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace +of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too +fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he +is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,--tough, +mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father +who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel +results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow. It is when the woman +fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with +vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way +repeatedly described. + +Next perhaps to actual disloyalty women feel most the cessation of the +attentions, courtesies, and remembrances of their unmarried life. Women +expect this to happen and usually they forgive it in the man who devotes +himself to his family, struggles for a livelihood or better, and helps +in the care of the children. It is the hyperæsthetic type of housewife +spoken of previously who weighs against her husband's devotion a minor +dereliction in courtesy. + +For it is too common in women to let a momentary neglect or +absent-minded discourtesy outweigh a lifetime of devotion. This is part +of a feminine devotion to manner and form, of which men are, +comparatively speaking, innocent. + +Aside from this phase of woman's character there are men who either +rapidly or gradually resume after marriage their bachelor freedom, to +the neglect of their wives. Though for some time after marriage they +give up their "freedom" to play consort and escort, sooner or later they +sink back into finding their recreation with their male friends,--at +club, lodge, saloon, pool room, etc. When night comes they are restless. +At first one excuse or another takes them out, later they break boldly +from the domestic ties and only occasionally and under protest do they +stay at home or escort the housewife to church, visiting, or the +theater. + +(It needs be said at this point that in America married life often +proceeds too far in the domestication of the man, in his complete +separation from male companionship, in a never-broken companionship +between man and wife. This is distinctly unhealthy for the man, for he +requires in his recreation the sense of freedom from restraint that he +can have only in masculine company; where the difficult attitude of +chivalry can be discarded for an equality and a frankness impossible +even with his wife.) + +The housewife, thus left alone, though wounded, may adjust herself. She +may build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her +neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become +unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote +herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene +life against odds. + +But often she does none of these things. Hurt in her pride, she +struggles to gain back her husband. Tears and reproaches fail, sickness +sometimes succeeds. If she is childless she becomes obsessed with the +belief that a child would hold her husband home. If she is failing in +the freshness of her beauty she makes a pathetic effort to hold her +indifferent mate through cosmetics and beauty specialists. Without the +courage and character to make or break the situation she falls into a +feeling of inferiority from which originates her headaches, her feelings +of unreality, her loss of enthusiasm, her depressed mind and body. + +This type of woman, dependent upon the love and affection of her husband +for her health and strength, mental and physical, is the type that +woman's education and training, at least in the past, have tended to +make. She has not been taught, she has not the power, to stand in life +alone; she is the clinging vine to the man's oak, she is the traditional +woman. She is happy and well with the right man, but Heaven help her if +the marriage ceremony links her with a philanderer! For she has been +taught to accept as true and right that mischievous couplet: + + Love is of man's life a thing apart, + 'Tis woman's whole existence. + +We need for our womanhood a braver standpoint than that, one more +firmly based, less apt to bring failure and disaster. For neither man +nor woman should love be the whole existence. It should be a fundamental +purpose interwoven with other purposes. + +Fortunately one source of domestic difficulty will soon pass from +America,--alcoholism. Politicians and theorizers may speak of the blow +to individual liberty and satirically prophesy that soon coffee and +tobacco will be legislated out also. They need to read Gilbert +Chesterton and learn that though "a tree grows upward it stops growing +and never reaches the sky." To see, as I do, the almost complete absence +of delirium tremens from the emergency and city hospitals, where once +every Sunday morning found a dozen or two of raving men; to witness the +disappearance of alcoholic insanity from our asylums, where once it +constituted fifteen per cent of the male admissions; to see cruelty to +children drop to one tenth of its former incidence; to know that former +drunkards are steadily at work to the joy of their wives and the good of +their own souls,--this is to make one bitterly impatient with the +chatter about the "joy and pleasure of life gone," etc. etc., that has +become the stock-in-trade of the stage and the press. Though alcoholism +did not cause all poverty, it stupefied men's minds so that they +permitted much preventable poverty; though it did not cause all +immorality, a few drinks often sent a good man to the brothel; and what +is more, many of the brothel inmates endured their life largely because +of the stupefying use of alcohol. + +No one knows the evil of alcohol more than the poor housewife. Of course +the woman brought up to believe that drunkenness was to be expected in a +man--and who often drank with him--was a victim without severe mental +anguish, though her whole life was ruined by drink. But for the refined +woman who married a clean, clever young fellow only to have him come +home some day reeking of liquor,--silly, obscene, helpless,--_her_ +contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life. +She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a +chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted. + +A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a +century that saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the +X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could +make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the +habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity. + +After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of +the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness +to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion +against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,--these are the basic +elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are +unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly +to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two +five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many +husbands and wives. + +Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not +leadership), overready temper and overready tears,--these cause more +domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The +education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these +defects, which are not necessarily feminine, from her character. In the +domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman +has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet +demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses. + +Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her +mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds +her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy +of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which +we shall deal with later. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND + + +Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of +human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to +Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire +to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth +(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a +religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human +effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to +gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle +of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial +(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the +statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a +boundary line and which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that +benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate +the ego,--love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire +for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in +many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his +fellows. + +Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and +interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the +group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need +of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly +feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are +essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others. +This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and +young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together. + +There are those who find no difference between the _egoism_ of the will +to power and the _altruism_ of the will to fellowship. They assert that +if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you +have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism of a larger ego. +However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may +separate these two trends in human nature. + +In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between +the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality +is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the +teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by +which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power +is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science, +benevolence, invention, government, money. + +Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness, +cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character. +Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile, +and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him +aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the +life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men +who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will +to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the thwarted will to +fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world +benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of +altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally +lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will +for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn +philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an +egotist. + +How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there +are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends. + +There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man +disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right" +is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering +voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes; +they follow the primitive line of direct attack. + +There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the +disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent +to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is +nine points of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is _not_ +the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what +_seems_ valuable for what _is_ valuable and then fall back on the adage, +"A fair exchange is no robbery." + +Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into +friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours. +Compromise is the keynote, coöperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to +fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?" + +Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness, +through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the +discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an +implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial; +tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an +equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched +social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and +desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief +and sorrow by which to plague him into submission, into yielding. +Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop +symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened +punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel +parents is a favorite one. + +This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of +weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long +been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of +woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought +about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain +similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in +these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a +substitute for tears in the marital conflict. + +Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it +causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them! + +Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where +the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow +long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman +who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or +becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her +will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but +helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place +almost at once. + +In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism +can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the +attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not +take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the +condition to turn soon for the better. + +I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the +medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every +experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the +satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point +is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the +disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when--he gets her +the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc. +etc. + +Discreditable to women? Discreditable to those women who use it? Men +would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills +that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the +strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our +present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will +abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever +women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort +to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where +the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type +uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain +her point. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES + + +The cases that follow represent mainly the severe types of nervousness +in the housewife. To every case that comes to the neurologist there are +a hundred that explain their symptoms as "stomach trouble", "backache", +etc., who remain well enough to carry on, and who think their pains and +aches inevitably wrapped with the lot of woman. + +It will be seen, upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic +attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a +series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that +by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it +would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the +majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a +number cannot be essentially benefited. Some of them have temperaments +utterly incompatible with matrimony, others have husbands of the +incorrigible type, others have life situations to change which would +make it necessary to change society. Therefore in these cases all a +doctor can do is to _relieve symptoms_, relieve some of the distress and +rest content with that. + +I am essentially neither pessimist nor optimist in the presentation of +these cases, nor do I seek to present the man or woman's case with +prejudice. In life a realistic attitude is the best, for if we were to +remove much of the sentimental self-deception at present so prevalent, +huge reforms would occur almost overnight. Sentimentality decorates and +disguises all kinds of horridness and makes us feel kindly toward evil. +Strip it away, and we would immediately break down the evil. + +There is always this danger in presenting "cases" to a lay public, that +symptoms are suggested to a great many people. How deeply suggestible +the mass of people can be is only appreciated when one sees the result +of public health lectures and books. Many persons tend to develop all +the symptoms they hear of, from pains and aches to mental failure. Even +in the medical schools this is so, and every medical teacher is +consulted each year by students who feel sure they have the diseases he +has described. + +So in presenting the following cases symptoms will be largely omitted. +What will be presented is history and to a certain extent treatment. +That part of treatment which is strictly medical can only be indicated. + +It may be said that in obtaining the intimate history of a woman a +difficulty is met with in the natural reluctance to telling what often +seems to the patient painful and unnecessary details. To some people it +seems inconceivable that fears, pains and aches, sleeplessness, etc., +can arise out of difficulties like the monotony of housework, +temperament, or troubles with the husband. Furthermore, though some +women understand well enough the source of their conflicts, they are +ashamed to tell and rest mainly on the surface of their symptoms. To +obtain the truth it is necessary to see the patient over and over again, +to get somewhat closer to her. This is especially easy to do after the +physician has to a certain extent relieved the patient. In other words, +except in the cases where the woman is quite prepared to tell of her +intimate difficulties, it is best to go slowly from the medical to the +social-psychological point of view. + +Case I. The overworked, under-rested type of housewife. + +Mrs. A.J., thirty years old, is a woman of American birth and ancestry. +Her parents were poor, her father being a mechanic in a factory town of +Massachusetts. She had several brothers and sisters, all of whom reached +maturity and most of whom married. + +Before marriage she was a salesgirl in a department store, worked fairly +hard for rather small pay, but was strong, jolly, liked dancing and +amusements, liked men and had her girl friends. + +At the age of twenty-two she married a mechanic of twenty-four, a good, +sober, steady man, devoted to her and very domestic. Unfortunately he +was not very well for some time following a pneumonia in the third year +of their marriage. They drew upon all their savings and fell seriously +in debt. This meant borrowing and scrimping for several years,--a fact +which had great bearing on the wife's illness later. + +They had three children, born the twelfth month, the third year, and +the fourth year after marriage. After the first child the mother was +very well, nursed the baby successfully, and the little family +flourished. Then came the unfortunate illness of the husband, which +threw him out of work for six months, during which time they lived on an +allowance from his union, his savings, and finally ran into debt. This +greatly grieved the man and depressed the woman, but both bore up well +under it until the birth of the second child, when their circumstances +forced them to move to a poorer apartment. The wife was delivered by a +dispensary physician, who did his duty well but allowed the woman, who +protested she felt well, to get up and care for her husband and baby +much earlier than she should have done. + +The nursing of this baby was more difficult. The mother's breasts did +not seem to be nearly as active as in the previous case. The baby cried +a great deal and needed attention a good part of the night. The husband +was unable to help as he had previously done and the fatigue of the care +of child and man brought a condition where the woman was tired all the +time. Still she bore up well, though when the summer came she greatly +missed the little two weeks' vacation that she and her husband had +yearly taken together from the days of their courtship. + +The husband recovered, but his strength came back very slowly. He went +to work as soon as possible but worked only part time for six months. At +night he came home utterly exhausted and could not help his wife at all. + +During the next year both children were sick, first with scarlet fever +and then with whooping cough. The mother did most of the nursing, though +by this time the father was able to help and did. The necessary expenses +so depleted the family treasury that when the summer came neither could +afford to go away. + +Both noticed that the mother was getting more irritable than was natural +to her. She went out very seldom and her youthful good looks had largely +been replaced by a sharp-featured anxiety. Though she carried on +faithfully she had to rest frequently and at night tossed restlessly, +though greatly fatigued. + +She became pregnant again, much to her dismay and to the great regret +of her husband. At times she thought of abortion, but only in a +desperate way. The last few months of her term were in the very hot +months of the year and she was very uncomfortable. However, she was +delivered safely, got up in a week to help in the care of her other two +children and to get the house into shape again. Her milk was fairly +plentiful, despite her fatigue and "jumpy nerves." Unfortunately at this +time, when they had accumulated a little surplus and she was looking +forward to better clothes for her family and more comforts, the plant at +which her husband was employed suspended operations because of some +"high finance" mix-up. Coming at this time, the news struck terror into +her heart; she broke down, became "hysterical" _i.e._ had an emotional +outburst. This passed away, but now she was sleepless, had no appetite, +complained of headache and great fatigue. + +Though she was assured that the plant would reopen soon (in fact it soon +did), she made little progress. That she was suffering from a +psychoneurosis was evident; what remained was to bring about treatment. + +This was done by enlisting a development of recent days,--the Social +Service agencies. Out of the old-time charity has come a fine successor, +social service; out of the amateurish, self-consciously gracious and +sweet Lady Bountiful has come the social worker. Unfortunately social +service has not yet dropped the name "Charity", perhaps has not been +able to do so, largely because the well-to-do from whom the money must +come like to think of themselves as charitable, rather than as the +beneficiaries of the social system giving to the unfortunates of that +system. + +Let me say one more word about social service and the social worker, +though I feel that a volume of praise would be more fitting. The social +worker has become an indispensable part of the hospital organization, an +investigator to bring in facts, a social adjuster to bring about cure. +For a hospital to be without a social service department is to confess +itself behind the times and inefficient. + +Briefly, this is what was done for this family. + +Their prejudices against social aid were removed by emphasizing that +they were not recipients of charity. The husband was allowed to pay, or +arrange to pay, for a six weeks' stay in the country for the mother and +the new baby. The home for this purpose was found by the agency and was +that of a kindly elderly couple who took the woman into their hearts as +well as over their threshold. The social worker arranged with a nursing +organization to send a worker to the man's house each day to clean up +the home while the children stayed in a nursery. One way or another the +husband and children were made comfortable, and the wife came back from +her stay, made over, eager to get back to her work. + +It is obvious that in such a case as this the physician is largely +diagnostician and director, the actual treatment consisting in getting a +selfish and inert social system to help out one of its victims. That a +sick man should be left to sink or swim, though he has previously been +industrious and a good member of society, is injustice and social +inefficiency. That a woman, under such circumstances, should be left +with the entire burden on her hands is part of the stupidity and +cruelty of society. + +How avert such a thing? For one thing do away with the name "Charity" in +relief work,--and find some system by which industry will adequately +care for its victims. What system will do that? I fear it may be called +socialistic to suggest that some of the fifteen billions spent last year +on luxuries might better be shifted to social amelioration. The record +in automobile production would be more pleasing if it did not mean a +shift from real social wealth to individual luxury. + +Case II. The over-rich, purposeless woman. + +This type is of course the direct opposite of the woman in Case I and +represents the kind of woman usually held up as most commonly afflicted +with "nervousness." "If she really had something to do," say the +critics, "she would not be nervous." + +This is fundamentally true of her, though not true of the majority of +women whom we have discussed. It seems difficult to believe that hard +work and worry may bring the same results as idleness and +dissatisfaction, but it is true that both deënergize the organism, the +body and mind, and so are kindred evils. What's the matter with the +poor is their poverty, while the matter with the rich is their wealth. + +Mrs. A. De L. is of middle-class people whose parents lived beyond their +means and educated their only daughter to do the same. Here is one of +the anomalies of life: bitterly aware of their folly, the extravagant +and struggling deliberately push their children into the same road. Mrs. +De L. learned early that the chief objects of life in general were to +keep up appearances and kill time; that as a means to success a woman +must get a rich husband and keep beautiful. Being an intelligent girl +and pretty she managed to get the rich husband,--and settled down to the +rich housewife's neurosis. + +Her husband was old-fashioned despite his rather new wealth, and they +had two children,--a large modern American family. Though he allowed her +to have servants he insisted that she manage their household, which she +did with rebellion for a short time, and then rather quickly broke away +from it by turning over the household to a housekeeper. This brought +about the silent disapproval of her husband, who let her "have her own +way", as he said, "because it's the fashion nowadays." + +She became a seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of +amusement to the other in an intricately mixed coöperation and rivalry +with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old +Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished +dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, +subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, +dabbled in new religions, became enthusiastic: about social work for a +month or two,--and became a professional at bridge. Summers she rested +by chasing pleasure and flirting with male _habitués_ of fashionable +summer resorts; part of the winter she recuperated at Palm Beach, where +she vied for the leadership of her set with her dearest enemy. + +Her husband financed all her ventures with a disillusioned shrug of his +shoulders. As she entered the thirties she became intensely dissatisfied +with herself and her life, tried to get back to active supervision of +her home but found herself in the way, though her children were greatly +pleased and her husband sceptical. The need of excitement and change +persisted; gradually an intense boredom came over her. Her interest in +life was dulled and she began a mad search for some sensation that would +take away the distressing self-reproach and dissatisfaction. Shortly +after this she lost the power to sleep and had a host of symptoms which +need not be detailed here. + +The medical treatment was first to restore sleep. I may say that this is +a first step of great importance, no matter how the sleeplessness +originates. For even if an idea or a disturbing emotion is its cause, +the sleeplessness may become a habit and needs energetic attention. + +With this done, attention was paid to the social situation, the life +habits. It was pointed out that all the philosophies of life were based +on simple living and work, and that all the wise men from the beginning +of the written word to our own times have shown the futility of seeking +pleasure. It was shown that to be a sensation seeker was to court +boredom and apathy, and that these had deënergized her. + +For interest in the world is the great source of energy and the great +marshaler of energy. From the child bored by lack of playmates, who +brightens up at the sight of a woolly little dog, to the old and +vigorous man who makes the mistake of resigning from work, this function +of interest can be shown. + +She was advised to get a fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that +would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally +she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that +from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in +reasonableness and purpose. + +That she improved greatly and came back to her normal health I know. +Whether she continued to remain well and how far she followed the advice +given I cannot say. From the earliest time to this, necessity has been +the main spur to purpose, and probably the lure of social competition +drew the lady back to her old life. Experience, though the best teacher, +seems to have the same need of repetition that all teaching does. + +Case III. The physically sick woman who displays nervousness. + +Though this is one of the most important of the types of nervous +housewife the subject is essentially medical. We shall therefore not +detail any case, but it is wise to reemphasize some facts. + +There are bodily diseases of which the early and predominant symptoms +are classed as "nervousness." Hyperthyroidism, or Graves' Disease, a +condition in which there is overactivity of the thyroid gland and which +is particularly prevalent among young women, is one of those diseases. +In this condition excitability, irritability, emotional outbursts, +fatigue, restlessness, digestive disorders, vasomotor disorders, appear +before the characteristic symptoms do. + +Neuro-syphilis is another such disease. This is an involvement of the +nervous system by syphilis. One of the tragedies that distresses even +hardened doctors is to find some fine woman who has acquired +neuro-syphilis through her husband, though he himself may remain well. +In the early stages this disease not only has neurasthenic symptoms but +is very responsive to treatment, and thus the early diagnosis is of +great importance. + +What is known as reflex nervousness arises as a result of minor local +conditions, such as astigmatism and other eye conditions, trouble with +the nose and throat and trouble with the organs of generation. The +latter is especially important in any consideration of nervousness in +the housewife, particularly in the woman who has borne children. +Frequently too the existence of hemorrhoids, resulting from +constipation, acts to increase the irritability of a woman who is +perhaps too modest to consult a physician regarding such trouble. Where +such modesty exists (and it is found in the very women one would be apt +to think were the very last to be swayed by it), then a competent woman +physician should be consulted. With good women physicians and surgeons +in every large community there is no reason for reluctance to be +examined on the part of any woman. + +Further details are not necessary. Enough has been said to emphasize the +fact that the nervousness of the housewife is first a medical problem +and then a social-psychological one. + +Case IV. A case presenting bad hygiene as the essential factor. + +Bad hygiene is something more than exposure to bad air, poor food, +contaminated water, etc. It includes habits and times of eating, +attention to the bowels, outdoor exercise, sleep, and in the marital +state it includes the sexual indulgence. + +The housewife under consideration, Mrs. T.F., aged twenty-eight, married +five years, two children, complained mainly of headache, occasional +dizziness, great irritability, and fatigue, so that quarrels with her +husband were very common, though there seemed nothing to quarrel about. +The family was not rich, but lived in a comfortable apartment; there +were no serious financial burdens, the children were reasonably healthy +and good, and the closest questioning revealed the husband as a kindly +man who never took the initiative in quarrels but who was never able to +keep silent under provocation. The couple was still in love and there +seemed to be no essential incompatibility. + +Questioned as to her habits, Mrs. F. said she did all her own housework +except the washing and ironing and scrubbing. She had a little girl +three times a week to take the baby out. Before marriage she had been a +stenographer, but never earned high pay and had no love for her work. In +fact she gave it up with relief and found housework with its +disagreeable features much more to her taste than business. She had been +of a placid, pleasant temperament and could not understand the change in +her. + +Since all this did not explain her symptoms, closer inquiry was made +into her habits. She arose with her husband at seven-thirty, prepared +his breakfast, sent the oldest child off to kindergarten and then had +her own breakfast, which usually consisted of toast and coffee. At noon +she had a very small piece of meat or an egg and a few potatoes with +tea. At night she ate sparingly of the dinner, which usually was meat, +potatoes, another vegetable, and a dessert. Her husband here stated that +she ate at this meal less than the boy of four and a half. + +Comparing her buxom figure with the diet a discrepancy was at once +apparent. She then confessed with shame that she was a constant nibbler, +eating a bit of this or that every half hour or so, and consequently +never had an appetite. The food thus nibbled usually was either spicy or +sweet, and she consumed quite a bit of candy. Her bowels moved +infrequently and she always needed laxatives. In her spare time she felt +rather "logy", rarely went out, except now and then at night with her +husband, and spent her leisure hours on the couch reading or nibbling. + +This in itself would have quite explained much of her trouble. It has +been pointed out that body and mind are not separable; that mental +functions are based on the bodily functions, and that mood may rest on +no more exalted cause then the condition of the bowels. But a more +intimate questioning revealed sexual habits which are easily drifted +into by people of an amorous turn of character and who are really fond +of one another. These both husband and wife frankly said they had not +meant to speak of, but with their disclosure it was evident that a good +deal of importance was to be attached to them. + +The correction of the life habits was of course the fundamental need. +The young woman was instructed in detail as to diet, the care of the +bowels and outdoor exercise. Since she was in perfect condition except +for stoutness she could easily look for recovery, and as an added +incentive the restoration of youthful good looks was held out as +certain. + +The sexual life was frankly discussed, and necessary restrictions were +imposed. Both the husband and wife agreed willingly to the changes +ordered and promised faithfully to carry out instructions. + +The patient made a splendid recovery and very rapidly. Here was a +deënergization dependent solely upon the sedentary life of the housewife +and upon ignorance of sex hygiene. Here were quarreling and impending +marital disaster removed by attention to details in living. Here was a +complete proof that not only does a sound mind need a sound body, but +that a sound marriage needs one as well. + +Case V. The hyperæsthetic woman. + +Mrs. J.F. is twenty-seven years of age. She was born in the United +States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty +man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the +like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was +an old-fashioned housewife, fond of her home and family, in fact perhaps +more attached to the former than the latter. She hated servants and got +along without them (except for a day woman) until she became rather too +old to do the work. + +J.'s sister and two brothers were duplicates of the parents,--hearty, +stolid, and remarkably plain looking. J., the younger sister, though not +the youngest in the family, was as different from her family as if she +had sprung from another stock. She was slender, very pretty, with a +quick, alert mind which jumped at conclusions, because labored analysis +fatigued it. Above all, from the very start of life she was sensitive to +a degree that perplexed her family, who were however intensely +sympathetic because they adored her. This adoration arose from the fact +that J. was brighter and prettier than most of her friends, and that her +cleverness in many directions--music, writing, talking, handiwork--was +the talk of their little group. + +This sensitiveness arose from two main factors. First, an egoism +fostered by the worship of her friends and the leadership of her +group,--an egoism which led her to regard as a sort of insult anything +disagreeable. Accustomed to praise, the least criticism implied or +outspoken cut like a knife; accustomed to being waited upon, she +resented physical discomfort of the slightest kind. Second, there must +also have been an actual physical sensitiveness to sights, sounds, +smells, tastes, etc. that made her perceive what others failed to +notice. This led to an artistry manifested by her nice work in music and +decoration and also by an excessive displeasure at the inartistic. + +With this training, experience, and natural temperament she should have +married a rich collector of art products, who would have added her to +his collection and cherished her as his most fragile possession. +Instead, through the working of that strange law of contraries by which +Nature strikes averages between extremes, she fell in love with a hulk +of a man whose ideas on art were limited to calling a picture "pretty", +who loved sports and the pleasures of the table, and whose business +motto was "Beat the other guy to it." A successful man, troubled with +few subtleties either of approach or conscience, he viewed the marriage +relationship in the old-fashioned way and the new American indulgence. A +man's wife was to be given all the clothes she wanted, servants to help +run the home, ought to bear two or three children, and love her +indulgent husband. As for any real intimacy, he knew nothing of it. +Kindly, self-indulgent, wife-indulgent, child-indulgent, ruthless in +business, he may stand as something America has produced without any +effort. + +From the very first night J.'s world was shattered. We need not enter +into details in this matter, but a woman of this type needs finesse in +the initiation into marriage more than at any other time. Cave-man style +outraged her every fiber, and the man was dumbfounded at her reaction. +Though he tried to make amends his very effort and lack of understanding +complicated matters. + +Aside from this matter, which in the course of time became adjusted, so +that though she rebelled desire arose in her, she found herself at odds +with her husband's tastes and conduct in little things. Though his table +manners were good enough, the gusto of his eating annoyed her and took +away her own appetite. When they went to a play together the coarse +jokes and the plainly sensuous aroused his enthusiasm. He lacked +subtlety and could not understand the "finer" things of life. As he grew +settled in matrimony, which he enjoyed in spite of her nerves (which he +took for granted as like a woman), he grew stouter and this irritated +and jarred her. + +She finally realized she no longer loved him. It is doubtful if she +realized this before the birth of her first and only child. She lacked +maternal feeling and rebelled with a bitter rebellion against the +distortion of her figure that came with the pregnancy. The nursing +ordered by the doctor and expected by all around her nearly drove her +"wild", she said, for she felt like a "cow", a "female." Indeed she +reacted bitterly against the femaleness that marriage forced on her and +hated the essential maleness of her husband. Her emotional reaction +against nursing took away her milk, and finally the disgusted family +doctor ordered the baby weaned and he was turned over to a servant. + +She went back to her own life, determined to become a housewife, to see +if she could not love her husband and her home. But everything he did +irritated her, and everything in the house made her feel as in a +"luxurious cage." Yet she was by no means a feminist; she detested +"noisy suffragettes", thought women doctors and lawyers ridiculous, and +had been brought up to regard marriage as indissoluble. + +Gradually out of the conflict, the chilling fear that she had made a +mistake which could not be rectified, the constant irritation and +annoyances, the revolt against her own sex feeling and her life +situation, arose the neurosis. It took the form mainly of sudden +unaccountable fears with faint dizzy feelings. The family physician on +the aside told me that it was "just a case of a damn fool woman with +everybody too good to her." + +What constitutes a "damn fool" will include every person in the world, +according to some one else. It seemed obvious to me that J. was not +meant by nature to be a housewife or any kind of wife. Matrimonially she +was a misfit, unless she met some man of a type like herself, though I +doubt if any man could have pleased her. I doubt if her over-exacting +taste would not rebel against the animal in life itself. For though the +animal of life is essentially as fine as the human, certain types find +it impossible to acknowledge it in themselves. + +At any rate I advised separation for a time,--six months at least. I +told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She +answered that she knew this but could not conceive of any change. We +discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her +husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold +her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a +temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The +outlook is therefore a poor one. + +Case VI. The over-conscientious housewife,--the seeker of perfection. + +The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New +England stock, _i.e._ the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England +climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. +This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily +radical, has this prevailing trait,--standards of right and wrong are +set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to +maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not +peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, +Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal. + +This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years of age, with three children, +was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she +and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something +was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a +type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. +She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious +appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a +physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a +dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any +importance--yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one." + +Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a +small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and +admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was +exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his +wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching +things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc. + +She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her +husband, with garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her +hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained +cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were +quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat +was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared +to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That +clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude +she completely rejected. + +It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,--from the +beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a +maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed +over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless _all the time_; +she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early +morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, +etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated +efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children +bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for +it. + +"She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy +about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul +their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely +because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes +after them picking up and cleaning." + +This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the +effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners +from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She +thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; +any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, +any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime. + +Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in +children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a +day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out +words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new +experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their +quest for experiment,--and they learn thereby. Not every mickle grows +into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as +unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits. + +So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, +developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, +self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never +perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had +become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she +read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show. + +It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own +ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her +neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some +stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not +prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for +everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst +dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic. + +In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and +to such advice as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that +dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed +always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better +dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the +ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a +relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, +admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was +sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin +idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", +"extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence +of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her +home. + +This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a +gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as +she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." +Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine +housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an +over-zealous conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OTHER TYPICAL CASES + + +Case VII. The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability. + +In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the +man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business +partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and +many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the +leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American +method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior +women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's +advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the +trousers" themselves. + +Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, +had excellent health before marriage. Her family, originally poor, had +been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important +places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is +married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an +executive in a department store. + +Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time +of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who +inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic +over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never +followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own +way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all +financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of +people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law. + +In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her +counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect +for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt +crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time +went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused +many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had +not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached +the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they +enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude +toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and +envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly +view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are +near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such +disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend +involuntarily to arouse. + +With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a +complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that +brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal +to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he +accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to +the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute +nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and +fatigue. + +The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much +surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection +immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old +feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of +business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that +she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was +necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime +essential to cure in such cases,--an ignorant or unintelligent woman +with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence +took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it +may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic +observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism +and hostility. + +Case VII. The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law. + +That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of +feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in +the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted +financial success, settling down may be possible, but is much more +difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably +has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,--and +she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all +this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of +doubt and rebellion. + +Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. +She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a +business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal +gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did +and was treated with deference by the entire organization. + +She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior +official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal +habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and +went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and +mother. + +Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. +She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her home with the son for +some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range +of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost +inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. + +Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his +wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father +presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to +a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other +woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. +Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good +enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to +feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household +or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old +Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one +roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and +daughter-in-law live together. + +The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger +woman. There was enough to find fault with, since the wife was +absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, +and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try +all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took +diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were +some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took +possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found +herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the +office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. +Further, the distracted husband, in his rôles of husband and son, found +himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the +girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible +for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her +pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house +seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she +expressed it. + +Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs +seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that attends it. No +outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should +be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It +sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all +love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it +animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in +this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a +crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman +found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found +herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied +on. + +The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical +strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited +spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to +matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband +intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a +circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be +dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the +symptoms were headache, sleeplessness, etc., for which the neurologist +was consulted. + +How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It +probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made +that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law _vs._ +daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. +Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to +take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a +well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the +mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the +mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a +son's wife. + +This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment +to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was +delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed +that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger +world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and +convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less +amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an unconsciously humorous +compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly +efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better +conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a +servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no +children. + +Case VIII. The childless, neglected woman. + +It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in +a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an +identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case +might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable +difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as +childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the +main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and +sleeplessness. + +The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the +age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well +and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental +disease in her family. She married a man of twenty-four, who had also +been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in +business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty +in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the +earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end +of his long day and the pair were quite happy. + +At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at +her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the +course of the next three years underwent three operations with no +result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time +her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He +would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing +cards,--in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first +discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York +where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him +for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he +remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife. + +The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged +deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four +days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times +the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and +agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties +to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would +reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, +gifts, etc., for a week or so,--and then backsliding. Finally even the +brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered +hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a +widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them +both. + +The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling +alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love +and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the +sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun +other women and their company, the fear that her husband was unfaithful +(which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or +definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought +on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium. + +This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her +frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to +the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. +Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery. + +Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the +chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The +lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm +has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the +inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he +is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and +his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one +_constant_ attraction,--Chance. + +The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was +fortunate enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her +doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went +back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete +satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to +take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was +impossible in her lonely home. + +Case IX. The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the +home. + +This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the +woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, +and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical +American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain +type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at +first in many cases of conflict between man and wife. + +The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but +thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class +rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm +and was a mechanic in a small city. + +The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As +a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", _i.e._ to displease +her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her +family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased +when she married off their hands and left the home. + +Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her +husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He +was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for +which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the +theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became +greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband +tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit. + +They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,--she +became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around +to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will +he would go with her to her friends. + +Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he +set his will firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming +set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion +had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, +speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill. + +The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence +of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of +symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but +which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true +paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech. + +When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and +her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will +was thwarted, and _that_ part of their function was to bring the man to +his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come +any more to see me,--a not unnatural reaction. + +The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and +dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, +in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a +sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not +warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to +give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional +crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms +that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, +fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are +frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and +discomfort of others. + +Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a +character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about +hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical +reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be +found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the +same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review +of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." +But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly +from her disposition and not from the kitchen. + +Case X. The unfaithful husband. + +Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a +single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has +this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable +that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been +strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the +important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as +themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on +the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the +theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the +keener. + +The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, +the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her +health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she +has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make +both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the +border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples +do", were as much in love "as other couples are", to use her phrases. +She was above her class in education, read what are usually called +advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good +housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their +sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she +thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman. + +Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the +part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes +fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she +found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the +bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to +the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped +maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, +unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an +unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, +contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate +reason for living and became a helpless prey to her troubled mind. "A +temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could +understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole +scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her +children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for. + +Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central +physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular +campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, +the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression +remained. + +Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at +reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it +was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found +out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never +trust him again; I would die before I lived with him." + +Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest +wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of life is +to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by +others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of +one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering +a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as +by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of +memories. + +With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her +children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part +of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize +the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that +she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the +children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, +she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans +made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to +its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, +and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part +of the recovery process. + +I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should +have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his +repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she +would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had _acted_ +the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust +him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the +children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong +argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest +separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest +reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong. + +Case XI. The unfaithful wife. + +In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the +difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into +ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor +saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow +orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical +health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the +present-day code of morals. This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In +such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the +physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a +doctor." + +A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a +physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as +well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an +intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the +conflicts of health and ethics. + +Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married +since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten +years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one +thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined +to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful +in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, +of Swiss parentage. + +Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home +life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, settled life, got +on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed +to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I +married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married +except"--Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging +her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity +against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but +romantically so, not realistic. + +There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest +in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers +are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession +and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the +married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to +whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these +gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is +sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a +philosophy of life that justifies them. + +Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these +men found his way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he +proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical +disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who +had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke +off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and +disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought +about a profound neurasthenia. + +Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her +unfaithfulness,--largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not +in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little +realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of +infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, +rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was +evident to me that something was obsessing her. + +When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her +husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; +but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to +tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the result to him, for +she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind +arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to +confession. + +As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very +foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was +that of an _essentially moral_ person; that an essentially immoral woman +would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so +remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she +came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make +it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the +quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of +veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget +her pain. + +It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two +professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would +disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that +Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, +that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires heroic +measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent +that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to +extremes. + +The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has +previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many +of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the +place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of +experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among +both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters +relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be +discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of +nutrition. + +No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional +ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the +United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and +dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but +whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where +division of opinion will occur. A transition from long skirts to dress +that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a +feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would +remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of +woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding +movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means +a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a +costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if +women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, +wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in +over tight short skirts. + +Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, +the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free +discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man +and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle +rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial +triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every +newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most +absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any +responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the +epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex +is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it. + +Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its +spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its +realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, +and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot +of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the +housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not +fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, +art, and stage,--it unfits people for sex reality. + +In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is +almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a +certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the +fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the +household, and the man less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or +no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than +in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of +divorce records. + +That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing +in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock +in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological +effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of +cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that +contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our +jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own +families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind +consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the +neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial +problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book. + +Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the +engaged." The freedom of the engaged couple is part of the emancipation +of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just +short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are +aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. +Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild +exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On +the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a +good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without +interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But +it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the +necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of +service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised +concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family +friend, or the family physician. + +Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped +with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. +That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be +obviated if wisdom and experience instructed the husband and wife in +the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the +domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the +pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That +reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on +a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who +believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, +the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge +should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better +than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES + + +It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be +wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do +yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large +proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently +the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing +to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the +taking of medicine. + +Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of +their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are +uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I +believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that +can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation +involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable. + +It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this +means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of +women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to +the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, +and the major diseases,--these must be remembered as factors that may +determine nervousness. + +With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such +difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the +life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, +where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as +tact, are the essentials. + +It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich +woman may have settled down to a deënergizing life, with too much time +in bed, too many matinées, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. +Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad +for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the +sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, +the whole structure of misery may rest. + +I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a +small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas +into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent +several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic +remedies,--a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I +investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an +inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath +the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime +and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists +had failed. + +So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman +which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its +significance and importance. + +An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an +underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of +mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular +indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel +functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through +irritability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all +the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such +that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with +others who are in most ways perfectly normal. + +Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life +Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of +eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical +difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life. + +If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, +the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and +recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous +chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement +home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women +down does not prove that they do not break _some_ women down, women with +finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The +most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can +see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for +its victims. + +What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or +more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves +by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from +morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting +them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What +right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does +not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately +philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and +saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American +civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much +philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found. + +One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies +interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a +woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and +even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient +has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. +But unfortunately the consulting room for the poor is in the crowded +clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to +give the time and energy necessary? + +For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with +the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy +that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either +slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such +stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself +gives out. + +In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more +weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more +ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork +in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or +other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some +difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a +rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a +temperament to a situation. + +Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are +insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only in the very +largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as +the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics +help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much +as one may expect. + +But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be +accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to +realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, +and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her +symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has +blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis. + +If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The +intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, +they seek counsel as well as treatment. + +It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control +instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not +unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or +her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the +personal efforts to change. + +A new philosophy of life must be presented. Less fussiness, less fear, +more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are +necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught +to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should +life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" +What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal +of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,--old-fashioned words, +but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face +with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly +that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a +selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and +aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding. + +If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, +then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end +doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to +end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic +situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity +with those of more means and ability. + +Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the coöperation +of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife +consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men +are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic +wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he +is anxious enough to help cure her. + +Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by +the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear +down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician +cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less +neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide. + +Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict +rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband +deënergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was +induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,--a highly +strung, very efficient self. + +In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the +individual woman and then the painstaking _adjustment_ of that +individual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life +situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the +housewife to the life situation. + +In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as +in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the +orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." +Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego +in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; +people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the +ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a +disguised way of naming their desire. + +One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every +woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of +irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,--these are the hopeless +situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is +the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the +disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst +offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt to be the scold +and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his +revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another +story. + +At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference +between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in +make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential +need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly +expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become +matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death +of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and +sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of +feeling, that the major duties were of less importance. + +On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets +impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it +unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to +think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains +out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the +devotion of the husband is the woman's anchor to windward, her grip on +safety,--that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and +she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their +husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch +them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling +off of the lover's spirit and feeling. + +After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than +in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she +fears the rivalry of business,--and with reason. So she craves +attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She +ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married +life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a +great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great +majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also +minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play +demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to +their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the +time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to work marries +a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical +for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving +up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of +justice and the race. + +In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of +increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is +this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, +which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and +efficiency. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE + + +No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in +favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days +of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to +reproach or mock him. + +Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of +woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come +along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in +the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the +largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women +alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the +outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many +reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful reformations and +progressive ages. + +Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, +feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more +diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they +will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who +work will be specialized and individualized--- the woman executive, the +writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and +sociologist--will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The +woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in +ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement +whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear +children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in +which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend +the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might. + +Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of +the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the +race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their +sex. Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of +the children they might have had no one can say. + +But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and +remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. +The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there +comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a +counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of +their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will +enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing +enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since +they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the +conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually. + +So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an +increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing +reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion +against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will +increase rather than diminish, and it must be faced without prejudice +and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, +that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or +doing. + +Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as +fact,--the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or +bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the +modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is +one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there +seems little to do but accept the situation. + +That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to +the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by +most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject +in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply +important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for +contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and +Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all +classes in society except the feeble-minded are learning the +procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, +and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility +artificially. + +What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family +will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or +before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. +What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? +Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while +away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women +to-day? + +It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever +before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way +of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great +advantage,--the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter +politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will +deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment +and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even +for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social +structure and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded +mother can bring. + +Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To +some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a +refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of +temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by +divorce,--rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for +which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons +for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel +and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not +grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in +the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go +even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or +venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some +States. + +Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until +the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time +comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply +encourages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty. + +Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness +can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the rôles of mother +and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman +will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife +and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and +special education, and she will continue to find the rôle of the +traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and +the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis. + +In other words what we must seek to do--those of us who are not bound by +tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings +rather than the reverse--is to find out what changes in the home and +matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and +to-morrow. + +That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century +is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant +the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore +directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has +been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and +individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was +eliminated, in a sense was coöperative. This coöperation is increasing; +more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. +In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent +hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible. + +Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do +woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the +smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number +of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette +apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it +is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or +two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the +huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and +second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched +in the Introduction. + +The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its +heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but +recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, +and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In +it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of +brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its +source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle +and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a +sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the +English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a +reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are +thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of +its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged. + +Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than +anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its +indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects. + +On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable +from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are +often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the +cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes +by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each +woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest +waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the +intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and +housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from +feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, +unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol +home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many +kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory +and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, +and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking +and feeding to break from. + +Take as one minor example the gorging encouraged on Sunday and certain +holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all +Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her +family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is +directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, +Christmas,--the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed +into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has +its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer. + +While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and +inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster +importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, +because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet +individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service. + +There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, +even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which +drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, +brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak +too much in generalities--the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, +Mankind--forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are +homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and +having only one thing in common,--that they are segregated social units, +based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said +approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who +_knows_ shakes hands with individuals." + +In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to +generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown +to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is +exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the +lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the +quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either +positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or +develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is +traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, +overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as +possible conventional morals and manners. Such persons have simply +overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their +teaching by building counter-prejudices. + +Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be +kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the +course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; +the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic +purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real +life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one +and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted +to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so +intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, +but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the +hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the +poor fellows in the blizzard. + +Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it +becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that +break away from home and home ties who do the great things. + +When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great +virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its +very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the +bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is +proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of +the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of +largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are +born in the home. + +It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional +violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the +restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the +family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would +bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete +disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest +bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between +the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height. + +That courtesy to each other might be taught the children, might be +insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not +exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the +marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out +almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, +courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example. + +Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet +maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human +heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is +easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into +programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of +treatment,--so in society at large. + +Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men +and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and +drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the +sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by +some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger +coöperation, at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built +so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as coöperative +stores are springing up, so coöperative kitchens, community kitchens +organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, +without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her +own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a +development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens +now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the +housewife in most need,--the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real +social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, +nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be +eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would +disappear in a generation. + +That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the +disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius +has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. +Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even +the lower middle class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of +them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device +ought to be judged are these: + +First--Is it efficient? + +Second--Is it labor saving? + +Third--Is it time saving? + +We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional +diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating +ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, +fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the +housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would +also be of great benefit to her husband. The cult of hearty eating, +which results in keeping a woman (mistress or maid) in the kitchen for +three or more hours that a man may eat for twenty or thirty minutes is +folly. The type of meal that either takes only a short time for +preparation and devices which render the attention of the housewife +unnecessary are ethical and healthy, both for the family and society. +The joys of the table are not to be despised, and only the dyspeptic or +the ascetic hold them in contempt; but simplicity in eating is the very +heart of the joy of the table. + +Elaboration and gluttony are alike in this,--they increase the housework +and decrease the well-being of the diner. + +How to maintain the sweetness of the family spirit of the home and yet +bring into it a wider social spirit, break down its isolated +individualistic character, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to +solve. Ancient nations emphasized the social-national aspect of life +overmuch, as for example the Spartans; the modern home overemphasizes +the family aspect. We must avoid extremes by clinging to the virtues and +correcting the vices of the home. + +Alarmists are constantly raising the cry that marriage is declining and +that society is thereby threatened at its very heart. There is the +pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; +there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds +in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding +old-fashioned morality. Divorce, late marriage, and child-restriction +are the manifestations of this decadence, and the press, the pulpit, +science, and the State all have taken notice of these modern phenomena, +though with widely differing attitudes. + +That matrimony is changing cannot be questioned or denied. The main +change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose +rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no +longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, +when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in +exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the +horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to +this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely +enough, seemed to glory in it. + +With the rise of woman into the status of a human being (a revolution +not yet accomplished in entirety) the property relationship weakened but +lingers very strongly as a tradition that molds the lives of husband and +wife. Women are still held more rigidly to their duties as wives than +men to their duties as husbands, and the will of the husband still rules +in the major affairs of life, even though in a thousand details the wife +rules. Theoretically every man willingly acknowledges the importance of +his wife as mother and homekeeper, but practically he acts as if his +work were the really important activity of the family. The obedience of +the wife is still asked for by most of the religious ceremonies of the +times. Two great opinions are therefore still struggling in the home and +in society; one that matrimony implies the dependence and essential +inferiority of woman, and the other that the man and woman are equal +partners in the relationship. I fully realize that the advocate of the +first opinion will deny that the inferiority of woman is at all implied +in their standpoint. But it is an inferior who vows obedience, it is the +inferior who loses legal rights, it is the inferior who yields to +another the "headship" of the home. + +The struggle of these two opinions will have only one outcome, the +complete victory of the modern belief that the sexes are, all in all, +equal, and that therefore marriage is a contract of equals. Meanwhile +the struggling opinions, with the scene of conflict in every home, in +every heart, cause disorder as all struggles do. When the victory is +complete, then conduct will be definite and clear-cut, then the home +will be reorganized in relation to the new belief, and then new problems +will arise and be met. How conduct will be changed, what the new +problems will be and how they will be met, I do not pretend to know. + +Meanwhile there is this to say,--that marriage should be guarded so that +the grossly unfit do not marry. A thorough physical examination is as +necessary for matrimony as it is for civil service, and many of the +horrors every generation of doctors has witnessed could be eliminated at +once and for all time. + +Further, if marriage is a desirable state, and on the whole it must be +preferred to a single existence, surely so long as our code of morals +remains unchanged, and so long as we believe the race must be +perpetuated, then the too late marriage should be discouraged. The ideal +age for women to enter matrimony is from twenty-two to twenty-five; the +ideal age for men is from twenty-five to twenty-eight. It is not my +province to deal at length with this subject, but I may state that I +believe that continence beyond these ages becomes increasingly +difficult, that immorality is encouraged, that adaptability becomes +lessened, and that wiser selection of mates does _not_ occur. But how +bring about early marriages in a time when the luxuries seem to have +become necessities, and therefore the necessity of marriage is eyed more +and more as an extravagance of the foolhardy? How bring about early +marriage when women are earning pay almost equal to that of the men and +are therefore more reluctant to enter matrimony unless at a high +standard of living. The late marriage is an evil, but how it can be +displaced by the early marriage under the present social scheme I do not +see. + +We have considered divorce before this. It is not an evil but a symptom +of evil; not a disease in itself. It cannot be lessened or abolished +unless we are willing to state that a man and a woman should live +together as husband and wife, hating, despising, or fearing one another. +We cannot countenance brutality, unfaithfulness, or temperamental +mismating. It is true that divorces are often obtained for trivial +reasons, but usually the partners are not adapted to one another, +according to modern ways of thinking and feeling. What is commonplace +in one age is cruelty in the next, and this is a matter not of argument +but of expectation and feeling. + +Nothing more need be said of contraceptive measures than this: they are +inevitably increasing in use and soon will be part of the average +marriage. Society must recognize this, and the lawmakers must legalize +what they themselves practise. + +Matrimony, the home, woman, these are nodal points in the network of our +human lives. But they are not fixed centers, and the great weaver, Time, +changes the design constantly. Through them run the threads of the great +instincts, of tradition, of economic change, of the ideas, ideals, and +activities of man the restless. Man will always love woman, woman will +always love man; children will be born and reared, and sex conflict, +maladjustment, will always be secondary to these great facts. How men +and women will live together, how they will arrange for the children, +will be questions that women will help the world answer as well as their +mates. That the main trend of things is for better, more ethical, more +just relationship, I do not doubt. The secondary, most noisy changes +are perhaps evil, the main primary change is good. + +Meanwhile in the hurly-burly of new things, of complex relationships, +working blindly, is the nervous housewife. This book has been written +that she may know herself better and thus move towards the light; that +her husband may win sympathy and understanding and be bound to her in a +closer, better union, and that the physician and Society may seek the +direct and the remote means to helping her. + + + + +INDEX + +Alcoholism and housewife, 157 +Anger, 88 + +Beauty, loss of, 88 +Birth control, 14-16 +Birth control measures and nervousness, 137 + +Cases, treatment of, 231-243 +Child and cartoons, 113 + and movies, 111 +Childbearing and modern woman, 15 +Children and the neurosis, 97-115 + +Daydreaming, 81 +Diet and Cooking, 259 +Disagreeable, reaction to the, 90 +Divorce, 13 + +Emotions, effects of, 27-30; 42-45 +Engagement period, 229 +Extravagance of the housewife, 145 + +Fear, 93 +Feminism and individualization of woman, 10-13 + +Happiness and high cost of living, 151 +Histories of cases: + case with bad hygiene, 183-187 + hyperæsthetic woman, 187-193 + over-rich, purposeless type, 177-181 + overworked, under-rested type, 171-177 + physically ill type, 181-183 +Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5 +Home, + aboriginal, 5 + faults of, 225 + future of, 250 + isolation of, 77 +Household conflicts, 141-159 +Housewife, + hyperæsthetic type of, 51 + non-domestic type of, 61 + overconscientious type of, 53 + overemotional type of, 57 + physically ill, 69 + previously neurotic, 65 + types predisposed to nervousness, 47-73 +Housewife and abnormal child, 107 + and childbearing, 99 + and neglect, 153 + and poverty, 117 +Housewife of past generation, 3 +Housework, + evolution of, 5-10 + nature of, 75 +Housework and factory, 9 +Husband and housewife, 127 +Hysteria, 35 + +Jealousy and envy, 123 + +Marriage, conflicting views of, 127 +Marriage and sex relationship, 131-140 +Monotony, effects of, 79 +Nervousness, 17-20 +Nervousness and child hygiene, 100 +Nervousness and sick child, 104 +Neurasthenia, + causes, 9 + symptoms, 20-26 +Neurasthenia and fear, 23 + +Pruriency of our times, 275 +Psychasthenia, 31 +Psychoneuroses, 18 + +Sedentary life, effects of, 83 +Sex and society, 139 +Subconscious, 29 +Symptoms as weapons against husband, 161 + +Voltaire and constipation, 23 + +Will to power through weakness, 163, 212 +Woman, arts and crafts, 6-8 +Woman, + discontent of, 13 + future of, 244 + training of, 48-50 +Woman, industry and home, 8-10 +Worry, 119 + + + + +_By the Author of "RELIGION and HEALTH"_ + +=HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER= + +_By_ JAMES J. WALSH, M.D. + +_Medical Director of Fordham University School of Sociology_ + +12mo. Cloth. 288 pages. + + * * * * * + +"The American Public sorely needs the gospel of health that Dr. Walsh +preaches to it in his new book." + +--_The Pilot, Boston._ + + +"I do not wonder that your splendid book 'Health Through Will Power' has +met with such great success. I know that I could hardly leave the book +out of my hands, it was so interesting and instructive." + +--_Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, of New York._ + + +"'Health Through Will Power' is packed with medical wisdom translated +into the vernacular of common sense." + +--_The Ave Maria._ + + +"Your book is capable of adding largely to happiness, as well as health. +It is also wonderful, spiritually. I feel like recommending the book to +everyone I know." + +--_Mgr. M.J. Lavelle, of New York._ + + +"This book should find a place in every home, as it will help to bring +us back to a more natural manner of living." + +--_The Rosary Magazine._ + + * * * * * + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS + +34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 14196-8.txt or 14196-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/9/14196/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nervous Housewife + +Author: Abraham Myerson + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14196] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE</h1> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ABRAHAM MYERSON, M.D.</h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>BOSTON</h3> + +<h4>LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY</h4> + +<h5>1920</h5> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>Published November, 1920</h3> + + +<h4>Norwood Press</h4> + +<h4>Set up and electrotyped by J.S. Cushing Co.</h4> + +<h5>Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</h5> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><th align='right'>Chapter</th><th align='left'> </th><th align='right'>Page</th></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td align='left'>Introductory</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td align='left'>The Nature Of "Nervousness"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td align='left'>Types Of Housewife Predisposed To Nervousness</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td align='left'>The Housework And The Home As Factors In The Neurosis</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td align='left'>Reaction To The Disagreeable</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_91'>91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td align='left'>Poverty And Its Psychical Results</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_116'>116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td align='left'>The Housewife And Her Husband</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td align='left'>The Housewife And Her Household Conflicts</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td align='left'>The Symptoms As Weapons Against The Husband</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td align='left'>Histories Of Some Severe Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td align='left'>Other Typical Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td align='left'>Treatment Of The Individual Cases</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_231'>231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td align='left'>The Future Of Woman, The Home, And Marriage</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'> </td><td align='left'><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_269'>269</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Introductory</h3> + +<p>How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife?</p> + +<p>Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific +creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse +all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the +youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a +headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost +his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge?</p> + +<p>We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference +to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the +present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in <a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>every +man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do, +for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor +Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of +occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her +a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes +from specialist to specialist,—orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray +man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment +she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her +feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her +insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics, +electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science!</p> + +<p>Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with +pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and +saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young +girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her +man, into the housewife of a decade,—complaining, fatigued, and +disillusioned. Bound to her <a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>husband by the ties the years and the +children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them.</p> + +<p>"Men don't understand," cries she. "Women are unreasonable," says he.</p> + +<p>What are the causes of the change? Did the housewife of a past +generation go through the same stage? Ask any man you meet and he will +tell you his mother is or was more enduring than his wife. "She bore +three times as many children; she did all her own housework; she baked +more, cooked more, sewed more; she got up at five o'clock in the morning +and went to bed at ten at night; she never went out, never had a +vacation, did not know the meaning of manicure, pedicure, coiffure. She +was contented, never extravagant, and rarely sick."</p> + +<p>So the average man will say, and then: "Those were the good old days of +simple living, gone like the dodo!" To-day,—well, it reminds me of a +joke I heard. One man meets another and says: 'By the way, I heard that +your wife was the champion athlete at college.' 'Ah, yes,' said the +husband; 'now she is too weak to wash the dishes.'</p> + +<p><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>Is the average man's impression the correct one? Or are we dealing with +the incorrigible disposition of man to glorify the past? To the majority +of people their youth was an era of stronger, braver men, more +wholesome, beautiful women. People were better, times were more natural, +and there is a grim satisfaction in predicting that the "world is going +to the dogs." "The good old days" has been the cry of man from the very +earliest times.</p> + +<p>Yet read what a contemporary of the housewife of three quarters of a +century ago says,—the wisest, wittiest, sanest doctor of the day, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. The genial autocrat of the breakfast table +observes: "Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid of all work, with the title of mistress and an American +female constitution which collapses just in the middle third of life, +comes out vulcanized India rubber, if it happens to live through the +period when health and strength are most wanted?"</p> + +<p>And then, if one looks in the advertisements of half a century ago, one +finds the nostrum dealer loudly proclaiming his capacity to cure <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>what +is evidently the Nervous Housewife. In America at least she has always +existed, perhaps in lesser numbers than at present. And one remembers in +a dim sort of way that the married woman of olden days was altogether +faded at thirty-five, that she entered on middle life at a time when at +least many of our women of to-day still think themselves young.</p> + +<p>It becomes interesting and necessary at this point to trace the +evolution of the home, because this is to trace the evolution of our +housewife. We are apt to think of the home as originating in a sort of +cave, where the little unit—the Man, the Woman, and the Children—dwelt +in isolation, ever on the watch against marauders, either animal or +human. In this cave the woman was the chattel of man; he had seized her +by force and ruled by force.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there was such a stage, but much more likely the home was a +communal residence, where the man-herd, the group, the clan, the Family +in the larger sense dwelt. Only a large group would be safe, and the +strong social instinct, the herd feeling, was the basis of the home. +Here the men <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>and women dwelt in a promiscuity that through the ages +went through an evolution which finally became the father-controlled +monogamy of to-day. Here the women lived; here they span, sewed, built; +here they started the arts, the handicrafts, and the religions. And from +here the men went forth to fish and hunt and fight, grim males to whom a +maiden was a thing to court and a wife a thing to enslave.</p> + +<p>Just how the home became more and more segregated and the family life +more individualized is not in the province of this book to detail. This +is certain: that the home was not only a place where man and woman +mated, where their children were born and reared, where food was +prepared and cooked, and where shelter from the elements was obtained; +it was also the first great workshop, where all the manifold industries +had their inception and early development. The housewife was then not +only mother, wife, cook, and nurse; she was the spinner, the weaver, the +tanner, the dyer, the brewer, the druggist.</p> + +<p>Even in the high civilization of the Jews this wide scope of the +housewife prevailed.<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a> Read what the wisest, perhaps because most +married, of men says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>She seeketh wool and flax,<br /></span> +<span>And worketh willingly with her hands.<br /></span> +<span>She is like the merchant ships;<br /></span> +<span>She bringeth her food from afar.<br /></span> +<span>She considereth a field, and buyeth it.<br /></span> +<span>With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.<br /></span> +<span>She girdeth her loins with strength,<br /></span> +<span>And maketh strong her arms.<br /></span> +<span>She perceiveth that her merchandise is good.<br /></span> +<span>Her lamp goeth not out by night.<br /></span> +<span>She layeth her hands to the distaff<br /></span> +<span>And her hands hold the spindle.<br /></span> +<span> * + * + * + * + *<br /></span> +<span>She is not afraid of the snow for her household:<br /></span> +<span>For all her household are clothed with scarlet.<br /></span> +<span>She maketh for herself coverlets,<br /></span> +<span>She maketh linen garments and selleth them,<br /></span> +<span>And delivereth girdles unto the merchants.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>No wonder "her children rise up and call her blessed" and it is somewhat +condescending of her husband when he "praiseth her." All we learn of him +is that he "is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of +the land." With a wife like her, this was all he had to do.</p> + +<p>This combination of industrialism and <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>domesticity continued until +gradually men stepped into the field of work, perhaps as a result of +their wives' example, and became farmers on a larger scale, merchants of +a wider scope, artisans, handicraftsmen, guild members of a more +developed technique. Woman started these things in the home or near it; +man, through his restless energy, specialized and thus developed an +intenser civilization. But even up till the nineteenth century woman +carried on all her occupations at the home, which still continued to be +workshop and hearth.</p> + +<p>Then man invented the machine, harnessed steam, wired electricity, and +there was born the Factory, the specialized house of industry, in which +there works no artisan, only factory hands. The home could not compete +with this man's monster, into which flowed one river of raw material and +out of which poured another of finished products. But not only did the +factory dye, weave, spin, tan, etc.; it also invaded the innermost +sphere of woman's work. For her loaf of bread it turned out thousands, +until finally she is beginning to give up baking; for her hit-or-miss +jellies, preserves, jams, it invented <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>scientific canning with absolute +methods, handy forms, tempting flavors. And canning did not stop there; +meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the +housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no +longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern +time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has +stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own +creation, the factory.</p> + +<p>Thus it has come to pass that in our day the housewife does but little +dyeing, spinning, weaving, is no longer a handicraftsman, and in +addition is turning over a large part of her food preparation and +cooking to the factory.</p> + +<p>But the factory is not content with thus disarranging the ancient scheme +of things by invading the housewife's province; it has dragged a large +number of women, yearly increasing in number and proportion, into +industry. Thus it has made this condition of affairs: that it takes the +young girl from the home for the few years that intervene before her +marriage. She is thus initiated into wage-earning before she becomes a +man's wife, the housewife.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>This industrial period of a girl's life is important psychologically, +for it profoundly influences her reaction to her status and work as +homekeeper.</p> + +<p>Of even greater importance to our study than the influence of the +factory is the rise of what is known as feminism. Of all the living +creatures in the world the female of the human species has been the most +downtrodden, for to every wretched class of man there was a still +inferior, more wretched group, their wives. She was a slave to the +slaves, a dependent of the abjectly poor. When men passed through the +stage where woman's life might be taken at a whim, she remained a +creature without rights of the wider kind. Men debated whether she had a +soul, made cynical proverbs about her, called her the "weaker vessel," +and debarred her from political and economic equality, classing her up +to this very moment in rights with the idiot, the imbecile, and the +criminal. Worse than this, they gave her a spurious homage, created a +lop-sided chivalry, and caused her to accept as her ideal goal of +womanhood the achievement of beauty and the entrance into wifehood. +After they tied <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>her hand and foot with restrictions and belittling +ideals, they capped the climax by calling her weak and petty by nature +and even got her to believe it!</p> + +<p>It is not my intention to trace the rise of feminism. Brave women arose +from age to age to glorify the world and their sex, and men here and +there championed them. Man started to emancipate himself from slavery, +and noble ideals of the equality of mankind first were whispered, then +shouted as battle cries, and finally chiseled with enduring letters into +the foundations of States. "But if all this was good for men, why not +for women—why should they be fettered by illiteracy, pettiness, +dependence; why should they be voiceless in the state and world?" So +asked the feminists. The factory called for women as labor; they became +the clerks, the teachers, the typists, the nurses. Medicine and the law +opened their doors, at least in part. And now we are on the verge of +universal suffrage, with women entering into the affairs of the world, +theoretically at least the equals of man.</p> + +<p>But with the entrance of woman into many varied professions and +occupations, with a <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>wider access to experience and knowledge, arose +what may be called the era of the "individualization of woman." For if +any group of people are kept under more or less uniform conditions in +early life, if one goal is held out as the only legitimate aim and end, +in a word, if their training and purposes are made alike, they become +alike and individuality never develops. With individuality comes +rebellion at old-established conditions, dissatisfaction, discontent, +and especially if the old ideal still remains in force. This new type of +woman is not so well fitted for the old type of marriage as her +predecessors. There arises a group of consequences based psychologically +on this, a fact which we shall find of great importance later on.</p> + +<p>Women still regard marriage as their chief goal in life, still enter +homes, still bear children, and take their husband's name. But having +become more individualized they demand more definite individual +treatment and rebel more at what they consider an infringement of their +rights as human beings. Also, and unfortunately, they still wish the +right to be whimsical, they continue to reserve for themselves the +weapons of tears, <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>reproaches, and unreasonable demands. This has +brought about the divorce evil.</p> + +<p>Briefly the "divorce" evil arises first from the rebellion of woman +against marital drunkenness, unfaithfulness, neglect, brutality that a +former generation of wives tolerated and even expected. Second, it +arises from a conflict between the institution of marriage which still +carries with it the chattel idea—that woman is property—and a +generation of women that does not accept this. Third, it arises from the +ill-balanced demands of women to be treated as equals and also as +irresponsible, petty, and indulged tyrants. Men are unable to adjust +themselves to the shattering of the romantic ideal, and the home +disintegrates. Though divorce is the top of the crest of marital +unhappiness, it really represents only the extreme cases, and behind it +is a huge body of quarreling and divided homes.</p> + +<p>We shall later see that our Nervous Housewife has symptoms and pains and +aches and changes in mood and feeling that are born of the conflict that +is in part pictured by divorce. <i>Divorce is a manifestation of the +discontent of women, and so is the nervousness of the housewife.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>There arises as a result of this individualization of woman, as a +result of increasing physiological knowledge, the hugely important fact +of restricted child bearing. The woman will no longer bear children +indiscriminately,—and the large family is soon to be a thing of the +past in America and in all the civilized world. The-woman-that-knows-how +shrinks from the long nine months of pregnancy, the agony of the birth, +and the weary restricted months of nursing. Had the woman of a past time +known how, she too would have refused to bear. In this the housewife of +to-day is seconded by her husband, for where he has sympathy for his +wife he prefers to let her decide the number of children, and also he is +impressed by the high cost of rearing them.</p> + +<p>One gets cynical about the influence of church, patriotism, and press +when one sees how the housewife has disregarded these influences. For +all the religions preach that race suicide is a sin, all the statesmen +point out that only decadent nations restrict families, and all or +nearly all the press thunder against it. It is even against the law for +a physician or other person to instruct in the <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>methods of birth +restriction, and yet—the birth rate steadily drops. An immigrant mother +has six, eight, or ten children and her daughter has one, two, or three, +very rarely more, and often enough none. This is true even of races +close to religious teaching, such as the Irish Catholic and the Jew.</p> + +<p>One can well be cynical of the power of religion and teaching and law +when one finds that even the families of ministers, rabbis, editors, and +lawmakers, all of whom stand publicly for natural birth, have shown a +great reduction in their size, that has taken place in a single +generation.</p> + +<p>Is the modern woman more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy,—less +resistant to the strain of childbearing and childbirth? It is a quite +general impression amongst obstetricians that this is a fact and also +that fewer women are able to nurse their babies. If so, these phenomena +are of the highest importance to the race and likewise to the problem of +the new housewife. For we shall learn that the lowering of energy is +both a cause and symptom of her neuroses.</p> + +<p>If then we summarize what has been thus far outlined, we find two +currents in the <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>evolution of the housewife. <i>First</i>, she has yielded a +large part of her work to the factory, practically all of that part of +it which is industrial and a considerable portion of the food +preparation.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>, there has been a rise in the dignity and position of woman in +the past one hundred and fifty years which has had many results. She has +considerably widened the scope of her experience with life through work +in the factory, in the office, in the schoolhouse, and in the +professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original +occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. +She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has +declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce +has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability +to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the +declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization +and is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of +freedom.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Nature Of "nervousness"</h3> + + +<p>Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we +must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness +in general.</p> + +<p>Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place +whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition +is so loosely used as this one.</p> + +<p>People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of +anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of +fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is +restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting +his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the +ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who +branded his <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A +"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of +the sinister faces of insanity itself.</p> + +<p>It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous +housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the +general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the +intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the +causes.</p> + +<p>Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous +disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no +alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part +of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such +diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, +etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter +troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed +oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,—as against one in which a +vital part was broken.</p> + +<p>The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is +concerned, is the <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>condition called neurasthenia, although two other +diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance.</p> + +<p>It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as +a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the +eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the +stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every +part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an +accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is +probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that +modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever +present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved.</p> + +<p>Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as +compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of +neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving, +<i>i.e.</i> distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, +telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to +increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>man with +his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but +by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving +<i>himself</i>.</p> + +<p>The keynote of neurasthenia is <i>increased liability to fatigue</i>. The +tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising +than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should +remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his +day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious +drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or +sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body. +Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and +this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words +as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a +listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more +distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with +over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild +kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for +the things formerly held <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>dearest. And finally the fatigue is often +marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger +blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a +slight vexation. <i>To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks +of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that +is neither health nor disease.</i></p> + +<p>The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything +imaginable.</p> + +<p>1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache, +backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs, +pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings +rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to +disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue +plays the principal part in evoking them.</p> + +<p>2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels, +are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a +capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. +The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for +disagreeable emotions, such as worry, <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>fear, vexation, have long been +known as the chief enemies of appetite.</p> + +<p>With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by +"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these +lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the +stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the +nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the +disorder of emotion.</p> + +<p>3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is +primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once +it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism +by its interference with the mood.</p> + +<p>The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread +knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical +discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the +agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness. +Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named +the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared +with a revolver <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be +seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he +found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life +and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said +the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to +commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my +bowels moved well."</p> + +<p>4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful, +dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the +bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded +our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary +functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work, +and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not +only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness.</p> + +<p>5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes +two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, +that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health +<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has +even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is +almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the +possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a +symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability +to worry becomes greatly increased.</p> + +<p>Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors +hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The +hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease, +every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis, +every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache +into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze +inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of +sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant +for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily +processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the +little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the +gastro-intestinal <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>tract have no essential meaning in the majority of +cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they +multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal +groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily +disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally +enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or +perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The +faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then +proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of +treatment.</p> + +<p>What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back +of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in +relation to the housewife,—matters like innate temperament, bad +training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for +sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, +over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, +passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and +doubt; matters like recent ill<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>ness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, +wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that +either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after +a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of +energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some +thought, some life situation of a depressing kind.</p> + +<p>It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our +subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over +the wider field of the human being.</p> + +<p>The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the +building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is +digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into +the tissues,—and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion. +The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the +human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other +words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our +later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of +<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our +love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought +battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and +achievement.</p> + +<p>Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in +tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition +there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,—that create vigor +and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, +laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work +with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the +battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a +stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The +feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a +new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, +which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end.</p> + +<p>There are <i>deënergizing emotions and experiences</i> as well, things that +suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>certain type +is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs +become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, +and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, +either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the +strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the +frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and +injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and +inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,—the mistaken +marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental +pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure of +interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of +enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with +loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic, +deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We +shall discover how this comes about farther on.</p> + +<p>What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in +further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it?</p> + +<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists +affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only +mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of +writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a +new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed—that every human +being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes, +ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly +admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he +would deny.</p> + +<p>These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with +another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for +the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an +illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose +to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may +struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,—a husband, +a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one +refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to +suppress jeal<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>ousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring, +forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may +(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast.</p> + +<p>In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings, +passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses +of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but +nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it.</p> + +<p>However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast +and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the +neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided +against himself, deënergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict.</p> + +<p>And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a +creature, with a host of deënergizing influences playing on her, +buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to +discover how they work.</p> + +<p>I have stated that in medical practice two other types are +described,—psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely +related to the happenings of life as to the <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>inborn disposition of the +patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the +neurasthenic, deënergized state. However, they are usually of more +serious nature, and as such merit a description.</p> + +<p>By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which +the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, +etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are +overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms.</p> + +<p>These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to +recurring fears,—fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of +leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt, +so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of +disease—especially such as syphilis—and a host of other fears, all of +which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles +but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and +comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense +of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has +actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear +<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>of any vehicle after an automobile accident.</p> + +<p>There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas +and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such +as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a +chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly +turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts +occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them +continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In +extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of +deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal +debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his +meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing, +and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an +inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the +name that is often applied,—"anxiety neurosis."</p> + +<p>Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd +impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>crack, to touch +the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. +The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick +that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic +adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and +cracking joints of the inveterate <i>ticquer</i>. Against some of these habit +spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for +there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will +of the patient is powerless.</p> + +<p>Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow +exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The +ground is prepared for these conditions, <i>e.g.</i> by the strain of long +attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a +queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is +brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful +expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease +starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage, +recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful +<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or +obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases +according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of +causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and +repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not +at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of +nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in +life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian +factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they +should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are +bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires +frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face +they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way +or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance. +These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have +been considering.</p> + +<p>Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is +probably the one <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>having its source mainly in the character of the +patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is +secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of +diseases and has probably played a very important rôle in the history of +man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, +for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of +religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in +their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical +blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away +his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every +faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de +Beaupré.</p> + +<p>In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as +well as in her single sisters and brothers.</p> + +<p>There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to +prolonged and freakish manifestations,—the well-known hysterics with +laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics +is this instability, this emotionality, which is however <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>secondary to +an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and +often unable legitimately to earn them.</p> + +<p>A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called +paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a +moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg, +face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to +worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the +nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call +"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, +ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and +a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any +energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a +physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious +danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of +people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat +of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well.</p> + +<p>Similar in type to the paralyses are losses <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>of sensation in various +parts of the body,—losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep +into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting +the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they +found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of +witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or +drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and +happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their +ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually +mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or +wretches deserving severest punishment.</p> + +<p>Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness +that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to +long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is +apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden +days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of +throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague +statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descend<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>ants +in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers +that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and +credulous.</p> + +<p>For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of +themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are +theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are +weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient.</p> + +<p>In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now +consider in more detail certain phases of emotion.</p> + +<p>Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow +flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the +floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's +soul.</p> + +<p>Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly +against the problems of nature, much more rarely against <i>his own</i> +problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense +of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and +desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied +emotions,—hunger, sex, property, competition, co<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>öperation. The +intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the +case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any +great decision is to be made.</p> + +<p>We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely +psychical,—purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great +descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart +thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold +chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth +was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man +stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force +only equaled by its truth.</p> + +<p>William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that +emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain +its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly +feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing, +and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling +of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>sorrow or joy or +anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,—immediately the +jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench +and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in +what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. +Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over +you a feeling not unlike anger.</p> + +<p>In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying +because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we +cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy +because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of +things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of +fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling +itself.</p> + +<p>This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable +theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is +largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat, +lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion +is a very <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>important matter in our study of the housewife as of every +other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance +that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what +may be called the physical basis of emotion.</p> + +<p>What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to +well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It +may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and +excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the +appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This +is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions. +(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.)</p> + +<p>It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may +change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It +may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent +their evacuation.</p> + +<p>It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head +without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell; +<i>i.e.</i> may absolutely deprive the victim <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>of consciousness. In lesser +degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often +very distressing.</p> + +<p>It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about +sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show.</p> + +<p>It may completely deënergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or +power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser +degree with the form of fear called worry.</p> + +<p>The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation +which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily +response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase +the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the +"psychical" processes, but also it may deënergize to an extraordinary +degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and +action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely, +produce death.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty +laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion +has probably for one of its main <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>functions the producing of an effect +on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger +is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring +about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one +smiles or laughs <i>at</i> some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, +anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that +his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to +their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when +joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered +when pessimistic deënergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a +nation becomes energized with good news and success and deënergized when +the battle seems lost.</p> + +<p>The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or +the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a +social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous +housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her +family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties +are greatly weakened.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I +recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and +afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room, +seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the +very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever +hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps +the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the +predominant note.</p> + +<p>Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler, +obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile, +everything is wrong. You are a <i>deleted deleted deleted deleted</i> +rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of +anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She +gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. +White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, +bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face, +and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the +gingerbread from the butcher's boy.<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a> And that still hungry juvenile +slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back +doorstep.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly +it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at +any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual +happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as +disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes +down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered +by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes +a king off his throne.</p> + +<p>So when we trace the deënergizing emotions of the housewife, we are +tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; +we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood, +her emotion, into the future, into history.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Types Of Housewife Predisposed To Nervousness</h3> + + +<p>There are three main factors in the production of the nervousness of the +housewife, and they weave and interweave in a very complex way to +produce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how +simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. +Our housewife's symptoms are no exception, whether they are mainly +pains, aches, and fatigue, or the deeply motivated doubt or feeling of +unreality.</p> + +<p>The nature of the housewife, the conditions of her life, and her +relations to her husband are these three factors. All enter into each +case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There +are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essential cause, +others where it is the conditions <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>of her life, and still others where +the husband stands out as the source of her symptoms.</p> + +<p>We are now to consider the nature of the housewife as our first factor. +We may preamble this by saying that a woman essentially normal in one +relationship in life may be abnormal in some other, may be the +traditional square peg in the round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on +the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large +extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are +alike"—and then follows the specific accusation—"in fickleness", "in +extravagance", "in unreasonableness", in this trick or that. The chief +effort of conservatism is to make them alike, to fit each one for the +same life by the same training in habits, knowledge, abilities, and +ideals.</p> + +<p>Talk about Prussianism! The great Prussianism, with its ideal of +uniformity, serviceability, and servility, has been the masculine ideal +of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to taste +all its experiences, but woman had her sphere, which belied all +mathematics by being a narrow groove.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>The nineteenth century changed all that,—or started the change which +is going on with extraordinary rapidity in the twentieth. There are all +kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman +tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative +middle-of-the-road biologically, while man spreads out, but no one can +be sure of this until woman's early training to some extent resembles +man's.</p> + +<p>1. From the very start woman is trained to vanity. Every mother loves to +doll up her girl baby, and the child is admired for her dress and +appearance. Now it is an essential quality of the normal human being +that he accepts as an ideal the quality most admired. To the young +child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, +Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The +pretty girls, the ones most courted, the ones surest on the whole to get +married and to become housewives are usually spoiled by indulgence, +petting, admiration, and this for a quality not at all related to strong +character, and therefore vanity of a trivial kind results.</p> + +<p>2. Moreover, woman is trained to <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>emotionality. It may be that she is by +nature more emotional than man, but again this can only be known when +she has been trained to repress emotional response as a man is trained. +If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or +another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if +a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taught that tears are +potent weapons, a fact she uses with extraordinary effect later on, +especially in dealing with men. If she shows fear, she is protected, +sheltered, and given a sort of indulged inferiority.</p> + +<p>3. The romantic ideal is constantly held before her in the private +counsel of her mother, in the books she reads, in the plays she +witnesses, in all the allurements of art. She is to await the lover, the +hero; he will take her off with him to dwell in love and happiness +forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops +the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible +preparation for married life, excepting perhaps the <i>courtship</i>. This +latter emphasizes a distorted chivalry that makes of woman a petty thing +on a pedestal, <a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>out of touch with reality; it is an exciting entrance +into what in the majority of cases is a rather monotonous existence.</p> + +<p>All these things—vanity, emotionality, romanticism, courtship—are poor +training for the home. They hinder even the strongest woman, they are +fetters for the more delicate.</p> + +<p>In taking up the special types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife it is to be emphasized that conditions may bring about the +neurosis in the normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of +women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the +neurosis much more easily and much more intensely than do the normal +women. They are the types most commonly seen in the hospital clinic or +in the private consulting room of the neurologist.</p> + +<p>First comes the hyperæsthetic type. One of the chief marks of advancing +civilization is an increasing refinement of taste and desire. The +fundamental human needs are food, shelter, clothes, sex relations, and +companionship. These the savage has as well as his civilized brother, +and he finds them not only necessary but agreeable. What <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>we call +progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, +elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With +each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, +and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, desire +keeps pace with improvement, so that although great advances materially +have been made, there has been little advance, if any, in contentment. +This is because as we progress in refinement little things come to be +important, manner becomes more essential than matter, and we get to the +hyperæsthetic stage.</p> + +<p>Thus the dinner becomes less important than the manner of serving it. In +the "highest circles" it is the <i>savoir faire</i>, the niceties of conduct, +that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with +thought rather than the means of expressing it, and thought itself +scorns the elemental and fundamental and busies itself with the vagaries +of existence.</p> + +<p>From another angle, to the hyperæsthetic more and more things have +become disagreeable. To the man of simple tastes and simple <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>feelings, +only the calamities are disagreeable; to the hyperæsthetic every breeze +has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the +reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess +boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in +delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So +with the hyperæsthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a +deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of its savor; +sounds become noises; a bit of litter, dirt; a little reality, +intolerable crudity.</p> + +<p>A woman with this temperament is a poor candidate for matrimony unless +there goes with it a capacity for adjustment, unusual in this type. Most +men have their habitual crudities, their daily lapses, and every home is +the theater of a constant struggle with the disagreeable. Intensely +pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for +the shortcomings. The hyperæsthetic woman is constantly the prey of the +most deënergizing of emotions,—disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an +exaggerated <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>expression of her feeling. And her afflicted household size +up the situation with the brief analysis, "Everything makes her +nervous." Every one in her household falls under the tyranny of her +disposition, mingling their concern with exasperation, their pity with a +silent almost subconscious contempt.</p> + +<p>Next comes the over-conscientious type. Whatever conscience is, whether +implanted by God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, +and a social nature, there can be no question that, as the Court of +Appeals, it does harm as well as good.</p> + +<p>There are people whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of +crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, +and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there +are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two +directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their +own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to +reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they +become, as it were, a sort of misdirected Providence, raising havoc with +the happiness and comfort of others. Whether the con<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>scienceless or +those overburdened with this type of conscience have done more harm in +the world is perhaps an open question, which I leave to the historians +for settlement.</p> + +<p>The other type of the overconscientious does definite harm to +themselves. This type I have called the "Seekers of Perfection" and it +is their affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are +particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by +hyperæsthetic. Constantly they examine and reëxamine what they have +done. "Is it the best I can do?" "Should I rest now; have I the right to +rest?"</p> + +<p>Into every moment of enjoyment they obtrude conscience, or rather +conscience obtrudes itself. They become wedded to a purpose, and then +that purpose becomes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief +pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; +nothing is good but the best. The sense of humor is conspicuously +lacking in this type, for one of the main functions of humor is to +season effort and straining purpose with proportion.</p> + +<p>Should one of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually +"picking <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, +"finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never +finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, +unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly +chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the +strain, even though she have a dozen servants to help. For to this type +each helper is not at all an aid. At once up goes the standard of what +is to be done, and each servant becomes an added care, an added +responsibility.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to go out with you," wails this housewife, "but there's +something I must finish to-day." The word <i>must</i>, self-imposed, becomes +the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word +drives her to the real neglect of her husband, who becomes irritated at +her constant and to him needless activity, coupled with her complaints.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you rest if you are tired," is his stock remonstrance; "the +house looks all right to me."</p> + +<p>But it is futile. She becomes irritated, perhaps cries and says, "Just +like a man.<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a> It's clean to you if there are no cobwebs on the walls."</p> + +<p>Whereupon the debate closes, but the woman is the more deënergized and +the man exasperated at the unreasonableness of women in general and his +wife in particular.</p> + +<p>It is probably true that woman has more conscience, in so far as detail +is concerned, than man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, +more wedded to decorum. Man loves comfort and his interest is more +specialized and analytical, and as a rule he hates fussiness.</p> + +<p>This hatred of fussiness makes him long for the masculine clubroom, +gives him the kind of uneasiness that sends him off on a fishing trip or +hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, +many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of the Wife, the +Husband, and the Other Woman owes its existence, not to the charms of +the other woman, but to the overconscientious wife.</p> + +<p>The third type predisposed to the neurosis of the housewife is the +overemotional woman.</p> + +<p>We have already considered the effect of certain types of emotion on +health and en<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>durance and may formulate it as follows: Emotion may act +as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function +of the body. What we call nervousness is largely made up of abnormal +emotional response, of persistent emotion, of the blocking of energy by +emotion.</p> + +<p>Now people differ from the very start of life in their response to +situations. One baby, if he does not get what he wants, turns his +attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he +gets it. One will manifest anger and strike at being blocked or impeded +in his desires, and the other will implore and plead in a baby way for +his wish.</p> + +<p>In the face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts +hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a +fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a +fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past +experience and seeking a definite plan to gain his end.</p> + +<p>A loss, a deprivation, plunges one type of person into deepest sorrow, a +helpless sorrow, inert and symbolic of the hopeless frustration <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>of +love. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him +deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great +philanthropy, a great memorial to his grief. For the one, sorrow has +deënergized; for the other it has energized, has raised the efforts to a +nobler plane.</p> + +<p>Now there are women, and also men, to whom emotion acts like an overdose +of a drug. Parenthetically, emotion and certain drugs have very similar +effects. No matter how joyous the occasion and how exuberant their joy, +a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. +This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vision +of possible disaster to one they love may appear before them through +some stray mental association. They are at the mercy of every sad memory +and of every look into the future.</p> + +<p>Preëminently, they are the victims of that form of chronic fear called +worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He implied by this +name that it was a sort of degenerated "forethought."</p> + +<p>If the baby has a cough, then it may have tuberculosis or pneumonia or +some disastrous <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>illness, of which death is the commonest ending. How +often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she +does keep his telephone busy! It is true that a cough may be early +tuberculosis, but this is the last possibility rather than the first.</p> + +<p>If the husband is late, Heaven knows what may have happened. She has +visions of him lying dead in some morgue, picked up by the police, or +he's in a hospital terribly injured by an automobile, or, perchance, a +robber has sandbagged him and dragged him into a dark alley. If she is a +bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that +way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at +home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession +of her to the exclusion of the more rational; <i>she has a sort of +affinity for the terrible</i>. And when her husband comes home, the +profound fear in many cases turns sharply and quickly to anger at him. +Her distorted sense of responsibility makes him the culprit for her +unnecessary fear.</p> + +<p>Now it is true that almost every woman has something of this tendency, +but it is only <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>the extreme case that I am here depicting. In this +extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. The +Jewish home reverberates with emotionality and largely through this +attitude of the Jewish housewife.</p> + +<p>Such a woman is apt to make a slave of her family through their fear of +arousing her emotions. How frequently people are chained by their +sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny +of some one else's weakness, would fill one of the biggest chapters in a +true history of the human race,—a book that will probably never be +written.</p> + +<p>Naturally enough, this housewife finds plenty to worry about, to react +to, and since these reactions are physical, they have a lowering effect +on her energy.</p> + +<p>To those familiar with the conception that every emotion, every feeling, +needs a discharge, it will seem heretical when I say that the excessive +discharge of emotion is harmful. Freud finds the root of most nervous +trouble in repressed emotion. That is in part true, but it is also true +that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emo<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>tional +discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act +too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is +one of the great objects of training. It has for its goal the supremacy +of the noblest organ of the human being, his brain. For proper living +there must be emotion—there always will be—but it must be tempered +with intelligence if the best good of the individual and the race is to +be reached.</p> + +<p>The type of woman we must now study is a very modern product, the +non-domestic type.</p> + +<p>That the great majority of women have a maternal instinct does not +nullify the fact that a small number have none whatever. One of the +facts of life, not taken into account with a fraction of its true +significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide +range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and tastes. A +quality is said to be normal when the majority of the group possess it, +but it may be utterly lacking in a smaller number who are thereby +declared abnormal.</p> + +<p>At present, it is normal for woman to be domestic, <i>i.e.</i> to yearn for +husband, home, and children; to want to be a housewife. Un<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>fortunately, +all these yearnings do not hang closely together, and a woman may want a +husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, +and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike the housekeeping +activities of marriage. The sex and other instincts upon which marriage +is based are not always linked with the maternal and home-keeping +instincts.</p> + +<p>While this has probably always been true, it mattered little in olden +days. A woman regarded the home as her destiny and generally had +experienced no other life. But as was shown in the first chapter, +industry and feminism have given woman a taste of other kinds of life +and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. +Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private +secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for +some house; or she has dabbled in art or literature; or she has been a +factory girl mingling with hundreds of others, working hard, but in a +large group; or a saleslady in a department store,—and domestic life is +expected of her as if she had been trained for it. In fact, she has been +trained away from it.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>The novelists delight to tell us of the woman who seeks a career and +enters the struggle of her profession and fails. And then there comes, +just when her failure is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, +the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, +oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and will be happy—long row of +asterisks, and have children; and if it is a movie, a year or more +elapses and we are permitted to gaze upon a charming domestic scene.</p> + +<p>But alas for reel life as against real life! We are not shown how she +yearns for the activities of her old career; we are not shown the +feeling she constantly has that she is too good for housekeeping. If she +has been fortunate enough to marry a rich and indulgent man, she becomes +a dilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first +vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she +marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty +and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker +worm in the bud,—and we have the neurosis of this type of housewife. Or +else her <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>experience in business makes her size up her husband more +keenly, and we find her rebelling against his failure, criticizing him +either openly to the point of domestic disharmony, or inwardly to her +own disgust.</p> + +<p>It is not meant that all business and professional women, all typists +and factory girls are dissatisfied with marriage or develop an abnormal +amount of neurosis. Many a girl of this type really loves housekeeping, +really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, +clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent +experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman, +then the neurosis appears in full bloom. Against the adulation given to +women singers and actresses, against the fancied rewards of literature +and business, the domestic lot seems drab to this non-domestic type.</p> + +<p>Here the question arises: Is there room in our society for matrimony and +a business career? That a large number of exceptional women have found +it possible to be mothers, housewives, authors, and singers at one and +the same time does not take away from the fact that in the majority of +cases such a <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>combination means either a childless marriage or the +turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the +abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few +cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have +children are poor and work in factories, there is the greatest infant +mortality, there is the greatest amount of juvenile delinquency, and +there is the greatest amount of marital difficulty. Our present +conception of matrimony demands that woman remains in the home until +such time at least as her children are able to care largely for +themselves.</p> + +<p>In the history of the worst cases of the housewife's neurosis one finds +previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized, +the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously +existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in +college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it +occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This +previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional +strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in +examinations. It may have <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>followed acute illness, like influenza or +pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung, +delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep +readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of +energy.</p> + +<p>This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best +product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and +ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress +and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What +happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?"</p> + +<p>As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how +she marries. For after all a woman does not marry <i>matrimony</i>, she +marries a <i>man</i>, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic +woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to +give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she +is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than +if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social +worker, typist, factory <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>hand the rest of her days,—and she has +fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an +unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the +first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short +periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, +the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really +sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust +himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To +differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness +is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some +show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And +the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the +genuineness of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between +wife and husband.</p> + +<p>That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this +type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an +increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question +is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases.<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a> He will marry her, is +the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. +Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil +that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,—delicate, with a play +of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim +physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about +this type; she is either very lovely or a freak.</p> + +<p>So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it +is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is +more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that +something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of +neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real +knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of +cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and +Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration.</p> + +<p>But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is +usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical +possibilities of his off<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>spring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman +as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really +needs what only the rich can have,—servants, variety, frequent +vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even +the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who +ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, +and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man.</p> + +<p>Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and +we here pass to the physically ill housewife.</p> + +<p>It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, +properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of +exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses +that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the +diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, +or kidney disease, or with derangements of the sexual organs, may act +precisely like a nervous housewife,—may have pains and aches, changes +in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deënergized.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a +natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to +the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external +parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth +occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately +is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very +small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small +experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large +experience and high authority.</p> + +<p>In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe +that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her +predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage +women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no +reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, +woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first +birth.</p> + +<p>Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is +more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>athletic girl who +falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, +old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy +motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the +occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the +truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point.</p> + +<p>A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as +flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes +of ill health to be ruled out before "nervousness" (or its medical +equivalents) is to be diagnosed.</p> + +<p>It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few +of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women +do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperæsthetic in one +sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She +may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be +willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for +her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her +energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>but be +willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The +overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over +trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the +neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work +for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a +fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike +men.</p> + +<p>One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman +envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter +thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of +human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their +difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of +the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of +mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, +and we shall so consider them in a later chapter.</p> + +<p>Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>that great forces of +society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible. +From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider +them frankly and fully.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housework And The Home As Factors In The Neurosis</h3> + + +<p>One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless +advancement of desire,—and consequently the never-ending search for +contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in +the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to +further weary climbing.</p> + +<p>This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm +water it <i>feels</i> warm only for a short time, and you must add still +warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand. +The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our +desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must +lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires.</p> + +<p>This is to be emphasized in the case of the <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>housewife, but with this +additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on +what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out +of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one +expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to +discontent.</p> + +<p>What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, +thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed +wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the +neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the +increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied +life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, +discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the +factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness +of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework.</p> + +<p>What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status +of the house work.</p> + +<p>It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford +it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>greater and +greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the +so-called servant class dislikes the work. No amount of argument +therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be +essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it +that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one +likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the +dusting, the dishwashing, the clothes washing and ironing, the work that +is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be +begun. To say nothing of the care of the children!</p> + +<p>I do not class as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a +butler, and a chauffeur,—the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager +for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or +nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid +with whom she wrestles to do her share,—who relieves her somewhat but +not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, +only one woman in ten has any help at all!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife +may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large +extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the +science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of +child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home +(capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, +but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage +collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and +civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable.</p> + +<p>"Fine words butter no parsnips." There are some rare souls who lend to +the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person +frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes +housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique +it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, +ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods.</p> + +<p>All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of +the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>to quarrel +with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel +hides nuts,—on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, +aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family +feeling demand it.</p> + +<p>This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the +woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home +and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the +main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads +almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are +essentials, in the housework,—monotony, daydreaming, and introspection.</p> + +<p>Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a +paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst +punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need +the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies +the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the +presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of +interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>itself is +pleasurable only in rare snatches, for short periods of time or for rare +and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes +uneasy when confronted by itself.</p> + +<p>The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, +is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom +or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It +is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and +fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exotic +in his vain search for what is logically impossible,—lasting novelty. +Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of +interest and concentrated purpose as well.</p> + +<p>People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this +is often a constitutional matter as well as a matter of education. What +is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same +value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge +interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, +taught to expect cer<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>tain things, may find no need of other newer +things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need +a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it.</p> + +<p>The most important stimuli are other <i>persons</i>, capable of setting into +action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham +Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas",—ideas called into +being by words, moods, and deeds of others.</p> + +<p>It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. +"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It +is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to +talk <i>at</i>; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the +flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds +are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of +which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly +disastrous to others.</p> + +<p>If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection +may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>beginning of +marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of +understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children +that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her +thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements +of her life.</p> + +<p>But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams +pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back +to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The +daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A +struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep +in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest +disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and +weariness of life often results.</p> + +<p>One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little +group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit +sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a +person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, +and all are bright, <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the +monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, +the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the +unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,—the hearth. But for the +housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her +husband does.</p> + +<p>Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the +woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is +the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of +women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more +strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework +a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman +depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and +the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing +number of women to settle down to home-keeping.</p> + +<p>The housewife is <i>par excellence</i> a sedentary creature. She goes to work +when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, +very frequently without <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>having stirred from the home. A great many +women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next +to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as +hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery.</p> + +<p>It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are +possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent +conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If +there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, +seem the logical way of resting up.</p> + +<p>Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It +tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. +Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the +exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. +Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, +running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before +civilization made necessary and pleasurable.</p> + +<p>With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. +Frequently <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite +every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a +female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better +still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good +part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent +enough result to find him "logy" on Monday.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely +eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each +course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The +dishes <i>must</i> be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that +peace of mind so necessary for good digestion.</p> + +<p>An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the +family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and +various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of +oilcloth,—then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much +of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous +waste of human energy and happiness.</p> + +<p>An important result of the sedentary life <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>is constipation. Woman, under +the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her +mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged +beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate +structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the +hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are +not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism +amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated +biped."</p> + +<p>While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also +true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as +a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it +destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the +efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an +autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the +importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon +mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia.</p> + +<p>These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of +sedentary life <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>bear with especial weight upon the woman of little +means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth. +There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, +as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and +deënergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a +sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as +inflicting injury on the personality.</p> + +<p>Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. "It's hell to be poor" is +the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical +injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still +more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the +physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery +and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of +childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without +conveniences and necessities.</p> + +<p>That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens +is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would +be a wreck morally, physically, <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>and mentally if he coped with his +wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get +down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and +cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs +of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as +non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little +animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in +the home would disappear.</p> + +<p>Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only +in spots coöperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I +think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which +they enjoy in their clubs.</p> + +<p>This digression aside, there are debilitating factors in the housewife's +lot which need some amplification. We have referred to the insufficient +time for convalescence from childbirth. There are <i>sequelæ</i> of +childbirth, such as varicose veins, flat feet, back strain, that render +the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest +enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to +rest, and with recourse <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>either to her overbusy family doctor or to the +overburdened, careless, out-patient department of some hospital, drags +along with her troubles year in and year out, becomes old before her +time, and loses through constant pain and distress the freshness of +life.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to separate the psychical factors from the physical, +largely because there is no separation. One of the aims of a woman's +life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest +days this is held out to her as a way to praise, flattery, and power. It +becomes a cardinal purpose, a goal, even an ideal.</p> + +<p>Unlike the purposes of men this goal is attained early, if at all, and +then Nature or Life strip it away. The well-to-do woman or the +exceptional poor woman may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial +beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have +usually given up the struggle. For the poor woman the fading comes +early,—household work, bearing children, sedentary life, worry, and a +non-appreciative husband bringing about the fatal change.</p> + +<p>I doubt if men see their youth slipping <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>away with the anguish of women. +To men, maturity means success, greater proficiency, more +achievement,—means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main +purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical hold on +their mate, loss of the longed for and delightful admiration of others; +it means substantially the frustration of purpose.</p> + +<p>And I have noticed that the very worst cases of neurosis of the +housewife come in the early thirties, in women previously beautiful or +extraordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine +wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something +of the anguish that the general watches the enemy cutting off his lines +of communication or a statesman marks the rise of an implacable rival.</p> + +<p>Popular literature, popular art, and popular drama, including in this by +a vigorous stretching of the idea the movie, are in a conspiracy against +reality. This is of course because of the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." +While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in +so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what +really happens is that the disagreeable <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>phases of life, not being +faced, persist. To have a blind side for the disagreeable does not rule +it out of existence; in fact, it thus gains in effect.</p> + +<p>To say that housekeeping is looked upon essentially as menial, to say +that it is monotonous, that it is sedentary, and has the ill effects +that arise from these characteristics, is not to deny that it has +agreeable phases. It has an agreeable side in its privacy, its +individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. +That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and +scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt +on these. The agreeable phases of the housewife's work do not cause her +neurosis; it is the disagreeable in her life that do. Or rather it is +what any individual housewife finds disagreeable that is of importance, +and it is my task to show what these things are, how they work, and +finally what to do about it.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Reaction To The Disagreeable</h3> + + +<p>A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot +will be of value.</p> + +<p>We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three +groups,—the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two +men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or +disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are +people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another +man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what +one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not +cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. +And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent.</p> + +<p>1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to +cause fear.<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a> This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal +reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as +the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. +Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out +of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not +experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in +sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor +religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact fear is <i>a</i> (I almost said <i>the</i>) great motive force +of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear +of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of +disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is +the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of +thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life +insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our +fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity +with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works +hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by +sentimentalists,—anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by +obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze +forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, +or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with +thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may +range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation +against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. +Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or +other it would never be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different +times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or +thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is +paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deënergization.</p> + +<p>Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be +met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive +<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>action, or it may be met with a deënergization, confusion, paralysis, +hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high +constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and +the peculiar agony of doubt.</p> + +<p>This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For +the situation is never clear-cut for decision—there is the ideal +implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to +live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, +weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This +conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can +neither accept nor reject the situation.</p> + +<p>This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of +view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, +some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind +and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon +some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of +his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing +of time.<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a> This passing of time can be received equably by the one +conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and +purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases +which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are +reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in +mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where +they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle +is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of +impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a +neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that +a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring +about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, +hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt.</p> + +<p>With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us +turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may +cause her neurosis.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the +biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been +recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of +human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the +mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the +maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love +and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their +natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While +the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for +all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source +of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children.</p> + +<p>Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the +maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the +interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle +between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in +the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. +All the world honors the mother, but few children <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>return in anything +like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother.</p> + +<p>Is the maternal instinct waning in intensity in this period of +feminization? There have always been some bad, careless, selfish +mothers; has their number increased? Probably not, yet the maternal +instinct now has competition in the heart of the modern woman. The +desire to participate in the world's activity, the desire to learn, to +acquire culture, engenders a restless impatience with the closed-in life +of the mother-housewife. This interferes with single-minded motherhood, +brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of +course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of +the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of +many.</p> + +<p>The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her +children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been +touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as +a group.</p> + +<p>We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman +has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>ancestress. If +this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are +often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in +their memories) there are several explanations.</p> + +<p>First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first +child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and +that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing +difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body, +loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for +childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular +organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows +older.</p> + +<p>Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of +the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic +nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important +factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are +part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion +plays a rôle of importance in childbearing. The modern <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>woman <i>fears</i> +childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater +knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life.</p> + +<p>Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a +need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more +difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and +yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often +seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to +nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it +cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened +sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's +supply.</p> + +<p>The feeling of great responsibility for her child's welfare that the +modern woman has acquired, as a result of popular education in these +matters, undoubtedly saves infants' lives and is therefore worth the +price. A secondary result of importance, and one not good, is the added +liability to fatigue and breakdown that the mother acquires. This factor +we meet again in the next phase of our <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>subject, the education and +training of children.</p> + +<p>Though the number of children has conspicuously decreased, the care and +attention given them has increased in inverse proportion. The woman with +six children or more turned over the younger children to the older ones, +so that her burden, though heavy, was much less than it may seem. +Further, though she loved and cared for them, she knew far less of +hygiene than her descendant; she did not try to bring them up in a +germless way; and her household activities kept her too busy to allow +her to notice each running nose, or each "festering sore." Not having +nearly so much knowledge of disease, she had much less fear and was +spared this type of deënergization. Her daughter views with alarm each +cough and sneeze, has sinister forebodings with each rash; pays an +enormous attention to the children's food, and through an increasing +attention to detail in her child's life and actions has a greater +liability to break under the greater responsibility and +conscientiousness.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered that the feeling of responsibility and +apprehensive attention is <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>not merely "mental." It means fatigue, more +disturbance of appetite, and less restful sleep. These are things of +great importance in causing nervousness; in fact, they constitute a +large part of it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps another generation will find that hygiene can be taught without +producing fussiness and fear. Certainly popular education has its value, +but it has a morbid side that now needs attention. This morbid side is +not only bad for the mother but is unqualifiedly bad for the child.</p> + +<p>For the child of to-day, the center of the family stage in his +attention, is often either spoiled or made neurasthenic by his +treatment. Either he is frankly indulged, or else an over-critical +attitude is taken toward him. "Bad habits must not be formed" is the +actuating motive of the overconscientious parents, for they do not seem +to know that the "trial and error" method is the natural way of +learning. Children take up one habit after another for the sake of +experience and discard them by themselves. For a child to lie, to steal, +to fight, to be selfish, to be self-willed is not at all unnatural; for +him to have bad table manners and to forget admonition <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>in general and +against these manners in particular is his birthright, so to speak.</p> + +<p>Yet many a mother of to-day torments her child into a bad introspection +and self-consciousness, herself into neurasthenia, and her husband into +seething rebellion, because of her desire for perfection, because of her +fear that a "bad act" may form into a habit and thence into a vicious +character.</p> + +<p>Especially is this true of the overæsthetic, overconscientious types +described in Chapter III. I have seen women who made the dinner table +less a place to eat than a place where a child was pilloried for his +manners,—pilloried into sullen, appetiteless state.</p> + +<p>So, too, an unfortunate publicity given to child prodigies brought with +it for a short time an epidemic of forced intellectual feeding of +children, that produced only a precocious neurasthenia as its great +result. Similarly the Montessori method of child training which made +every woman into a kindergarten teacher did a hundred times more harm +than good, despite the merits of the system. That a child needs to +experiment with life himself means that it will be a long time before +the average mother will know how to help him.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>A factor that tends to perplex the mother and hurts the training of the +child is her doubt as how "to discipline." Shall it be the old-fashioned +corporal punishment of a past generation, the appeal to pain and blame? +Shall it be the nowadays emphasized moral suasion, the appeal to +conscience and reason? With all the preachers of new methods filling her +ear she finds that moral suasion fails in her own child's case, and yet +she is afraid of physical punishment.</p> + +<p>This is not the place to study child training in any extensive manner, +yet it needs be said that praise and blame, pleasure and pain, are the +great incentives to conduct. One cannot drive a horse with one rein; +neither can one drive a child into social ways, social conformity by one +emotion or feeling. Corporal punishment is a necessity, sparingly used +but vigorously used when indicated. Of course praise is needed and so is +reward.</p> + +<p>What is here to be emphasized is that a sense of great responsibility +and an over-critical attitude toward the children is a factor of +importance in the nervous state of the modern housewife. Increasing +knowledge and increasing demand have brought <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>with them bad as well as +good results. Here as elsewhere a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, +but a more serious difficulty is this,—though fads in training arise +that are loudly proclaimed as the only way, there is as yet no real +science of character or of character growth.</p> + +<p>The tragedy of illness is acute everywhere, and the sick child is in +every household. In many cases I have traced the source of the +housewife's neurosis to the care and worry furnished by one child. There +are truly delicate children who "catch everything", who start off by +being difficult to nurse, and who pass from one infection to another +until the worried mother suspects disease with every change in the +child's color. A sick child is often a changed child, changed in all the +fundamental emotions,—cranky, capricious, unaffectionate, difficult to +care for. A sick child means, except where servants and nurses can be +commanded, disturbed sleep, extra work, confinement to the house, heavy +expense, and a heightened tension that has as its aftermath, in many +cases, collapse. The savor of life seems to go, each day is a throbbing +suspense.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>With recovery, if the woman can rest, in the majority of cases no +marked degree of deënergization follows. But in too many cases rest is +not possible, though it is urgently needed. The mother needs the care of +convalescence more than does the child.</p> + +<p>There is an extraordinary lack of provision for the tired housewife. +True there are sanataria galore, with beautiful names, in pretty places, +well equipped with nurses and doctors to care for their patients. But +these are prohibitive in price, and at the present writing the cheapest +place is about forty dollars per week. This rate puts them out of the +reach of the great majority who need them.</p> + +<p>Moreover, where there are small children and where there is no trusty +servant or some kindly relative or friend it seems impossible for the +housewife to leave the home. Her husband must work daily for their bread +and unless they are willing to turn to the charitable organizations, it +is necessary for the housewife to carry on, despite her fatigue. So at +the best she gets an hour or two extra rest a day, takes a "little +tonic" from the family doctor and gets along with her pains, her aches, +and moods as best she can.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>But the sick do not always recover. Fortunately, the average human +being grieves a while over death, but the life struggle soon absorbs +him, and the bereavement itself becomes a memory. But now and then one +meets mothers whose griefs and deprivations seem without end. No +religion, no philosophy can bring them back into continuity with their +lives. They go about in a sorrowful dream, hugging their affliction, +resenting any effort to comfort or console; without interest in the +daily task or in those whom they should love. They offer the severest +problem in readjustment, in reënergization, for they actively resent +being helped. Sometimes one believes their grief is an effort to atone +for neglect real or fancied, a self-punishment which is not remitted +until full atonement has been made.</p> + +<p>Aside from the physical difficulties in the bearing and rearing of +children, and in addition to the ordinary mental difficulties, such as +judging what discipline to use, there are especial problems of some +importance. Men vary in character from the saint to the villain, in +ability from the genius to the idiot. The children they once were vary +as much.<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a> There are children who go through the worst of homes, the +worst of environments, the worst of trainings,—and come out pure gold, +with characters all the better for the struggle. There are others whom +no amount of love, discipline, training, and benefits help; they are +despicable from the ordinary viewpoint from the first of life to the +last. Some children, adversely situated as to poverty and health, become +geniuses, and their reverse is in the poor child whom heredity, early +disease, or some freak of nature dooms to feeble-mindedness.</p> + +<p>The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, +and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be +overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her +maternal love.</p> + +<p>It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who +evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the +housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love +injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a +nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children.</p> + +<p>The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>destructive, and quarrelsome, +or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually +runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time +goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between +hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc +with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife +neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with +mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results.</p> + +<p>Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the +child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and +the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous +illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the +teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time +the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that +"the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he +should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the +pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and +feeble-mindedness is recognized.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust +themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all +the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their +normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I +am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or +incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with +the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of +fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly +reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental +hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes +with the legitimate work.</p> + +<p>There is no offhand solution for the case of the incorrigible boy or +girl. Of course the largest number sooner or later reform, sometimes +overnight, and in a way to remind one of the religious conversions that +James speaks of in his "Varieties of Religious Experiences." So long as +a child has a social streak in his make-up, so long as he at least is +responsive to the praise and blame of others and understands that he +does wrong, so <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>long may one hope for him. But the child to whom the +opinion of others seems of no value, who follows his own egoism without +check or control by the accepted standard of conduct, by the moral law, +by the praise and blame of those near to him, is almost hopeless. Some +day intelligence may keep him out of trouble, but by itself it cannot +change his nature.</p> + +<p>It is not sufficiently realized that while there has been a rise of +feminism there has also been a great change in the status of children, a +change that makes their care far more difficult than in the past. They +have risen from subordinate figures in the household, schooled in +absolute obedience, "to be seen and not heard," to the central figures +in the household. One of the strangest of revolutions has taken place in +America, taken place in almost every household, and without the notice +of historians or sociologists. That is because these professional +students of humanity have their attention focused on little groups of +figures called the leaders, and not nearly enough on that mass which +gives the leaders their direction and power.</p> + +<p>The age of the child! His development <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>parallels that of women, in that +an individualization has taken place. In the past education and training +took notice of the child-group, not of the individual child. But +child-culture has taken on new aspects, punishment has been largely +superseded, individual study and treatment are the thing. Personality is +the aim of education, especial aptitudes are recognized in the various +types of schools that have arisen: commercial, industrial, classical; +yes, and even schools for the feeble-minded.</p> + +<p>All this is admirable, and in another century will bring remarkable +results. Even to-day some good has come, but this is largely vitiated by +other influences.</p> + +<p>Aside from the fact that the attention paid the child often increases +his self-importance and makes his wishes more capricious, there are +factors that tend to rob him of his naïveté.</p> + +<p>These factors are the movies, the newspapers, and the spread of +luxurious habits amongst children.</p> + +<p>The movies are marvelous agents for the spread of information and +misinformation. Because of the natural settings they give to the most +absurd and unnatural stories, <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>their essential falsity and unreality is +often made the more pernicious. Their possibilities for good are +enormous, their actual performance is conspicuously to lower the public +taste, to create a habit which discourages earnest reading or +intelligent entertainment. For children they act as a stimulant of an +unwholesome kind, acquainting them with realistic crime, vice, and +vulgarity, giving them a distaste for childlike enjoyment. One sees +nowadays altogether too often the satiated child who seeks excitement, +the cynical, overwise child filled with the lore of the movies.</p> + +<p>In similar fashion the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an +extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the +funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor +is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and +thoroughly enjoyable to those whom it cannot harm.</p> + +<p>If the historians of, say, 4500 A.D. were by chance to get hold of a few +copies of our newspapers of 1920 they might legitimately conclude that +the denizen of this remote period expressed surprise by falling backward +out of <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>his shoes, expressed disagreement by striking the other person +over the head with a brick or a club; that women were always taller than +their mates and usually "beat them up"; that all husbands, especially if +elderly, chased after every young and pretty girl. They might conclude +that the language of the mass of the people was of such remarkable types +as this: "You tell them Casket, I'm Coffin", or "the Storm and Strife is +coming; beat it!"</p> + +<p>No one I think enjoys the comic page more than the present writer,—yet +it spreads a demoralizing virus amongst children. Of what use is it to +teach children good English when the newspaper deliberately teaches them +the cheapest slang? Of what use is it to teach them manners and +kindliness when the newspaper constantly spreads boorishness and "rough +house" conduct? Of what use is it to raise taste when this is injured at +the very outset of life by giving bad taste a fascinating attraction?</p> + +<p>Throughout the community there is a stir and excitement that is +reflecting on the children. There are so many desirable luxuries in the +world now, so many revealed by movie and symbolized by the automobile, +<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>the cabaret, the increasing vulgarity of the theater (the disappearance +of the drama and the omnipresent girl and music show), a restless search +for pleasure throughout the community even before the War, have not +missed the child.</p> + +<p>All these things make the lot of the housewife harder in so far as the +training of her children is concerned. She is dealing with a more alert, +more sophisticated, more sensuous child,—and one who knows his place +and power. The press and the theater both have knowledge of this and a +recent witty play dealt with the sins of the children, paraphrasing of +course the classic of a bygone day, "Sins of the Fathers." And a wise +old gentleman said to his grandson recently, when the lad complained +about his mother, "Of course you are right. Every son has a right to be +obeyed by his mother."</p> + +<p>I am by no means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but +nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we +shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the +value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a rôle in the world of +great im<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>portance,—but the spread of education and opportunity to the +mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to +survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the +agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the +woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think +are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and +replaced, but which are yet of importance.</p> + +<p>And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep +from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him +from sophistication.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Poverty And Its Psychical Results</h3> + + +<p>In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning +of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save +mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty. +Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of +poverty,—the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven, +and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of +reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha +knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the +desperate struggle to reach riches.</p> + +<p>We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of +poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged +or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,—that +would be <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack +of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth +are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect +traceable in the conditions we are studying.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the +cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of +housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does +more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what +the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing +objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That +is the long and short of it,—the Emancipation Proclamation did not +include them.</p> + +<p>Aside from the physical effects of poverty on the housewife, there are +factors of psychical importance that call for a hearing. After all, what +is poverty in one age is riches in another; what is poverty for one man +is wealth to his neighbor. More than that, what a man considers riches +in anticipation is poverty in realization. Here again we deal with the +mounting of desire.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>The philosophical, contented woman, satisfied with her life even though +it is poor, is exempted from one great factor making for breakdown. +Contentment is the great shield of the nervous system, the great bulwark +against fatigue and obsession. But contentment leads away from +achievement, which springs from discontent, from yearning desire. +Whether civilization in the sense of our achievements is worth the price +paid is a matter upon which the present writer will not presume to pass +judgment. Whether it is or not, Mankind is committed to struggle onward, +regardless of the result to his peace of mind.</p> + +<p>There are two principal psychical injuries with poverty—fear and +worry—and we must pass to their consideration as factors in the +neuroses of some women.</p> + +<p>Worry is chronic fear directed against a life situation, usually +anticipated. Man the foreseeing must worry or he dies,—dies of +starvation, disease, disaster. It is true that worry may be excessive +and directed either against imaginary or inevitable ills; ills that +never come, ills that must come, like old age and death.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>Men in comfortable places cry "Why worry?" meaning of course that the +most of worry is about ills that are never realized. That is true, but +the person living just on the brink of disaster, ruined or made +dependent on charity by unemployment, a long illness, or any failure of +power and strength, cannot be as philosophical as the man fortified by a +nice bank account or dividend-paying investments. These well-to-do +advisers of the poor remind one of the heroes of ancient fables who, +having magic weapons and impenetrable armor, showed no fear in battle. +One wonders how much courage they would have had if armed as their +foemen were.</p> + +<p>For the poor housewife who sees no escape from poverty, whose husband is +either a workman or a struggling business man always on the edge of +failure, life often seems like a wall closing in, a losing battle +without end.</p> + +<p>Especially in the middle-aged, in those approaching fifty, does this +happen. Aside from the condition produced by "change of life", the +so-called involution period, there is a reaction of the "time of life" +that is found very commonly. For old age is no longer far off on the +horizon; it is close at hand, <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>around the corner, and the looking-glass +proclaims its coming. The woman wonders whether her husband will long be +able to keep up,—and then "what will become of us?"</p> + +<p>To be thrown on the benevolence of children is a sad ending to +independent natures, to people of experience. Crudely put, those who +have been dependents are now sustainers; those who have been led now +guide; the inferiors are the superiors. This is not cynicism, for with +the best intentions in the world, if the children are also poor, the +care of the parents is a burden that they cannot help showing, sooner or +later.</p> + +<p>Looking forward to such an ending to the hard work and struggle of a +lifetime is part of the worry of poverty, to be classed with the fear of +sickness and unemployment.</p> + +<p>We may loudly proclaim that one honest man is as good as another, that +character is the measure of worth, that success cannot be measured by +money. These things are true; the difficulty is not to make people +believe it, it is to make people <i>feel</i> it. Deeply ingrained in poverty +is not alone to be deprived of things desired; more important is the +feeling of inferiority that goes with the condi<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>tion. Only in the +Bohemia of the novelists do the poor feel equal to the rich.</p> + +<p>One of the fundamental strivings of the human being is the enlargement +of the self-feeling, which fundamentally is the wish to be superior, to +have the admiration and homage of others. All daydreaming builds this +air castle; all ambition has this as its goal. No matter how we disguise +it to ourselves and others, the main ends of purpose are power and +place. True, we may wish for power and place so as to help others; we +may wish them as the result of constructive work and achievement, but +the enlargement of self-feeling is the end result of the striving.</p> + +<p>To be poor is to be inferior in feeling and applies equally to men and +women. Man is a competitive-social animal and competes in everything, +from the cleverness and beauty of his children to the excellence of his +taste in hats. Money has the advantage of being the symbol of value, of +being concrete and definite, and of having the inestimable property of +purchasing power.</p> + +<p>Now woman is as competitive as her mate. A housewife vies with her +neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>youth, her +husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,—vies with +her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women +(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry +only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the +greater part of it has this origin.</p> + +<p>Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a +great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from +these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends +unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is +envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from +himself.</p> + +<p>Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be +satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that +is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of +the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous +sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of +her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when +she is out<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>stripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by +her relatives and intimate friends.</p> + +<p>Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their +children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a +good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all +their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the +bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children +respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of +their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have +drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then +the breakdown is tragic.</p> + +<p>A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his +children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but +he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,—that the +average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them +for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on +their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother +usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares +this desire except in a mild way.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>It may be that there was a time when classes were more fixed, that +poverty had less of humiliation and blocked desire than it has at +present. That society of all grades is restless with the desire for +luxury seems without doubt. How profoundly the psychology of the masses +is being altered by education, by the newspaper, the magazine, the +movie, the automobile, the fashion changes that make a dress obsolete in +a season and above all the department store and the alluring +advertisement, no one can hope to even estimate. Modern capitalism reaps +great wealth by developing the luxurious, the spendthrift tastes of the +poor. It would be a peculiar poetic justice that will make that +development into the basis of revolution.</p> + +<p>The women of the poor are perhaps even more restless than the men. In +fact, it is the women that set the pace in these matters. This is +because to woman has fallen the spending of the family funds, a fact of +great importance in bringing about discord in the house. As the shopper +the poor woman now sees the beautiful things that her ancestors knew +nothing of, since there were no department stores in those days. To-day +desires are <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>awakened that cannot be fulfilled; she sees other women +buying what she can only long for, and an active discontent with her lot +appears.</p> + +<p>Unphilosophical this, and severely to be deprecated as unworthy of +woman. This has been done so often and so effectively(?) by divines, +reformers, press, that a mere physician begs leave to remark that it is +a natural sequence of the publicity luxury to-day has. <i>The most +successful commercial minds of America are in a conspiracy against the +poor Housewife to make her discontented with her lot by increasing her +desires</i>; they are on the job day and night and invade every corner of +her world; well, they have succeeded. The divines, etc., who thunder +against luxury have no word to say against the department store and the +advertising manager.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housewife And Her Husband</h3> + + +<p>The husband differs from the wife in this fundamental,—that essentially +he is not a house man as she is a house woman. For the man the home is +the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here +also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity. +Man writes songs and books about the home, but the woman lives there. +Perhaps that is why women have not written sentimental verse about it.</p> + +<p>Marriage is variously regarded. "It is a sacrament, a religious +sanction, and not to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very +large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered +into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is +the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat +this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction +alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics +is an undisputed fact.</p> + +<p>It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has +been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict +between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This +conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life +of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their +attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate.</p> + +<p>For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean +merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in +the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has +become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their +energies.</p> + +<p>Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its +eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil +relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches +that if it is <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, +brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a +source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out +their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with +daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods +and emotions of all of us.</p> + +<p>This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part +of the neurosis of the housewife.</p> + +<p>After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with +whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she +becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss +as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live +apart, have no children and meet occasionally,—for obvious purposes. +Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the +virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties.</p> + +<p>This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and +successful the happiest human experience. Soberly speak<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>ing, it is then +the flower of existence, satisfying biologically and humanly, giving +peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy +ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of +youth leave us. Warm, cozy, intense domesticity, where passion is +legitimate and love and friendship eternal; where children play around +the hearth fire; of which death only is the ending!</p> + +<p>This ideal is not realized largely because no ideal is. How often is it +closely approximated? Experience says seldom. That implies no reproach +against marriage, for we are to judge marriage by the rest of life and +not by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which +economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never +absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in +the larger policies and where folly occupies the high places,—why +expect marriage to be more nearly perfect than the life of which it is a +part? To be reasonably comfortable and happy in marriage is all we may +expect.</p> + +<p>What are the difficulties confronting the partners which impede +happiness and espe<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>cially which bring the neurosis of the housewife? For +after all we can only examine the field for our own purpose.</p> + +<p>We may divide the difficulties as follows from the standpoint of the +neurosis of the housewife:</p> + +<p>1. Those that arise from the sex relationship itself.</p> + +<p>2. Those that arise from conflicts of will, purpose, ideas.</p> + +<p>3. Those that arise from the types of husbands.</p> + +<p>4. Those that arise from the types of wives. (This has already been +considered under the heading Types Predisposed to the Neurosis.)</p> + +<p>Before we go on to the consideration of these various factors we must +repeat what has been emphasized frequently in this book.</p> + +<p>That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the +marriage relationship. If only <i>one</i> will is expected to be dominant in +the household, the man's, then there can arise no conflict. If the form +of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or +expects equality, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat +her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>the case and still is in +some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes +of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an +unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest +disagreement. In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a +woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, +ideas, and ideals have never been developed,—the ancient woman; it is +very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister.</p> + +<p>Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex. +Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than +frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy +has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence +shrouding the wrecks of many a life.</p> + +<p>The sex relationship is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of +Rosalind still holds good. The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for +coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of +possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated +by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no +marriage <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless +of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first +year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for +companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen. Complementary +to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the +woman, arises from the first marital embrace.</p> + +<p>This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance +wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before +marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore +knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has +been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to +deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected +of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and +even those who know are unprepared for reality.</p> + +<p>Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a +paramount "Jus Primis Noctis." True, the majority of men are abashed in +the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,—but others follow in +a <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of +experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman +can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night.</p> + +<p>There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an +elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, +but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the +ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and +expert, is needed by our civilization.</p> + +<p>The sex appetite varies as widely as any other human character. +Generally speaking, it is believed that sexual passion in women is more +episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many +cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life +until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. +Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less +conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his +feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of +boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>passion than to +the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him +devolves not only courtship but the fundamental activity in the sexual +act. A passionless woman may have sexual relation, a passionless man +cannot.</p> + +<p>The disparity in sex desire between a husband and wife may be slight or +great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very +nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity +exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is +suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a +subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring +about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue. +Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is +lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked +nature.</p> + +<p>A woman sexually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy +mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good +woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the sex +attachment. Demureness of appearance, re<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>finement of manner, noble +ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is +no reason why strong, well-controlled passion should be considered +anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the sexual field should, +under the social restriction, be regarded as impure.</p> + +<p>Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often +govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to +live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological +reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. +Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one +roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous +counsel to dissipate.</p> + +<p>This purely occidental idea that sexual pleasure is somehow unworthy is +responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the +physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, +though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. +Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the +part of the man to bring about that adjust<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>ment. This part of the +adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are +explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of +our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without +gratification brings about nervous instability.</p> + +<p>Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, +is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first +ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single +chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room +is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find +comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner +sleeps beside them. Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, +there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does +not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons.</p> + +<p>A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are +politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly +changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that +necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>concerned here +with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman +undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be +voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity +and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living +as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her +husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to +adjust themselves to this situation.</p> + +<p>The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a +woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her +monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk +almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of +the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely +allayed it.</p> + +<p>Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every +"solution" breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness. +Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction. +Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and +some are left excited and <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, +neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in +many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the +neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of +neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The +channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old. And this new +development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to +deënergize the organism.</p> + +<p>At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as +women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually +called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively +belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, +collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of +men,—smoking, drinking,—are building up a club life, live in bachelor +apartments, call each other by their last names, etc.</p> + +<p>Whether with this goes a greater sexual license or not it is difficult +to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a +decrease in female chastity,—that<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a> the entrance of women in industrial +life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater +freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have +brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's.</p> + +<p>The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked +by a hyper-sexuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more +common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The +dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for sex +allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that +only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of +the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the +day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music +show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost +disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the +risqué; with titles that are sometimes much more clever than their +contents.</p> + +<p>Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is +doubtful if they <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>ever affected so large a number of people. The +excitement of the daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this +brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. +She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as +well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more +dissatisfied and therefore more nervous.</p> + +<p>Altogether the sexual relationship of modern marriage needs a candid +examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in sexual +affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure +of the sex-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. +Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from +the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is +being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the +fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in +the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is +more disastrous if possible than prudery.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Housewife And Her Household Conflicts</h3> + + +<p>The problems of life are not all sexual, and in fact even in the +relations of men and women there are more important factors. After all, +as Spencer pointed out in a marvelous chapter, love itself is a +composite of many things, some, of the earth, earthy, and some of the +finest stuff our human life holds. The aspirations, the ideals, the +yearnings of the girl attach themselves to some man as their +fulfillment; the chivalrous feelings, the desire to protect and cherish, +the passion for beauty of the man lead to some girl as their goal. There +are few for whom the glow and ardor of their young love bring no +refinement of their passion; there are few who have not felt a pulsating +unity with all that love and live, at least for some ecstatic moments. +Something of what James has so beautifully <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>designated as the "aura of +infinity that hangs over a young girl" also lingers over the love of men +and women.</p> + +<p>All the cynics and epigram makers in the world agree that love ends with +marriage, and this not only in modern times but even back into those +days of the French Court of Love, when Margaret de Valois decided that +the lover had more claims than the husband. Romance dies with marriage +is the plaint of poet and novelists; the charm of woman disappears with +her mystery, with possession. And the typical humorist speaks of the +curl papers and kimono of the wife, the snores and unshaven beard of the +husband. "Familiarity is the death of passion" is the theme of countless +writers who bemoan its passing in the matrimonial state.</p> + +<p>How much harm the romantic tales have done to marriage and the +sober-satisfying everyday life, no one can estimate, no one can +overestimate. Romanticism, which extols sex as the prime and only thing +of life, prudery which closes its eyes to it and makes sour faces, need +special places in Dante's Inferno. Neither has dealt with +reality,—reality, which is satisfying and pleasant unless <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>examined +with the prejudices instilled by the hypersexual romance writer and the +perverted sexuality of the prude.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless that two people brought up entirely differently, and having +different attitudes towards love and life, should come into sharp +conflict is to be expected. Further, that disillusionment follows after +the excitement and heightened expectation of courtship is inevitable. +Marriage at the best includes a settlement to routine; it carries with +it an adjustment to reality, a getting down to earth that is painful and +disappointing to minds fed to expect thrill and passion with each +moment.</p> + +<p>The idealization of the mate—the man or woman—gives way to a gradually +increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, +earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save +the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more +solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality +what it loses in intensity.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, in many cases to a great extent and in all to some +extent, there arises dissension natural wherever two human beings meet +on anything like equal terms.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>In times past (and in many countries at the present time), the +patriarchal household prevailed. The Head of the House was the father, a +sovereign either stern or indulgent according to his nature. Perhaps his +wife ruled him through his love for her, as women have ruled from the +beginning of things, but if she did it was not by right but by +privilege.</p> + +<p>America has changed all that, so say all native and foreign observers. +Here the woman rules; here she drags her husband after her like a tail +to a kite; here she is mistress and he obeys, though nominally still +head of the household. All the humorists emphasize this, and the +novelist depicts it as the common situation. The husband is represented +as yoked to the wheel of his wife's whims, tyrannized over by the one he +works for.</p> + +<p>This is surely a gross exaggeration, though it furnishes excellent +material for satire. The man still makes the main conditions of life for +both; his name is taken, his work sustains the household, his purse +supplies the means of existence, his industrial business situation +determines the residence, his social standing is theirs. This does not +prevent <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>him from being "henpecked" in many cases, but on the whole it +assures his superior status.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless it is true that the American woman of whatever origin has a +will of her own as no other woman has. Since the expression of will is +one of the chief sources of human pleasures, one of the chief, most +persistent activities, man and wife enter into a contest for supremacy +in the household. It may be settled quietly and without even recognizing +its existence, on the common plan that the woman shall have charge of +the home and the man of his business; it may rage with violence over the +fundamental as well as the trivial things of home. After all, it is not +the importance of a thing that determines the size of the row it may +raise; men have killed each other over a nickel because defeat over even +this trifle was intolerable.</p> + +<p>What are the chief sources of conflict? For to name them all would be +simply to name every possible source of difference of opinion that +exists. Let us take as an example Extravagance.</p> + +<p>This is a new development. In the former <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>days the bulk of purchases was +made by the husband, in whose hands the purse strings were tightly +clutched. With the growth of the cities and industry, the development of +the department store and rise of shopping as an institution, the man +gave place to his wife largely because industry would not let him off +during the daytime. So the housewife disbursed most of the funds of her +home,—and there arose one of the fiercest and most persistent of +domestic conflicts.</p> + +<p>Despite the fact that most American husbands turn over their purses to +their wives, they still regard the money as their own. The desire to +"get ahead" is an insistent one, returning with redoubled force after +each expenditure. He finds his entire income gone each week or month, or +finds less left than he expected. "Where does it all go?" is his cry; +"Must we spend as much as we do?" "How do people get along who get less +than we do?"</p> + +<p>To this his wife has the answer, "We must have <i>this</i>, and we <i>must</i> +have that. We must live as our neighbors do."</p> + +<p>Here is the keynote to the situation. There has been a democratization +of society <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>of this nature; there has been a spread throughout the +community of aristocratic tastes. The woman of even the poor and the +middle classes must have her spring and autumn suits, her dresses for +summer, her summer and winter hats. Her husband too must change his +clothes with each shift of the season. For this the enterprise of the +clothing trade, the splendid display of the department stores are +responsible, awakening desire and dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>While the man accuses the woman of extravagance, he is as guilty as she. +He too spends money freely,—on his cigars and cigarettes, on every +edition of the newspapers, on the shine which he might easily apply +himself, on a thousand and one nickels that become a muckle. The +American is lavish, hates to stint, detests being a "piker", says, "Oh, +what's the difference; it will all be the same in a hundred years," but +kicks himself mentally afterwards.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile he quarrels with his wife, who really is extravagant. In this +battle the man wins, even if he loses, for he rarely broods over the +defeat. But it brings about a sense of tension in his wife; it brings +about <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>a disunion in her heart, because she wants to please her husband, +and at the same time she wants to "keep up" with her neighbors and +friends. And who sets the pace for her, for all of her group; who +establishes the standard of expenditure? Not the thrifty, saving woman, +not the one who mends her clothes and makes her own hats, but the +extravagant woman, the rich woman perhaps of recently acquired wealth +who cares little for a dollar. Against her better judgment the woman of +the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely +dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills.</p> + +<p>This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do,—it +predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes +the relations with her husband more difficult. It takes away pleasure +and leaves discontent and doubt,—the mother-stuff of nervousness.</p> + +<p>While most American husbands are generous, there are enough stingy ones +to set off their neighbors. To these men the goal of life is the +accumulation of money, as indeed it is with the majority. But to them +that goal is to be reached by saving every penny, by <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>denying themselves +and theirs all expenditures beyond the necessities.</p> + +<p>The woman who marries such a man is humiliated to the quick by his +attitude. That a man values a dollar more than he does her wish is an +insult to the sensitive woman. There ensues either a never-ending battle +with estrangement, or else a beaten woman (for the stingy are stubborn) +accepts her lot with a broken spirit, sad and deënergized. Or perhaps, +it should be added, a third result may come about; the woman accepts the +man's ideal of life and joins with him in their scrimping campaign. With +this agreement life goes on happily enough.</p> + +<p>It is not of course meant that all or a great majority of American women +have difficulties with their husbands over money. But I have in mind +several patients who would be happy if this never-ending problem were +settled. The struggle "gets on the nerves" of the partners; they say +things they regret and act with an impatience that has its root in +fatigue.</p> + +<p>This difficulty over money and its spending gets worse in the late +thirties and early forties, for it is then the man realizes with a +<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>startled spirit that he is getting into middle age, that sickness and +death are taking their toll of his friends, and that he has not got on. +The sense of failure irritates him, depresses him. He finds that he and +his wife look at the money situation from a different angle.</p> + +<p>"If you loved me," says she, "you would see things a little more my +way."</p> + +<p>"If you loved me," says he, "you would not act to worry me so."</p> + +<p>Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of +life. Capital and Labor are at each other's throats; men cry "profiteer" +at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take +advantage of the world crisis. The air is filled with the whispers that +a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile +manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display +the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns. That the marital happiness of +the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the +discussions on the subject. Yet this phase of the high cost of living is +perhaps its most important result.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>The housewife's money difficulties are not confined to the question of +expenditure. For there is a factor not consciously put forward but +evident upon a little probing.</p> + +<p>If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows +some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she +has a woman friend whose husband has become successful. A subtle sort of +regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle +disrespect for her husband because of his failure. The husband becomes +aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest +place, his pride. One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in +a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and +contempt until exhausted. For she came of a successful family, she had +married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an +entire failure financially. Measuring men by their success, she found +her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge +her error. Out of this division in feelings came a complete +deënergization.</p> + +<p>Whether or not such a housewife deserves <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>any sympathy in her trouble, +it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her.</p> + +<p>While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which +nervousness arises, there are others of importance.</p> + +<p>Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of +the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman—<i>e.g.</i> to +a boy's pranks—causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace +of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too +fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he +is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,—tough, +mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father +who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel +results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow. It is when the woman +fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with +vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way +repeatedly described.</p> + +<p>Next perhaps to actual disloyalty women feel most the cessation of the +attentions, <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>courtesies, and remembrances of their unmarried life. Women +expect this to happen and usually they forgive it in the man who devotes +himself to his family, struggles for a livelihood or better, and helps +in the care of the children. It is the hyperæsthetic type of housewife +spoken of previously who weighs against her husband's devotion a minor +dereliction in courtesy.</p> + +<p>For it is too common in women to let a momentary neglect or +absent-minded discourtesy outweigh a lifetime of devotion. This is part +of a feminine devotion to manner and form, of which men are, +comparatively speaking, innocent.</p> + +<p>Aside from this phase of woman's character there are men who either +rapidly or gradually resume after marriage their bachelor freedom, to +the neglect of their wives. Though for some time after marriage they +give up their "freedom" to play consort and escort, sooner or later they +sink back into finding their recreation with their male friends,—at +club, lodge, saloon, pool room, etc. When night comes they are restless. +At first one excuse or another takes them out, later they break boldly +from the domestic <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ties and only occasionally and under protest do they +stay at home or escort the housewife to church, visiting, or the +theater.</p> + +<p>(It needs be said at this point that in America married life often +proceeds too far in the domestication of the man, in his complete +separation from male companionship, in a never-broken companionship +between man and wife. This is distinctly unhealthy for the man, for he +requires in his recreation the sense of freedom from restraint that he +can have only in masculine company; where the difficult attitude of +chivalry can be discarded for an equality and a frankness impossible +even with his wife.)</p> + +<p>The housewife, thus left alone, though wounded, may adjust herself. She +may build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her +neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become +unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote +herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene +life against odds.</p> + +<p>But often she does none of these things. Hurt in her pride, she +struggles to gain back her husband. Tears and reproaches fail, <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>sickness +sometimes succeeds. If she is childless she becomes obsessed with the +belief that a child would hold her husband home. If she is failing in +the freshness of her beauty she makes a pathetic effort to hold her +indifferent mate through cosmetics and beauty specialists. Without the +courage and character to make or break the situation she falls into a +feeling of inferiority from which originates her headaches, her feelings +of unreality, her loss of enthusiasm, her depressed mind and body.</p> + +<p>This type of woman, dependent upon the love and affection of her husband +for her health and strength, mental and physical, is the type that +woman's education and training, at least in the past, have tended to +make. She has not been taught, she has not the power, to stand in life +alone; she is the clinging vine to the man's oak, she is the traditional +woman. She is happy and well with the right man, but Heaven help her if +the marriage ceremony links her with a philanderer! For she has been +taught to accept as true and right that mischievous couplet:</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love is of man's life a thing apart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis woman's whole existence.</span><br /></p> + +<p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>We need for our womanhood a braver standpoint than that, one more +firmly based, less apt to bring failure and disaster. For neither man +nor woman should love be the whole existence. It should be a fundamental +purpose interwoven with other purposes.</p> + +<p>Fortunately one source of domestic difficulty will soon pass from +America,—alcoholism. Politicians and theorizers may speak of the blow +to individual liberty and satirically prophesy that soon coffee and +tobacco will be legislated out also. They need to read Gilbert +Chesterton and learn that though "a tree grows upward it stops growing +and never reaches the sky." To see, as I do, the almost complete absence +of delirium tremens from the emergency and city hospitals, where once +every Sunday morning found a dozen or two of raving men; to witness the +disappearance of alcoholic insanity from our asylums, where once it +constituted fifteen per cent of the male admissions; to see cruelty to +children drop to one tenth of its former incidence; to know that former +drunkards are steadily at work to the joy of their wives and the good of +their own souls,—this is to make one bitterly impatient with the +chatter about the<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a> "joy and pleasure of life gone," etc. etc., that has +become the stock-in-trade of the stage and the press. Though alcoholism +did not cause all poverty, it stupefied men's minds so that they +permitted much preventable poverty; though it did not cause all +immorality, a few drinks often sent a good man to the brothel; and what +is more, many of the brothel inmates endured their life largely because +of the stupefying use of alcohol.</p> + +<p>No one knows the evil of alcohol more than the poor housewife. Of course +the woman brought up to believe that drunkenness was to be expected in a +man—and who often drank with him—was a victim without severe mental +anguish, though her whole life was ruined by drink. But for the refined +woman who married a clean, clever young fellow only to have him come +home some day reeking of liquor,—silly, obscene, helpless,—<i>her</i> +contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life. +She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a +chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted.</p> + +<p>A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a +century that <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the +X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could +make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the +habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity.</p> + +<p>After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of +the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness +to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion +against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,—these are the basic +elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are +unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly +to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two +five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many +husbands and wives.</p> + +<p>Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not +leadership), overready temper and overready tears,—these cause more +domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The +education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these +defects, which are not <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>necessarily feminine, from her character. In the +domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman +has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet +demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses.</p> + +<p>Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her +mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds +her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy +of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which +we shall deal with later.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Symptoms As Weapons Against The Husband</h3> + + +<p>Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of +human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to +Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire +to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth +(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a +religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human +effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to +gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle +of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial +(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the +statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a +boundary line and <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that +benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate +the ego,—love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire +for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in +many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his +fellows.</p> + +<p>Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and +interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the +group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need +of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly +feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are +essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others. +This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and +young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together.</p> + +<p>There are those who find no difference between the <i>egoism</i> of the will +to power and the <i>altruism</i> of the will to fellowship. They assert that +if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you +have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>of a larger ego. +However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may +separate these two trends in human nature.</p> + +<p>In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between +the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality +is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the +teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by +which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power +is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science, +benevolence, invention, government, money.</p> + +<p>Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness, +cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character. +Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile, +and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him +aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the +life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men +who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will +to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>thwarted will to +fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world +benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of +altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally +lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will +for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn +philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an +egotist.</p> + +<p>How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there +are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends.</p> + +<p>There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man +disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right" +is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering +voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes; +they follow the primitive line of direct attack.</p> + +<p>There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the +disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent +to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is +nine points <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is <i>not</i> +the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what +<i>seems</i> valuable for what <i>is</i> valuable and then fall back on the adage, +"A fair exchange is no robbery."</p> + +<p>Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into +friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours. +Compromise is the keynote, coöperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to +fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?"</p> + +<p>Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness, +through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the +discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an +implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial; +tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an +equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched +social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and +desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief +and sorrow by which to plague him into sub<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>mission, into yielding. +Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop +symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened +punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel +parents is a favorite one.</p> + +<p>This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of +weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long +been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of +woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought +about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain +similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in +these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a +substitute for tears in the marital conflict.</p> + +<p>Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it +causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them!</p> + +<p>Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where +the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow +long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman +<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or +becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her +will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but +helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place +almost at once.</p> + +<p>In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism +can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the +attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not +take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the +condition to turn soon for the better.</p> + +<p>I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the +medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every +experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the +satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point +is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the +disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when—he gets her +the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc. +etc.</p> + +<p>Discreditable to women? Discreditable to <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>those women who use it? Men +would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills +that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the +strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our +present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will +abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever +women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort +to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where +the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type +uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain +her point.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Histories Of Some Severe Cases</h3> + + +<p>The cases that follow represent mainly the severe types of nervousness +in the housewife. To every case that comes to the neurologist there are +a hundred that explain their symptoms as "stomach trouble", "backache", +etc., who remain well enough to carry on, and who think their pains and +aches inevitably wrapped with the lot of woman.</p> + +<p>It will be seen, upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic +attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a +series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that +by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it +would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the +majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a +number cannot be essentially benefited.<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a> Some of them have temperaments +utterly incompatible with matrimony, others have husbands of the +incorrigible type, others have life situations to change which would +make it necessary to change society. Therefore in these cases all a +doctor can do is to <i>relieve symptoms</i>, relieve some of the distress and +rest content with that.</p> + +<p>I am essentially neither pessimist nor optimist in the presentation of +these cases, nor do I seek to present the man or woman's case with +prejudice. In life a realistic attitude is the best, for if we were to +remove much of the sentimental self-deception at present so prevalent, +huge reforms would occur almost overnight. Sentimentality decorates and +disguises all kinds of horridness and makes us feel kindly toward evil. +Strip it away, and we would immediately break down the evil.</p> + +<p>There is always this danger in presenting "cases" to a lay public, that +symptoms are suggested to a great many people. How deeply suggestible +the mass of people can be is only appreciated when one sees the result +of public health lectures and books. Many persons tend to develop all +the symptoms they hear of, from pains and aches to mental <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>failure. Even +in the medical schools this is so, and every medical teacher is +consulted each year by students who feel sure they have the diseases he +has described.</p> + +<p>So in presenting the following cases symptoms will be largely omitted. +What will be presented is history and to a certain extent treatment. +That part of treatment which is strictly medical can only be indicated.</p> + +<p>It may be said that in obtaining the intimate history of a woman a +difficulty is met with in the natural reluctance to telling what often +seems to the patient painful and unnecessary details. To some people it +seems inconceivable that fears, pains and aches, sleeplessness, etc., +can arise out of difficulties like the monotony of housework, +temperament, or troubles with the husband. Furthermore, though some +women understand well enough the source of their conflicts, they are +ashamed to tell and rest mainly on the surface of their symptoms. To +obtain the truth it is necessary to see the patient over and over again, +to get somewhat closer to her. This is especially easy to do after the +physician has to a certain extent relieved the patient. In other words, +except in the cases where the <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>woman is quite prepared to tell of her +intimate difficulties, it is best to go slowly from the medical to the +social-psychological point of view.</p> + +<p><b>Case I.</b> The overworked, under-rested type of housewife.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A.J., thirty years old, is a woman of American birth and ancestry. +Her parents were poor, her father being a mechanic in a factory town of +Massachusetts. She had several brothers and sisters, all of whom reached +maturity and most of whom married.</p> + +<p>Before marriage she was a salesgirl in a department store, worked fairly +hard for rather small pay, but was strong, jolly, liked dancing and +amusements, liked men and had her girl friends.</p> + +<p>At the age of twenty-two she married a mechanic of twenty-four, a good, +sober, steady man, devoted to her and very domestic. Unfortunately he +was not very well for some time following a pneumonia in the third year +of their marriage. They drew upon all their savings and fell seriously +in debt. This meant borrowing and scrimping for several years,—a fact +which had great bearing on the wife's illness later.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>They had three children, born the twelfth month, the third year, and +the fourth year after marriage. After the first child the mother was +very well, nursed the baby successfully, and the little family +flourished. Then came the unfortunate illness of the husband, which +threw him out of work for six months, during which time they lived on an +allowance from his union, his savings, and finally ran into debt. This +greatly grieved the man and depressed the woman, but both bore up well +under it until the birth of the second child, when their circumstances +forced them to move to a poorer apartment. The wife was delivered by a +dispensary physician, who did his duty well but allowed the woman, who +protested she felt well, to get up and care for her husband and baby +much earlier than she should have done.</p> + +<p>The nursing of this baby was more difficult. The mother's breasts did +not seem to be nearly as active as in the previous case. The baby cried +a great deal and needed attention a good part of the night. The husband +was unable to help as he had previously done and the fatigue of the care +of child and man brought a condition where the woman was <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>tired all the +time. Still she bore up well, though when the summer came she greatly +missed the little two weeks' vacation that she and her husband had +yearly taken together from the days of their courtship.</p> + +<p>The husband recovered, but his strength came back very slowly. He went +to work as soon as possible but worked only part time for six months. At +night he came home utterly exhausted and could not help his wife at all.</p> + +<p>During the next year both children were sick, first with scarlet fever +and then with whooping cough. The mother did most of the nursing, though +by this time the father was able to help and did. The necessary expenses +so depleted the family treasury that when the summer came neither could +afford to go away.</p> + +<p>Both noticed that the mother was getting more irritable than was natural +to her. She went out very seldom and her youthful good looks had largely +been replaced by a sharp-featured anxiety. Though she carried on +faithfully she had to rest frequently and at night tossed restlessly, +though greatly fatigued.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>She became pregnant again, much to her dismay and to the great regret +of her husband. At times she thought of abortion, but only in a +desperate way. The last few months of her term were in the very hot +months of the year and she was very uncomfortable. However, she was +delivered safely, got up in a week to help in the care of her other two +children and to get the house into shape again. Her milk was fairly +plentiful, despite her fatigue and "jumpy nerves." Unfortunately at this +time, when they had accumulated a little surplus and she was looking +forward to better clothes for her family and more comforts, the plant at +which her husband was employed suspended operations because of some +"high finance" mix-up. Coming at this time, the news struck terror into +her heart; she broke down, became "hysterical" <i>i.e.</i> had an emotional +outburst. This passed away, but now she was sleepless, had no appetite, +complained of headache and great fatigue.</p> + +<p>Though she was assured that the plant would reopen soon (in fact it soon +did), she made little progress. That she was suffering from a +psychoneurosis was evident; <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>what remained was to bring about treatment.</p> + +<p>This was done by enlisting a development of recent days,—the Social +Service agencies. Out of the old-time charity has come a fine successor, +social service; out of the amateurish, self-consciously gracious and +sweet Lady Bountiful has come the social worker. Unfortunately social +service has not yet dropped the name "Charity", perhaps has not been +able to do so, largely because the well-to-do from whom the money must +come like to think of themselves as charitable, rather than as the +beneficiaries of the social system giving to the unfortunates of that +system.</p> + +<p>Let me say one more word about social service and the social worker, +though I feel that a volume of praise would be more fitting. The social +worker has become an indispensable part of the hospital organization, an +investigator to bring in facts, a social adjuster to bring about cure. +For a hospital to be without a social service department is to confess +itself behind the times and inefficient.</p> + +<p>Briefly, this is what was done for this family.<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a></p> + +<p>Their prejudices against social aid were removed by emphasizing that +they were not recipients of charity. The husband was allowed to pay, or +arrange to pay, for a six weeks' stay in the country for the mother and +the new baby. The home for this purpose was found by the agency and was +that of a kindly elderly couple who took the woman into their hearts as +well as over their threshold. The social worker arranged with a nursing +organization to send a worker to the man's house each day to clean up +the home while the children stayed in a nursery. One way or another the +husband and children were made comfortable, and the wife came back from +her stay, made over, eager to get back to her work.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that in such a case as this the physician is largely +diagnostician and director, the actual treatment consisting in getting a +selfish and inert social system to help out one of its victims. That a +sick man should be left to sink or swim, though he has previously been +industrious and a good member of society, is injustice and social +inefficiency. That a woman, under such circumstances, should be left +with the entire burden on her <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>hands is part of the stupidity and +cruelty of society.</p> + +<p>How avert such a thing? For one thing do away with the name "Charity" in +relief work,—and find some system by which industry will adequately +care for its victims. What system will do that? I fear it may be called +socialistic to suggest that some of the fifteen billions spent last year +on luxuries might better be shifted to social amelioration. The record +in automobile production would be more pleasing if it did not mean a +shift from real social wealth to individual luxury.</p> + +<p><b>Case II.</b> The over-rich, purposeless woman.</p> + +<p>This type is of course the direct opposite of the woman in Case I and +represents the kind of woman usually held up as most commonly afflicted +with "nervousness." "If she really had something to do," say the +critics, "she would not be nervous."</p> + +<p>This is fundamentally true of her, though not true of the majority of +women whom we have discussed. It seems difficult to believe that hard +work and worry may bring the same results as idleness and +dissatisfaction, but it is true that both deënergize the organism, the +body and mind, and so are <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>kindred evils. What's the matter with the +poor is their poverty, while the matter with the rich is their wealth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A. De L. is of middle-class people whose parents lived beyond their +means and educated their only daughter to do the same. Here is one of +the anomalies of life: bitterly aware of their folly, the extravagant +and struggling deliberately push their children into the same road. Mrs. +De L. learned early that the chief objects of life in general were to +keep up appearances and kill time; that as a means to success a woman +must get a rich husband and keep beautiful. Being an intelligent girl +and pretty she managed to get the rich husband,—and settled down to the +rich housewife's neurosis.</p> + +<p>Her husband was old-fashioned despite his rather new wealth, and they +had two children,—a large modern American family. Though he allowed her +to have servants he insisted that she manage their household, which she +did with rebellion for a short time, and then rather quickly broke away +from it by turning over the household to a housekeeper. This brought +about the silent disapproval of her husband, who let her<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a> "have her own +way", as he said, "because it's the fashion nowadays."</p> + +<p>She became a seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of +amusement to the other in an intricately mixed coöperation and rivalry +with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old +Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished +dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, +subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, +dabbled in new religions, became enthusiastic: about social work for a +month or two,—and became a professional at bridge. Summers she rested +by chasing pleasure and flirting with male <i>habitués</i> of fashionable +summer resorts; part of the winter she recuperated at Palm Beach, where +she vied for the leadership of her set with her dearest enemy.</p> + +<p>Her husband financed all her ventures with a disillusioned shrug of his +shoulders. As she entered the thirties she became intensely dissatisfied +with herself and her life, tried to get back to active supervision of +her home but found herself in the way, though her children were greatly +pleased and her husband scep<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>tical. The need of excitement and change +persisted; gradually an intense boredom came over her. Her interest in +life was dulled and she began a mad search for some sensation that would +take away the distressing self-reproach and dissatisfaction. Shortly +after this she lost the power to sleep and had a host of symptoms which +need not be detailed here.</p> + +<p>The medical treatment was first to restore sleep. I may say that this is +a first step of great importance, no matter how the sleeplessness +originates. For even if an idea or a disturbing emotion is its cause, +the sleeplessness may become a habit and needs energetic attention.</p> + +<p>With this done, attention was paid to the social situation, the life +habits. It was pointed out that all the philosophies of life were based +on simple living and work, and that all the wise men from the beginning +of the written word to our own times have shown the futility of seeking +pleasure. It was shown that to be a sensation seeker was to court +boredom and apathy, and that these had deënergized her.</p> + +<p>For interest in the world is the great source <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>of energy and the great +marshaler of energy. From the child bored by lack of playmates, who +brightens up at the sight of a woolly little dog, to the old and +vigorous man who makes the mistake of resigning from work, this function +of interest can be shown.</p> + +<p>She was advised to get a fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that +would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally +she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that +from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in +reasonableness and purpose.</p> + +<p>That she improved greatly and came back to her normal health I know. +Whether she continued to remain well and how far she followed the advice +given I cannot say. From the earliest time to this, necessity has been +the main spur to purpose, and probably the lure of social competition +drew the lady back to her old life. Experience, though the best teacher, +seems to have the same need of repetition that all teaching does.</p> + +<p><b>Case III.</b> The physically sick woman who displays nervousness.</p> + +<p>Though this is one of the most important <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>of the types of nervous +housewife the subject is essentially medical. We shall therefore not +detail any case, but it is wise to reemphasize some facts.</p> + +<p>There are bodily diseases of which the early and predominant symptoms +are classed as "nervousness." Hyperthyroidism, or Graves' Disease, a +condition in which there is overactivity of the thyroid gland and which +is particularly prevalent among young women, is one of those diseases. +In this condition excitability, irritability, emotional outbursts, +fatigue, restlessness, digestive disorders, vasomotor disorders, appear +before the characteristic symptoms do.</p> + +<p>Neuro-syphilis is another such disease. This is an involvement of the +nervous system by syphilis. One of the tragedies that distresses even +hardened doctors is to find some fine woman who has acquired +neuro-syphilis through her husband, though he himself may remain well. +In the early stages this disease not only has neurasthenic symptoms but +is very responsive to treatment, and thus the early diagnosis is of +great importance.</p> + +<p>What is known as reflex nervousness arises as a result of minor local +conditions, such as <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>astigmatism and other eye conditions, trouble with +the nose and throat and trouble with the organs of generation. The +latter is especially important in any consideration of nervousness in +the housewife, particularly in the woman who has borne children. +Frequently too the existence of hemorrhoids, resulting from +constipation, acts to increase the irritability of a woman who is +perhaps too modest to consult a physician regarding such trouble. Where +such modesty exists (and it is found in the very women one would be apt +to think were the very last to be swayed by it), then a competent woman +physician should be consulted. With good women physicians and surgeons +in every large community there is no reason for reluctance to be +examined on the part of any woman.</p> + +<p>Further details are not necessary. Enough has been said to emphasize the +fact that the nervousness of the housewife is first a medical problem +and then a social-psychological one.</p> + +<p><b>Case IV.</b> A case presenting bad hygiene as the essential factor.</p> + +<p>Bad hygiene is something more than exposure to bad air, poor food, +contaminated water, etc. It includes habits and times of <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>eating, +attention to the bowels, outdoor exercise, sleep, and in the marital +state it includes the sexual indulgence.</p> + +<p>The housewife under consideration, Mrs. T.F., aged twenty-eight, married +five years, two children, complained mainly of headache, occasional +dizziness, great irritability, and fatigue, so that quarrels with her +husband were very common, though there seemed nothing to quarrel about. +The family was not rich, but lived in a comfortable apartment; there +were no serious financial burdens, the children were reasonably healthy +and good, and the closest questioning revealed the husband as a kindly +man who never took the initiative in quarrels but who was never able to +keep silent under provocation. The couple was still in love and there +seemed to be no essential incompatibility.</p> + +<p>Questioned as to her habits, Mrs. F. said she did all her own housework +except the washing and ironing and scrubbing. She had a little girl +three times a week to take the baby out. Before marriage she had been a +stenographer, but never earned high pay and had no love for her work. In +fact she gave it up with relief and found housework <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>with its +disagreeable features much more to her taste than business. She had been +of a placid, pleasant temperament and could not understand the change in +her.</p> + +<p>Since all this did not explain her symptoms, closer inquiry was made +into her habits. She arose with her husband at seven-thirty, prepared +his breakfast, sent the oldest child off to kindergarten and then had +her own breakfast, which usually consisted of toast and coffee. At noon +she had a very small piece of meat or an egg and a few potatoes with +tea. At night she ate sparingly of the dinner, which usually was meat, +potatoes, another vegetable, and a dessert. Her husband here stated that +she ate at this meal less than the boy of four and a half.</p> + +<p>Comparing her buxom figure with the diet a discrepancy was at once +apparent. She then confessed with shame that she was a constant nibbler, +eating a bit of this or that every half hour or so, and consequently +never had an appetite. The food thus nibbled usually was either spicy or +sweet, and she consumed quite a bit of candy. Her bowels moved +infrequently and she always needed laxatives. In her spare time she felt +rather "logy", <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>rarely went out, except now and then at night with her +husband, and spent her leisure hours on the couch reading or nibbling.</p> + +<p>This in itself would have quite explained much of her trouble. It has +been pointed out that body and mind are not separable; that mental +functions are based on the bodily functions, and that mood may rest on +no more exalted cause then the condition of the bowels. But a more +intimate questioning revealed sexual habits which are easily drifted +into by people of an amorous turn of character and who are really fond +of one another. These both husband and wife frankly said they had not +meant to speak of, but with their disclosure it was evident that a good +deal of importance was to be attached to them.</p> + +<p>The correction of the life habits was of course the fundamental need. +The young woman was instructed in detail as to diet, the care of the +bowels and outdoor exercise. Since she was in perfect condition except +for stoutness she could easily look for recovery, and as an added +incentive the restoration of youthful good looks was held out as +certain.</p> + +<p>The sexual life was frankly discussed, and necessary restrictions were +imposed. Both <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>the husband and wife agreed willingly to the changes +ordered and promised faithfully to carry out instructions.</p> + +<p>The patient made a splendid recovery and very rapidly. Here was a +deënergization dependent solely upon the sedentary life of the housewife +and upon ignorance of sex hygiene. Here were quarreling and impending +marital disaster removed by attention to details in living. Here was a +complete proof that not only does a sound mind need a sound body, but +that a sound marriage needs one as well.</p> + +<p><b>Case V.</b> The hyperæsthetic woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. J.F. is twenty-seven years of age. She was born in the United +States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty +man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the +like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was +an old-fashioned housewife, fond of her home and family, in fact perhaps +more attached to the former than the latter. She hated servants and got +along without them (except for a day woman) until she became rather too +old to do the work.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>J.'s sister and two brothers were duplicates of the parents,—hearty, +stolid, and remarkably plain looking. J., the younger sister, though not +the youngest in the family, was as different from her family as if she +had sprung from another stock. She was slender, very pretty, with a +quick, alert mind which jumped at conclusions, because labored analysis +fatigued it. Above all, from the very start of life she was sensitive to +a degree that perplexed her family, who were however intensely +sympathetic because they adored her. This adoration arose from the fact +that J. was brighter and prettier than most of her friends, and that her +cleverness in many directions—music, writing, talking, handiwork—was +the talk of their little group.</p> + +<p>This sensitiveness arose from two main factors. First, an egoism +fostered by the worship of her friends and the leadership of her +group,—an egoism which led her to regard as a sort of insult anything +disagreeable. Accustomed to praise, the least criticism implied or +outspoken cut like a knife; accustomed to being waited upon, she +resented physical discomfort of the slightest kind. Second, there must +also have been an <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>actual physical sensitiveness to sights, sounds, +smells, tastes, etc. that made her perceive what others failed to +notice. This led to an artistry manifested by her nice work in music and +decoration and also by an excessive displeasure at the inartistic.</p> + +<p>With this training, experience, and natural temperament she should have +married a rich collector of art products, who would have added her to +his collection and cherished her as his most fragile possession. +Instead, through the working of that strange law of contraries by which +Nature strikes averages between extremes, she fell in love with a hulk +of a man whose ideas on art were limited to calling a picture "pretty", +who loved sports and the pleasures of the table, and whose business +motto was "Beat the other guy to it." A successful man, troubled with +few subtleties either of approach or conscience, he viewed the marriage +relationship in the old-fashioned way and the new American indulgence. A +man's wife was to be given all the clothes she wanted, servants to help +run the home, ought to bear two or three children, and love her +indulgent husband. As for any real intimacy, he knew nothing <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>of it. +Kindly, self-indulgent, wife-indulgent, child-indulgent, ruthless in +business, he may stand as something America has produced without any +effort.</p> + +<p>From the very first night J.'s world was shattered. We need not enter +into details in this matter, but a woman of this type needs finesse in +the initiation into marriage more than at any other time. Cave-man style +outraged her every fiber, and the man was dumbfounded at her reaction. +Though he tried to make amends his very effort and lack of understanding +complicated matters.</p> + +<p>Aside from this matter, which in the course of time became adjusted, so +that though she rebelled desire arose in her, she found herself at odds +with her husband's tastes and conduct in little things. Though his table +manners were good enough, the gusto of his eating annoyed her and took +away her own appetite. When they went to a play together the coarse +jokes and the plainly sensuous aroused his enthusiasm. He lacked +subtlety and could not understand the "finer" things of life. As he grew +settled in matrimony, which he enjoyed in spite of her nerves (which he +took for granted as <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>like a woman), he grew stouter and this irritated +and jarred her.</p> + +<p>She finally realized she no longer loved him. It is doubtful if she +realized this before the birth of her first and only child. She lacked +maternal feeling and rebelled with a bitter rebellion against the +distortion of her figure that came with the pregnancy. The nursing +ordered by the doctor and expected by all around her nearly drove her +"wild", she said, for she felt like a "cow", a "female." Indeed she +reacted bitterly against the femaleness that marriage forced on her and +hated the essential maleness of her husband. Her emotional reaction +against nursing took away her milk, and finally the disgusted family +doctor ordered the baby weaned and he was turned over to a servant.</p> + +<p>She went back to her own life, determined to become a housewife, to see +if she could not love her husband and her home. But everything he did +irritated her, and everything in the house made her feel as in a +"luxurious cage." Yet she was by no means a feminist; she detested +"noisy suffragettes", thought women doctors and lawyers ridiculous, and +had been brought up to regard marriage as indissoluble.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>Gradually out of the conflict, the chilling fear that she had made a +mistake which could not be rectified, the constant irritation and +annoyances, the revolt against her own sex feeling and her life +situation, arose the neurosis. It took the form mainly of sudden +unaccountable fears with faint dizzy feelings. The family physician on +the aside told me that it was "just a case of a damn fool woman with +everybody too good to her."</p> + +<p>What constitutes a "damn fool" will include every person in the world, +according to some one else. It seemed obvious to me that J. was not +meant by nature to be a housewife or any kind of wife. Matrimonially she +was a misfit, unless she met some man of a type like herself, though I +doubt if any man could have pleased her. I doubt if her over-exacting +taste would not rebel against the animal in life itself. For though the +animal of life is essentially as fine as the human, certain types find +it impossible to acknowledge it in themselves.</p> + +<p>At any rate I advised separation for a time,—six months at least. I +told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She +answered that she knew this <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>but could not conceive of any change. We +discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her +husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold +her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a +temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The +outlook is therefore a poor one.</p> + +<p><b>Case VI.</b> The over-conscientious housewife,—the seeker of perfection.</p> + +<p>The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New +England stock, <i>i.e.</i> the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England +climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. +This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily +radical, has this prevailing trait,—standards of right and wrong are +set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to +maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not +peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, +Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal.</p> + +<p>This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>of age, with three children, +was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she +and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something +was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a +type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. +She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious +appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a +physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a +dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any +importance—yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one."</p> + +<p>Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a +small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and +admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was +exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his +wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching +things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc.</p> + +<p>She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her +husband, with <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her +hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained +cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were +quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat +was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared +to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That +clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude +she completely rejected.</p> + +<p>It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,—from the +beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a +maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed +over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless <i>all the time</i>; +she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early +morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, +etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated +efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children +bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for +it.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy +about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul +their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely +because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes +after them picking up and cleaning."</p> + +<p>This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the +effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners +from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She +thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; +any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, +any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime.</p> + +<p>Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in +children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a +day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out +words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new +experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their +quest for experiment,—and they learn thereby. Not every <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>mickle grows +into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as +unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits.</p> + +<p>So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, +developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, +self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never +perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had +become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she +read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show.</p> + +<p>It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own +ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her +neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some +stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not +prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for +everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst +dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic.</p> + +<p>In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and +to such advice <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that +dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed +always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better +dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the +ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a +relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, +admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was +sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin +idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", +"extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence +of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her +home.</p> + +<p>This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a +gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as +she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." +Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine +housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an +over-zealous conscience.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Other Typical Cases</h3> + + +<p><b>Case VII.</b> The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability.</p> + +<p>In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the +man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business +partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and +many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the +leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American +method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior +women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's +advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the +trousers" themselves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, +had excellent health before marriage. Her family, orig<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>inally poor, had +been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important +places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is +married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an +executive in a department store.</p> + +<p>Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time +of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who +inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic +over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never +followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own +way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all +financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of +people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her +counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect +for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt +crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time +went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused +<a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had +not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached +the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they +enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude +toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and +envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly +view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are +near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such +disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend +involuntarily to arouse.</p> + +<p>With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a +complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that +brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal +to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he +accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to +the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute +nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and +fatigue.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much +surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection +immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old +feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of +business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that +she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was +necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime +essential to cure in such cases,—an ignorant or unintelligent woman +with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence +took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it +may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic +observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism +and hostility.</p> + +<p><b>Case VII.</b> The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law.</p> + +<p>That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of +feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in +the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted +financial <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>success, settling down may be possible, but is much more +difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably +has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,—and +she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all +this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of +doubt and rebellion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. +She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a +business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal +gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did +and was treated with deference by the entire organization.</p> + +<p>She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior +official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal +habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and +went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and +mother.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. +She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>home with the son for +some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range +of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost +inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.</p> + +<p>Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his +wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father +presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to +a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other +woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. +Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good +enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to +feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household +or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old +Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one +roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and +daughter-in-law live together.</p> + +<p>The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger +woman. There <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>was enough to find fault with, since the wife was +absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, +and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try +all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took +diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were +some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took +possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found +herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the +office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. +Further, the distracted husband, in his rôles of husband and son, found +himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the +girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible +for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her +pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house +seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she +expressed it.</p> + +<p>Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs +seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>attends it. No +outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should +be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It +sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all +love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it +animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in +this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a +crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman +found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found +herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied +on.</p> + +<p>The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical +strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited +spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to +matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband +intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a +circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be +dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the +symptoms were headache, sleepless<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>ness, etc., for which the neurologist +was consulted.</p> + +<p>How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It +probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made +that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law <i>vs.</i> +daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. +Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to +take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a +well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the +mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the +mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a +son's wife.</p> + +<p>This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment +to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was +delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed +that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger +world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and +convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less +amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an un<a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>consciously humorous +compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly +efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better +conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a +servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no +children.</p> + +<p><b>Case VIII.</b> The childless, neglected woman.</p> + +<p>It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in +a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an +identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case +might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable +difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as +childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the +main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and +sleeplessness.</p> + +<p>The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the +age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well +and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental +disease in her family. She married <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>a man of twenty-four, who had also +been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in +business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty +in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the +earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end +of his long day and the pair were quite happy.</p> + +<p>At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at +her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the +course of the next three years underwent three operations with no +result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time +her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He +would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing +cards,—in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first +discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York +where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him +for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he +remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged +deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four +days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times +the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and +agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties +to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would +reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, +gifts, etc., for a week or so,—and then backsliding. Finally even the +brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered +hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a +widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them +both.</p> + +<p>The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling +alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love +and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the +sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun +other women and their company, the fear that her husband was un<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>faithful +(which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or +definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought +on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium.</p> + +<p>This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her +frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to +the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. +Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery.</p> + +<p>Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the +chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The +lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm +has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the +inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he +is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and +his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one +<i>constant</i> attraction,—Chance.</p> + +<p>The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was +fortunate <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her +doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went +back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete +satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to +take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was +impossible in her lonely home.</p> + +<p><b>Case IX.</b> The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the +home.</p> + +<p>This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the +woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, +and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical +American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain +type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at +first in many cases of conflict between man and wife.</p> + +<p>The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but +thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class +rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm +and was a mechanic in a small city.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As +a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", <i>i.e.</i> to displease +her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her +family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased +when she married off their hands and left the home.</p> + +<p>Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her +husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He +was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for +which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the +theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became +greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband +tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit.</p> + +<p>They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,—she +became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around +to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will +he would go with her to her friends.</p> + +<p>Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he +set his will <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming +set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion +had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, +speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill.</p> + +<p>The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence +of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of +symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but +which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true +paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech.</p> + +<p>When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and +her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will +was thwarted, and <i>that</i> part of their function was to bring the man to +his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come +any more to see me,—a not unnatural reaction.</p> + +<p>The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and +dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, +in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a +<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not +warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to +give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional +crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms +that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, +fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are +frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and +discomfort of others.</p> + +<p>Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a +character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about +hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical +reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be +found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the +same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review +of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." +But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly +from her disposition and not from the kitchen.</p> + + +<p><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a><b>Case X.</b> The unfaithful husband.</p> + +<p>Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a +single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has +this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable +that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been +strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the +important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as +themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on +the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the +theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the +keener.</p> + +<p>The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, +the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her +health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she +has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make +both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the +border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples +do", were as much in love "as other couples are", <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>to use her phrases. +She was above her class in education, read what are usually called +advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good +housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their +sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she +thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman.</p> + +<p>Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the +part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes +fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she +found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the +bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to +the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped +maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, +unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an +unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, +contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate +reason for living and became a helpless prey to her <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>troubled mind. "A +temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could +understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole +scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her +children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for.</p> + +<p>Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central +physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular +campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, +the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression +remained.</p> + +<p>Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at +reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it +was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found +out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never +trust him again; I would die before I lived with him."</p> + +<p>Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest +wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>life is +to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by +others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of +one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering +a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as +by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of +memories.</p> + +<p>With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her +children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part +of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize +the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that +she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the +children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, +she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans +made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to +its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, +and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part +of the recovery process.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should +have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his +repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she +would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had <i>acted</i> +the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust +him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the +children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong +argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest +separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest +reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong.</p> + +<p><b>Case XI.</b> The unfaithful wife.</p> + +<p>In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the +difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into +ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor +saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow +orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical +health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the +present-day code of morals.<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a> This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In +such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the +physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a +doctor."</p> + +<p>A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a +physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as +well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an +intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the +conflicts of health and ethics.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married +since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten +years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one +thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined +to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful +in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, +of Swiss parentage.</p> + +<p>Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home +life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>settled life, got +on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed +to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I +married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married +except"—Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging +her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity +against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but +romantically so, not realistic.</p> + +<p>There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest +in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers +are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession +and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the +married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to +whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these +gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is +sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a +philosophy of life that justifies them.</p> + +<p>Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these +men found his <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he +proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical +disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who +had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke +off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and +disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought +about a profound neurasthenia.</p> + +<p>Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her +unfaithfulness,—largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not +in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little +realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of +infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, +rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was +evident to me that something was obsessing her.</p> + +<p>When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her +husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; +but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to +tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>result to him, for +she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind +arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to +confession.</p> + +<p>As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very +foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was +that of an <i>essentially moral</i> person; that an essentially immoral woman +would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so +remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she +came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make +it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the +quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of +veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget +her pain.</p> + +<p>It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two +professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would +disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that +Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, +that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>heroic +measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent +that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to +extremes.</p> + +<p>The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has +previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many +of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the +place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of +experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among +both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters +relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be +discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of +nutrition.</p> + +<p>No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional +ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the +United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and +dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but +whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where +division of opinion will occur. A <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>transition from long skirts to dress +that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a +feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would +remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of +woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding +movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means +a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a +costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if +women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, +wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in +over tight short skirts.</p> + +<p>Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, +the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free +discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man +and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle +rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial +triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every +newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most +<a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any +responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the +epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex +is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it.</p> + +<p>Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its +spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its +realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, +and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot +of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the +housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not +fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, +art, and stage,—it unfits people for sex reality.</p> + +<p>In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is +almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a +certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the +fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the +household, and the man <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or +no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than +in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of +divorce records.</p> + +<p>That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing +in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock +in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological +effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of +cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that +contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our +jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own +families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind +consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the +neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial +problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book.</p> + +<p>Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the +engaged." The freedom of the engaged <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>couple is part of the emancipation +of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just +short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are +aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. +Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild +exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On +the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a +good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without +interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But +it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the +necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of +service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised +concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family +friend, or the family physician.</p> + +<p>Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped +with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. +That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be +obviated if wisdom and experience instructed <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>the husband and wife in +the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the +domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the +pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That +reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on +a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who +believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, +the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge +should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better +than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">Treatment Of The Individual Cases</h3> + + +<p>It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be +wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do +yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large +proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently +the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing +to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the +taking of medicine.</p> + +<p>Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of +their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are +uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I +believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that +can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation +involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this +means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of +women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to +the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, +and the major diseases,—these must be remembered as factors that may +determine nervousness.</p> + +<p>With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such +difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the +life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, +where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as +tact, are the essentials.</p> + +<p>It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich +woman may have settled down to a deënergizing life, with too much time +in bed, too many matinées, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. +Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad +for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the +sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, +the whole structure of misery may rest.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a +small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas +into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent +several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic +remedies,—a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I +investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an +inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath +the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime +and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists +had failed.</p> + +<p>So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman +which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its +significance and importance.</p> + +<p>An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an +underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of +mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular +indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel +functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through +irri<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>tability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all +the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such +that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with +others who are in most ways perfectly normal.</p> + +<p>Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life +Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of +eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical +difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life.</p> + +<p>If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, +the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and +recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous +chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement +home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women +down does not prove that they do not break <i>some</i> women down, women with +finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The +most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can +see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for +its victims.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or +more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves +by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from +morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting +them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What +right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does +not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately +philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and +saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American +civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much +philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found.</p> + +<p>One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies +interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a +woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and +even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient +has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. +But unfortunately the consulting room for the <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>poor is in the crowded +clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to +give the time and energy necessary?</p> + +<p>For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with +the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy +that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either +slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such +stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself +gives out.</p> + +<p>In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more +weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more +ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork +in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or +other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some +difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a +rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a +temperament to a situation.</p> + +<p>Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are +insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>in the very +largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as +the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics +help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much +as one may expect.</p> + +<p>But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be +accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to +realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, +and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her +symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has +blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis.</p> + +<p>If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The +intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, +they seek counsel as well as treatment.</p> + +<p>It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control +instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not +unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or +her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the +personal efforts to change.</p> + +<p>A new philosophy of life must be presented.<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a> Less fussiness, less fear, +more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are +necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught +to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should +life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" +What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal +of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,—old-fashioned words, +but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face +with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly +that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a +selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and +aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding.</p> + +<p>If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, +then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end +doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to +end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic +situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity +with those of more means and ability.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the coöperation +of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife +consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men +are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic +wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he +is anxious enough to help cure her.</p> + +<p>Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by +the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear +down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician +cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less +neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict +rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband +deënergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was +induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,—a highly +strung, very efficient self.</p> + +<p>In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the +individual woman and then the painstaking <i>adjustment</i> of that +in<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>dividual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life +situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the +housewife to the life situation.</p> + +<p>In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as +in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the +orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." +Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego +in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; +people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the +ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a +disguised way of naming their desire.</p> + +<p>One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every +woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of +irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,—these are the hopeless +situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is +the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the +disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst +offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>to be the scold +and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his +revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another +story.</p> + +<p>At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference +between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in +make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential +need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly +expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become +matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death +of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and +sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of +feeling, that the major duties were of less importance.</p> + +<p>On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets +impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it +unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to +think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains +out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the +devotion of the husband is the woman's <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>anchor to windward, her grip on +safety,—that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and +she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their +husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch +them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling +off of the lover's spirit and feeling.</p> + +<p>After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than +in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she +fears the rivalry of business,—and with reason. So she craves +attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She +ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married +life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a +great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great +majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also +minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play +demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to +their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the +time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>work marries +a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical +for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving +up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of +justice and the race.</p> + +<p>In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of +increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is +this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, +which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and +efficiency.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3 class="smcap">The Future Of Woman, The Home, And Marriage</h3> + + +<p>No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in +favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days +of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to +reproach or mock him.</p> + +<p>Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of +woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come +along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in +the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the +largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women +alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the +outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many +reactionary centuries and eras <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>as well as successful reformations and +progressive ages.</p> + +<p>Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, +feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more +diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they +will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who +work will be specialized and individualized—- the woman executive, the +writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and +sociologist—will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The +woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in +ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement +whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear +children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in +which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend +the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might.</p> + +<p>Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of +the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the +race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their +sex.<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a> Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of +the children they might have had no one can say.</p> + +<p>But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and +remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. +The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there +comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a +counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of +their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will +enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing +enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since +they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the +conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually.</p> + +<p>So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an +increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing +reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion +against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will +increase rather than diminish, <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>and it must be faced without prejudice +and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, +that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or +doing.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as +fact,—the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or +bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the +modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is +one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there +seems little to do but accept the situation.</p> + +<p>That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to +the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by +most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject +in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply +important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for +contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and +Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all +classes in society except the <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>feeble-minded are learning the +procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, +and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility +artificially.</p> + +<p>What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family +will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or +before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. +What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? +Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while +away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women +to-day?</p> + +<p>It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever +before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way +of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great +advantage,—the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter +politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will +deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment +and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even +for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social +structure <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded +mother can bring.</p> + +<p>Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To +some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a +refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of +temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by +divorce,—rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for +which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons +for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel +and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not +grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in +the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go +even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or +venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some +States.</p> + +<p>Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until +the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time +comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply +en<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>courages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty.</p> + +<p>Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness +can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the rôles of mother +and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman +will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife +and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and +special education, and she will continue to find the rôle of the +traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and +the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis.</p> + +<p>In other words what we must seek to do—those of us who are not bound by +tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings +rather than the reverse—is to find out what changes in the home and +matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century +is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant +the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore +<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has +been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and +individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was +eliminated, in a sense was coöperative. This coöperation is increasing; +more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. +In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent +hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible.</p> + +<p>Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do +woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the +smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number +of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette +apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it +is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or +two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the +huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and +second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched +in the Introduction.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its +heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but +recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, +and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In +it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of +brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its +source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle +and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a +sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the +English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a +reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are +thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of +its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged.</p> + +<p>Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than +anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its +indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable +from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are +often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the +cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes +by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each +woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest +waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the +intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and +housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from +feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, +unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol +home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many +kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory +and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, +and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking +and feeding to break from.</p> + +<p>Take as one minor example the gorging <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>encouraged on Sunday and certain +holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all +Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her +family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is +directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, +Christmas,—the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed +into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has +its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer.</p> + +<p>While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and +inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster +importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, +because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet +individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service.</p> + +<p>There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, +even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which +drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, +brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak +too <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>much in generalities—the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, +Mankind—forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are +homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and +having only one thing in common,—that they are segregated social units, +based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said +approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who +<i>knows</i> shakes hands with individuals."</p> + +<p>In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to +generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown +to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is +exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the +lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the +quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either +positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or +develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is +traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, +overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as +possible conventional morals and manners. Such per<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>sons have simply +overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their +teaching by building counter-prejudices.</p> + +<p>Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be +kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the +course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; +the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic +purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real +life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one +and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted +to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so +intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, +but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the +hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the +poor fellows in the blizzard.</p> + +<p>Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it +becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that +break away from home and home ties who do the great things.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great +virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its +very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the +bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is +proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of +the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of +largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are +born in the home.</p> + +<p>It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional +violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the +restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the +family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would +bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete +disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest +bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between +the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height.</p> + +<p>That courtesy to each other might be <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>taught the children, might be +insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not +exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the +marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out +almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, +courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example.</p> + +<p>Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet +maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human +heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is +easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into +programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of +treatment,—so in society at large.</p> + +<p>Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men +and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and +drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the +sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by +some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger +coöperation, <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built +so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as coöperative +stores are springing up, so coöperative kitchens, community kitchens +organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, +without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her +own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a +development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens +now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the +housewife in most need,—the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real +social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, +nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be +eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would +disappear in a generation.</p> + +<p>That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the +disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius +has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. +Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even +the lower middle <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of +them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device +ought to be judged are these:</p> + +<p>First—Is it efficient?</p> + +<p>Second—Is it labor saving?</p> + +<p>Third—Is it time saving?</p> + +<p>We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional +diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating +ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, +fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the +housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would +also be of great benefit to her husband. The cult of hearty eating, +which results in keeping a woman (mistress or maid) in the kitchen for +three or more hours that a man may eat for twenty or thirty minutes is +folly. The type of meal that either takes only a short time for +preparation and devices which render the attention of the housewife +unnecessary are ethical and healthy, both for the family and society. +The joys of the table are not to be despised, and only the dyspeptic or +the ascetic hold them in con<a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>tempt; but simplicity in eating is the very +heart of the joy of the table.</p> + +<p>Elaboration and gluttony are alike in this,—they increase the housework +and decrease the well-being of the diner.</p> + +<p>How to maintain the sweetness of the family spirit of the home and yet +bring into it a wider social spirit, break down its isolated +individualistic character, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to +solve. Ancient nations emphasized the social-national aspect of life +overmuch, as for example the Spartans; the modern home overemphasizes +the family aspect. We must avoid extremes by clinging to the virtues and +correcting the vices of the home.</p> + +<p>Alarmists are constantly raising the cry that marriage is declining and +that society is thereby threatened at its very heart. There is the +pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; +there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds +in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding +old-fashioned morality. Divorce, late marriage, and child-restriction +are the manifestations of this decadence, and the press, the <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>pulpit, +science, and the State all have taken notice of these modern phenomena, +though with widely differing attitudes.</p> + +<p>That matrimony is changing cannot be questioned or denied. The main +change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose +rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no +longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, +when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in +exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the +horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to +this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely +enough, seemed to glory in it.</p> + +<p>With the rise of woman into the status of a human being (a revolution +not yet accomplished in entirety) the property relationship weakened but +lingers very strongly as a tradition that molds the lives of husband and +wife. Women are still held more rigidly to their duties as wives than +men to their duties as husbands, and the will of the husband still rules +in the major affairs of life, even though in a thousand details the wife +rules. Theoret<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>ically every man willingly acknowledges the importance of +his wife as mother and homekeeper, but practically he acts as if his +work were the really important activity of the family. The obedience of +the wife is still asked for by most of the religious ceremonies of the +times. Two great opinions are therefore still struggling in the home and +in society; one that matrimony implies the dependence and essential +inferiority of woman, and the other that the man and woman are equal +partners in the relationship. I fully realize that the advocate of the +first opinion will deny that the inferiority of woman is at all implied +in their standpoint. But it is an inferior who vows obedience, it is the +inferior who loses legal rights, it is the inferior who yields to +another the "headship" of the home.</p> + +<p>The struggle of these two opinions will have only one outcome, the +complete victory of the modern belief that the sexes are, all in all, +equal, and that therefore marriage is a contract of equals. Meanwhile +the struggling opinions, with the scene of conflict in every home, in +every heart, cause disorder as all struggles do. When the victory is +complete, then conduct will be definite <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>and clear-cut, then the home +will be reorganized in relation to the new belief, and then new problems +will arise and be met. How conduct will be changed, what the new +problems will be and how they will be met, I do not pretend to know.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there is this to say,—that marriage should be guarded so that +the grossly unfit do not marry. A thorough physical examination is as +necessary for matrimony as it is for civil service, and many of the +horrors every generation of doctors has witnessed could be eliminated at +once and for all time.</p> + +<p>Further, if marriage is a desirable state, and on the whole it must be +preferred to a single existence, surely so long as our code of morals +remains unchanged, and so long as we believe the race must be +perpetuated, then the too late marriage should be discouraged. The ideal +age for women to enter matrimony is from twenty-two to twenty-five; the +ideal age for men is from twenty-five to twenty-eight. It is not my +province to deal at length with this subject, but I may state that I +believe that continence beyond these ages becomes increasingly +difficult, that immorality <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>is encouraged, that adaptability becomes +lessened, and that wiser selection of mates does <i>not</i> occur. But how +bring about early marriages in a time when the luxuries seem to have +become necessities, and therefore the necessity of marriage is eyed more +and more as an extravagance of the foolhardy? How bring about early +marriage when women are earning pay almost equal to that of the men and +are therefore more reluctant to enter matrimony unless at a high +standard of living. The late marriage is an evil, but how it can be +displaced by the early marriage under the present social scheme I do not +see.</p> + +<p>We have considered divorce before this. It is not an evil but a symptom +of evil; not a disease in itself. It cannot be lessened or abolished +unless we are willing to state that a man and a woman should live +together as husband and wife, hating, despising, or fearing one another. +We cannot countenance brutality, unfaithfulness, or temperamental +mismating. It is true that divorces are often obtained for trivial +reasons, but usually the partners are not adapted to one another, +according to modern ways of thinking and <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>feeling. What is commonplace +in one age is cruelty in the next, and this is a matter not of argument +but of expectation and feeling.</p> + +<p>Nothing more need be said of contraceptive measures than this: they are +inevitably increasing in use and soon will be part of the average +marriage. Society must recognize this, and the lawmakers must legalize +what they themselves practise.</p> + +<p>Matrimony, the home, woman, these are nodal points in the network of our +human lives. But they are not fixed centers, and the great weaver, Time, +changes the design constantly. Through them run the threads of the great +instincts, of tradition, of economic change, of the ideas, ideals, and +activities of man the restless. Man will always love woman, woman will +always love man; children will be born and reared, and sex conflict, +maladjustment, will always be secondary to these great facts. How men +and women will live together, how they will arrange for the children, +will be questions that women will help the world answer as well as their +mates. That the main trend of things is for better, more ethical, more +just relationship, I do not doubt. The secondary, most noisy <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>changes +are perhaps evil, the main primary change is good.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile in the hurly-burly of new things, of complex relationships, +working blindly, is the nervous housewife. This book has been written +that she may know herself better and thus move towards the light; that +her husband may win sympathy and understanding and be bound to her in a +closer, better union, and that the physician and Society may seek the +direct and the remote means to helping her.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<ul><li>Alcoholism and housewife, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> +<li>Anger, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Beauty, loss of, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> +<li>Birth control, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>-<a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> +<li>Birth control measures and nervousness, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Cases, treatment of, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>-<a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> +<li>Child and cartoons, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a> +<ul><li> and movies, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> +<li>Childbearing and modern woman, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Children and the neurosis, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>-<a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Daydreaming, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> +<li>Diet and Cooking, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> +<li>Disagreeable, reaction to the, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li> +<li>Divorce, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Emotions, effects of, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>-<a href='#Page_30'>30</a>; <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>-<a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li> +<li>Engagement period, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> +<li>Extravagance of the housewife, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Fear, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> +<li>Feminism and individualization of woman, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>-<a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Happiness and high cost of living, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> +<li>Histories of cases: +<ul><li> case with bad hygiene, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>-<a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> +<li> hyperæsthetic woman, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>-<a href='#Page_193'>193</a><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a></li> +<li> over-rich, purposeless type, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>-<a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> +<li> overworked, under-rested type, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>-<a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> +<li> physically ill type, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>-<a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li> +<li>Home, +<ul><li> aboriginal, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li> +<li> faults of, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> +<li> future of, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> +<li> isolation of, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Household conflicts, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-<a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li> +<li>Housewife, +<ul><li> hyperæsthetic type of, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li> +<li> non-domestic type of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> +<li> overconscientious type of, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> +<li> overemotional type of, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li> +<li> physically ill, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> +<li> previously neurotic, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> +<li> types predisposed to nervousness, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>-<a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housewife and abnormal child, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a> +<ul><li> and childbearing, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> +<li> and neglect, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> +<li> and poverty, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housewife of past generation, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li> +<li>Housework, +<ul><li> evolution of, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>-<a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> +<li> nature of, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Housework and factory, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> +<li>Husband and housewife, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> +<li>Hysteria, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Jealousy and envy, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Marriage, conflicting views of, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> +<li>Marriage and sex relationship, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>-<a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li> +<li>Monotony, effects of, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> +<li>Nervousness, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>-<a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> +<li>Nervousness and child hygiene, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> +<li>Nervousness and sick child, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a></li> +<li>Neurasthenia, +<ul><li> causes, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> +<li> symptoms, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Neurasthenia and fear, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Pruriency of our times, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li> +<li>Psychasthenia, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> +<li>Psychoneuroses, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Sedentary life, effects of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> +<li>Sex and society, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> +<li>Subconscious, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> +<li>Symptoms as weapons against husband, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Voltaire and constipation, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> +</ul> + + +<ul><li>Will to power through weakness, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li> +<li>Woman, arts and crafts, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>-<a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> +<li>Woman, +<ul><li> discontent of, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> +<li> future of, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> +<li> training of, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>-<a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li></ul></li> +<li>Woman, industry and home, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>-<a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> +<li>Worry, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> +</ul> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a><i>By the Author of "RELIGION and HEALTH"</i></h3> + +<h2>=HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER=</h2> + +<h3><i>By</i> JAMES J. WALSH, M.D.</h3> + +<h4><i>Medical Director of Fordham University School of Sociology</i></h4> + +<h5>12mo. Cloth. 288 pages.</h5> + +<hr /> + +<p>"The American Public sorely needs the gospel of health that Dr. Walsh +preaches to it in his new book."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Pilot, Boston.</i></p> + + +<p>"I do not wonder that your splendid book 'Health Through Will Power' has +met with such great success. I know that I could hardly leave the book +out of my hands, it was so interesting and instructive."</p> + +<p>—<i>Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, of New York.</i></p> + + +<p>"'Health Through Will Power' is packed with medical wisdom translated +into the vernacular of common sense."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Ave Maria.</i></p> + + +<p>"Your book is capable of adding largely to happiness, as well as health. +It is also wonderful, spiritually. I feel like recommending the book to +everyone I know."</p> + +<p>—<i>Mgr. M.J. Lavelle, of New York.</i></p> + + +<p>"This book should find a place in every home, as it will help to bring +us back to a more natural manner of living."</p> + +<p>—<i>The Rosary Magazine.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<h4>LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS</h4> + +<h5>34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON</h5> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 14196-h.htm or 14196-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/9/14196/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nervous Housewife + +Author: Abraham Myerson + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14196] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE + + + +BY + +ABRAHAM MYERSON, M.D. + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +1920 + + + + +Published November, 1920 + + +Norwood Press + +Set up and electrotyped by J.S. Cushing Co. + +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I INTRODUCTORY 1 + II THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" 17 + III TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS 46 + IV THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS 74 + V REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE 91 + VI POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS 116 + VII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND 126 + VIII THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS 141 + IX THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND 160 + X HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES 168 + XI OTHER TYPICAL CASES 199 + XII TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES 231 + XIII THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE 244 + INDEX 269 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife? + +Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific +creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse +all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the +youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a +headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost +his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge? + +We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference +to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the +present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in every +man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do, +for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor +Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of +occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her +a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes +from specialist to specialist,--orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray +man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment +she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her +feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her +insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics, +electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science! + +Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with +pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and +saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young +girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her +man, into the housewife of a decade,--complaining, fatigued, and +disillusioned. Bound to her husband by the ties the years and the +children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them. + +"Men don't understand," cries she. "Women are unreasonable," says he. + +What are the causes of the change? Did the housewife of a past +generation go through the same stage? Ask any man you meet and he will +tell you his mother is or was more enduring than his wife. "She bore +three times as many children; she did all her own housework; she baked +more, cooked more, sewed more; she got up at five o'clock in the morning +and went to bed at ten at night; she never went out, never had a +vacation, did not know the meaning of manicure, pedicure, coiffure. She +was contented, never extravagant, and rarely sick." + +So the average man will say, and then: "Those were the good old days of +simple living, gone like the dodo!" To-day,--well, it reminds me of a +joke I heard. One man meets another and says: 'By the way, I heard that +your wife was the champion athlete at college.' 'Ah, yes,' said the +husband; 'now she is too weak to wash the dishes.' + +Is the average man's impression the correct one? Or are we dealing with +the incorrigible disposition of man to glorify the past? To the majority +of people their youth was an era of stronger, braver men, more +wholesome, beautiful women. People were better, times were more natural, +and there is a grim satisfaction in predicting that the "world is going +to the dogs." "The good old days" has been the cry of man from the very +earliest times. + +Yet read what a contemporary of the housewife of three quarters of a +century ago says,--the wisest, wittiest, sanest doctor of the day, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. The genial autocrat of the breakfast table +observes: "Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid of all work, with the title of mistress and an American +female constitution which collapses just in the middle third of life, +comes out vulcanized India rubber, if it happens to live through the +period when health and strength are most wanted?" + +And then, if one looks in the advertisements of half a century ago, one +finds the nostrum dealer loudly proclaiming his capacity to cure what +is evidently the Nervous Housewife. In America at least she has always +existed, perhaps in lesser numbers than at present. And one remembers in +a dim sort of way that the married woman of olden days was altogether +faded at thirty-five, that she entered on middle life at a time when at +least many of our women of to-day still think themselves young. + +It becomes interesting and necessary at this point to trace the +evolution of the home, because this is to trace the evolution of our +housewife. We are apt to think of the home as originating in a sort of +cave, where the little unit--the Man, the Woman, and the Children--dwelt +in isolation, ever on the watch against marauders, either animal or +human. In this cave the woman was the chattel of man; he had seized her +by force and ruled by force. + +Perhaps there was such a stage, but much more likely the home was a +communal residence, where the man-herd, the group, the clan, the Family +in the larger sense dwelt. Only a large group would be safe, and the +strong social instinct, the herd feeling, was the basis of the home. +Here the men and women dwelt in a promiscuity that through the ages +went through an evolution which finally became the father-controlled +monogamy of to-day. Here the women lived; here they span, sewed, built; +here they started the arts, the handicrafts, and the religions. And from +here the men went forth to fish and hunt and fight, grim males to whom a +maiden was a thing to court and a wife a thing to enslave. + +Just how the home became more and more segregated and the family life +more individualized is not in the province of this book to detail. This +is certain: that the home was not only a place where man and woman +mated, where their children were born and reared, where food was +prepared and cooked, and where shelter from the elements was obtained; +it was also the first great workshop, where all the manifold industries +had their inception and early development. The housewife was then not +only mother, wife, cook, and nurse; she was the spinner, the weaver, the +tanner, the dyer, the brewer, the druggist. + +Even in the high civilization of the Jews this wide scope of the +housewife prevailed. Read what the wisest, perhaps because most +married, of men says: + + She seeketh wool and flax, + And worketh willingly with her hands. + She is like the merchant ships; + She bringeth her food from afar. + She considereth a field, and buyeth it. + With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. + She girdeth her loins with strength, + And maketh strong her arms. + She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. + Her lamp goeth not out by night. + She layeth her hands to the distaff + And her hands hold the spindle. + + * * * * * + + She is not afraid of the snow for her household: + For all her household are clothed with scarlet. + She maketh for herself coverlets, + She maketh linen garments and selleth them, + And delivereth girdles unto the merchants. + +No wonder "her children rise up and call her blessed" and it is somewhat +condescending of her husband when he "praiseth her." All we learn of him +is that he "is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of +the land." With a wife like her, this was all he had to do. + +This combination of industrialism and domesticity continued until +gradually men stepped into the field of work, perhaps as a result of +their wives' example, and became farmers on a larger scale, merchants of +a wider scope, artisans, handicraftsmen, guild members of a more +developed technique. Woman started these things in the home or near it; +man, through his restless energy, specialized and thus developed an +intenser civilization. But even up till the nineteenth century woman +carried on all her occupations at the home, which still continued to be +workshop and hearth. + +Then man invented the machine, harnessed steam, wired electricity, and +there was born the Factory, the specialized house of industry, in which +there works no artisan, only factory hands. The home could not compete +with this man's monster, into which flowed one river of raw material and +out of which poured another of finished products. But not only did the +factory dye, weave, spin, tan, etc.; it also invaded the innermost +sphere of woman's work. For her loaf of bread it turned out thousands, +until finally she is beginning to give up baking; for her hit-or-miss +jellies, preserves, jams, it invented scientific canning with absolute +methods, handy forms, tempting flavors. And canning did not stop there; +meats, soups, vegetables, fruits are now placed in the hands of the +housewife "Ready to Serve," until the cynical now state, "Woman is no +longer a cook, she is a can opener." With all the talk in this modern +time of women invading man's field, it is just to remark that man has +stepped into woman's work and carried off a huge part of it to his own +creation, the factory. + +Thus it has come to pass that in our day the housewife does but little +dyeing, spinning, weaving, is no longer a handicraftsman, and in +addition is turning over a large part of her food preparation and +cooking to the factory. + +But the factory is not content with thus disarranging the ancient scheme +of things by invading the housewife's province; it has dragged a large +number of women, yearly increasing in number and proportion, into +industry. Thus it has made this condition of affairs: that it takes the +young girl from the home for the few years that intervene before her +marriage. She is thus initiated into wage-earning before she becomes a +man's wife, the housewife. + +This industrial period of a girl's life is important psychologically, +for it profoundly influences her reaction to her status and work as +homekeeper. + +Of even greater importance to our study than the influence of the +factory is the rise of what is known as feminism. Of all the living +creatures in the world the female of the human species has been the most +downtrodden, for to every wretched class of man there was a still +inferior, more wretched group, their wives. She was a slave to the +slaves, a dependent of the abjectly poor. When men passed through the +stage where woman's life might be taken at a whim, she remained a +creature without rights of the wider kind. Men debated whether she had a +soul, made cynical proverbs about her, called her the "weaker vessel," +and debarred her from political and economic equality, classing her up +to this very moment in rights with the idiot, the imbecile, and the +criminal. Worse than this, they gave her a spurious homage, created a +lop-sided chivalry, and caused her to accept as her ideal goal of +womanhood the achievement of beauty and the entrance into wifehood. +After they tied her hand and foot with restrictions and belittling +ideals, they capped the climax by calling her weak and petty by nature +and even got her to believe it! + +It is not my intention to trace the rise of feminism. Brave women arose +from age to age to glorify the world and their sex, and men here and +there championed them. Man started to emancipate himself from slavery, +and noble ideals of the equality of mankind first were whispered, then +shouted as battle cries, and finally chiseled with enduring letters into +the foundations of States. "But if all this was good for men, why not +for women--why should they be fettered by illiteracy, pettiness, +dependence; why should they be voiceless in the state and world?" So +asked the feminists. The factory called for women as labor; they became +the clerks, the teachers, the typists, the nurses. Medicine and the law +opened their doors, at least in part. And now we are on the verge of +universal suffrage, with women entering into the affairs of the world, +theoretically at least the equals of man. + +But with the entrance of woman into many varied professions and +occupations, with a wider access to experience and knowledge, arose +what may be called the era of the "individualization of woman." For if +any group of people are kept under more or less uniform conditions in +early life, if one goal is held out as the only legitimate aim and end, +in a word, if their training and purposes are made alike, they become +alike and individuality never develops. With individuality comes +rebellion at old-established conditions, dissatisfaction, discontent, +and especially if the old ideal still remains in force. This new type of +woman is not so well fitted for the old type of marriage as her +predecessors. There arises a group of consequences based psychologically +on this, a fact which we shall find of great importance later on. + +Women still regard marriage as their chief goal in life, still enter +homes, still bear children, and take their husband's name. But having +become more individualized they demand more definite individual +treatment and rebel more at what they consider an infringement of their +rights as human beings. Also, and unfortunately, they still wish the +right to be whimsical, they continue to reserve for themselves the +weapons of tears, reproaches, and unreasonable demands. This has +brought about the divorce evil. + +Briefly the "divorce" evil arises first from the rebellion of woman +against marital drunkenness, unfaithfulness, neglect, brutality that a +former generation of wives tolerated and even expected. Second, it +arises from a conflict between the institution of marriage which still +carries with it the chattel idea--that woman is property--and a +generation of women that does not accept this. Third, it arises from the +ill-balanced demands of women to be treated as equals and also as +irresponsible, petty, and indulged tyrants. Men are unable to adjust +themselves to the shattering of the romantic ideal, and the home +disintegrates. Though divorce is the top of the crest of marital +unhappiness, it really represents only the extreme cases, and behind it +is a huge body of quarreling and divided homes. + +We shall later see that our Nervous Housewife has symptoms and pains and +aches and changes in mood and feeling that are born of the conflict that +is in part pictured by divorce. _Divorce is a manifestation of the +discontent of women, and so is the nervousness of the housewife._ + +There arises as a result of this individualization of woman, as a +result of increasing physiological knowledge, the hugely important fact +of restricted child bearing. The woman will no longer bear children +indiscriminately,--and the large family is soon to be a thing of the +past in America and in all the civilized world. The-woman-that-knows-how +shrinks from the long nine months of pregnancy, the agony of the birth, +and the weary restricted months of nursing. Had the woman of a past time +known how, she too would have refused to bear. In this the housewife of +to-day is seconded by her husband, for where he has sympathy for his +wife he prefers to let her decide the number of children, and also he is +impressed by the high cost of rearing them. + +One gets cynical about the influence of church, patriotism, and press +when one sees how the housewife has disregarded these influences. For +all the religions preach that race suicide is a sin, all the statesmen +point out that only decadent nations restrict families, and all or +nearly all the press thunder against it. It is even against the law for +a physician or other person to instruct in the methods of birth +restriction, and yet--the birth rate steadily drops. An immigrant mother +has six, eight, or ten children and her daughter has one, two, or three, +very rarely more, and often enough none. This is true even of races +close to religious teaching, such as the Irish Catholic and the Jew. + +One can well be cynical of the power of religion and teaching and law +when one finds that even the families of ministers, rabbis, editors, and +lawmakers, all of whom stand publicly for natural birth, have shown a +great reduction in their size, that has taken place in a single +generation. + +Is the modern woman more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy,--less +resistant to the strain of childbearing and childbirth? It is a quite +general impression amongst obstetricians that this is a fact and also +that fewer women are able to nurse their babies. If so, these phenomena +are of the highest importance to the race and likewise to the problem of +the new housewife. For we shall learn that the lowering of energy is +both a cause and symptom of her neuroses. + +If then we summarize what has been thus far outlined, we find two +currents in the evolution of the housewife. _First_, she has yielded a +large part of her work to the factory, practically all of that part of +it which is industrial and a considerable portion of the food +preparation. + +_Second_, there has been a rise in the dignity and position of woman in +the past one hundred and fifty years which has had many results. She has +considerably widened the scope of her experience with life through work +in the factory, in the office, in the schoolhouse, and in the +professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original +occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. +She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has +declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce +has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability +to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the +declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization +and is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of +freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS" + + +Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we +must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness +in general. + +Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place +whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal condition +is so loosely used as this one. + +People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of +anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim of +fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is +restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting +his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the +ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who +branded his baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A +"nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of +the sinister faces of insanity itself. + +It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous +housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the +general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the +intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the +causes. + +Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous +disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no +alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part +of the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such +diseases as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, +etc., because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter +troubles. One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed +oiling or cleaning, or merely a winding up,--as against one in which a +vital part was broken. + +The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is +concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although two other +diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance. + +It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as +a disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the +eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the +stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every +part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an +accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is +probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that +modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever +present excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved. + +Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as +compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of +neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving, +_i.e._ distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone, +telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to +increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy man with +his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each transaction, but +by enormously increasing the number of his transactions he is not saving +_himself_. + +The keynote of neurasthenia is _increased liability to fatigue_. The +tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising +than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should +remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his +day to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious +drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed or +sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body. +Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and +this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words +as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a +listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more +distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with +over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild +kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for +the things formerly held dearest. And finally the fatigue is often +marked by a lack of control over the emotional expression, so that anger +blazes forth more easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a +slight vexation. _To be neurasthenic is to magnify the pins and pricks +of life into calamities, and to be the victim of an abnormal state that +is neither health nor disease._ + +The more purely physical symptoms constitute almost everything +imaginable. + +1. Pains and aches of all kinds stand out prominently; headache, +backache, pains in the shoulders and arms, pains in the feet and legs, +pains that flit here and there, dull weary pains, disagreeable feelings +rather than true pains. These pains are frequently related to +disagreeable experiences and thoughts, but it is probable that fatigue +plays the principal part in evoking them. + +2. Changes in the appetite, in the condition of the stomach and bowels, +are prominent. Loss of appetite is complained of, or more often a +capricious appetite, vanishing quickly, or else too easily satisfied. +The capriciousness of appetite is undoubtedly emotional, for +disagreeable emotions, such as worry, fear, vexation, have long been +known as the chief enemies of appetite. + +With this change of appetite goes a host of disorders manifested by +"belching", "sour stomach", "logy feelings", etc. What is back of these +lay terms is that the tone, movement, and secreting activity of the +stomach is impaired in neurasthenia. When we consider later on the +nature of emotion, we shall find these changes to be part of the +disorder of emotion. + +3. So, too, there is constipation. In how far the constipation is +primary and in how far it is secondary is a question. At any rate, once +it is established, it interferes with all the functions of the organism +by its interference with the mood. + +The following story of Voltaire bluntly illustrates a fact of widespread +knowledge. Voltaire and an Englishman, after an intimate philosophical +discussion, decided that the aches and pains of life outnumbered the +agreeable sensations, and that to live was to endure unhappiness. +Therefore, they decided that jointly they would commit suicide and named +the time and the place. On the day appointed the Englishman appeared +with a revolver ready to blow out his brains, but no Voltaire was to be +seen. He looked high and low and then went to the sage's home. There he +found him seated before a table groaning with the good things of life +and reading a naughty novel with an expression of utmost enjoyment. Said +the Englishman to Voltaire, "This was the day upon which we were to +commit suicide." "Ah, yes," said Voltaire, "so we were, but to-day my +bowels moved well." + +4. The disturbed sleep, either as insomnia or an unrestful, +dream-disturbed slumber, is a distressing symptom. For we look to the +bed as a refuge from our troubles, as a sanctuary wherein is rebuilded +our strength. We may link work and sleep as the two complementary +functions necessary for happiness. If sleep is disturbed, so is work, +and with that our purposes are threatened. So disturbed sleep has not +only its bodily effects but has its marked results on our happiness. + +5. Fundamental in the symptoms of neurasthenia is fear. This fear takes +two main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, +that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health +and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has +even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is +almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the +possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a +symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability +to worry becomes greatly increased. + +Second, there is a special form of worry called by the old authors +hypochondriacism, which essentially is fear about one's own health. The +hypochondriac magnifies every flutter of his heart into heart disease, +every stitch in his side into pleurisy, every cough into tuberculosis, +every pain in the abdomen into cancer of the stomach, every headache +into the possibility of brain tumor or insanity. He turns his gaze +inward upon himself, and by so doing becomes aware of a host of +sensations that otherwise stream along unnoticed. Our vision was meant +for the environment, for the world in which we live, since the bodily +processes go on best unnoticed. The little fugitive pains and aches; the +little changes in respiration; the rumblings and movements of the +gastro-intestinal tract have no essential meaning in the majority of +cases, but once they are watched with apprehension and anxiety, they +multiply extraordinarily in number and intensity. One of the cardinal +groups of symptoms in a neurasthenic is this fear of serious bodily +disease for which he seeks examination and advice constantly. Naturally +enough, he becomes the choicest prey for the charlatan, the faker, or +perhaps ranks second to the victim of venereal or sexual disease. The +faker usually assures him that he has the disorders he fears and then +proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous course of +treatment. + +What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia. Back +of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on in +relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad +training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for +sympathy, monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook, +over-aesthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy, +passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and +doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, +wrong sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc. + +Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deenergization. By this is meant that +either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after +a sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of +energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some +thought, some life situation of a depressing kind. + +It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our +subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over +the wider field of the human being. + +The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the +building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is +digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into +the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion. +The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the +human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other +words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our +later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of +our hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our +love-making, the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought +battles of any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and +achievement. + +Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as in +tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition +there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor +and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, +laughs, sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work +with zeal and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the +battle, a zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a +stimulus of great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The +feeling that comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a +new birth of purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, +which in the last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end. + +There are _deenergizing emotions and experiences_ as well, things that +suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a certain type +is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs +become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, +and the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, +either for one's self or some beloved one, may completely deenergize the +strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the +frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and +injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and +inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,--the mistaken +marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental +pride. The profoundest deenergization of life may come from a failure of +interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out of +enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with +loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic, +deenergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We +shall discover how this comes about farther on. + +What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in +further symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it? + +In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and psychopathologists +affirm the existence of a subconscious personality. One needs only +mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince, out of a host of +writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we now deal with a +new fashion in mental science, this can be affirmed--that every human +being is a pot boiling with desires, passions, lusts, wishes, purposes, +ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly recognizes and clearly +admits, and some of which he does not clearly recognize and which he +would deny. + +These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with +another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for +the sake of the other. Thus a sex feeling that is not legitimate, an +illicit forbidden love has to be conquered for the sake of the purpose +to be religious or good, or the desire to be respected. So one may +struggle against a hatred for a person whom one should love,--a husband, +a wife, an invalid parent, or child whose care is a burden, and one +refuses to recognize that there is such a struggle. So one may seek to +suppress jealousy, envy of the nearest and dearest; soul-stirring, +forbidden passions; secret revolt against morality and law which may +(and often do) rage in the most puritanical breast. + +In the theory of the subconscious these undesired thoughts, feelings, +passions, wishes, are repressed and pushed into the innermost recesses +of the being, out of the light of the conscious personality, but +nevertheless acting on the personality, distorting it, wearying it. + +However this may be, there is struggle, conflict in every human breast +and especially difficult and undecided struggles in the case of the +neurasthenic. Literally, secretly or otherwise, he is a house divided +against himself, deenergized by fear, disgust, revolt, and conflict. + +And the housewife we are trying to understand is particularly such a +creature, with a host of deenergizing influences playing on her, +buffeting her. Our aim will be to analyze these influences and to +discover how they work. + +I have stated that in medical practice two other types are +described,--psychasthenia and hysteria. These are not so definitely +related to the happenings of life as to the inborn disposition of the +patient. Nor are they quite so common in the housewife as the +neurasthenic, deenergized state. However, they are usually of more +serious nature, and as such merit a description. + +By the term psychasthenia is understood a group of conditions in which +the bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, +etc., are either not so marked as in neurasthenia, or else are +overshadowed by other, more distinctly mental symptoms. + +These mental symptoms are of three main types. There is a tendency to +recurring fears,--fears of open places, fears of closed places, fear of +leaving home, of being alone, fear of eating or sleeping, fear of dirt, +so that the victim is impelled continually to wash the hands, fear of +disease--especially such as syphilis--and a host of other fears, all of +which are recognized as unreasonable, against which the victim struggles +but vainly. Sometimes the fear is nameless, vague, undifferentiated, and +comes on like a cloud with rapid heartbeat, faint feelings, and a sense +of impending death. Sometimes the fear is related to something that has +actually happened, as, fear of anything hot after a sunstroke; or fear +of any vehicle after an automobile accident. + +There is also a tendency to obsessive ideas and doubts; that is, ideas +and doubts that persist in coming against the will of the patient, such +as the obscene word or phrase that continually obtrudes itself on a +chaste woman, or the doubt whether one has shut the door or properly +turned off the gas. Of course, everybody has such obsessions and doubts +occasionally, but to be psychasthenic about it is to have them +continually and to have them obtrude themselves into every action. In +extreme psychasthenia the difficulty of "making up the mind", of +deciding, becomes so great that a person may suffer agonies of internal +debate about crossing the street, putting on his clothes, eating his +meals, doing his work, about every detail of his coming, going, doing, +and thinking. A restless anxiety results, a fear of insanity, an +inefficiency, and an incapacity for sustained effort that results in the +name that is often applied,--"anxiety neurosis." + +Third, there is a group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd +impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch +the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. +The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick +that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic +adult, to the odd grimaces and facial contortions, blinking eyes and +cracking joints of the inveterate _ticquer_. Against some of these habit +spasms, comparable to severe stammering, all measures are in vain, for +there seems to be a queer pleasure in these acts against which the will +of the patient is powerless. + +Especially do the first two described types of trouble follow +exhaustion, acute illness, sudden fright, and long painful ordeal. The +ground is prepared for these conditions, _e.g._ by the strain of long +attendance on a sick husband or child. Then, suddenly one day, comes a +queer fear or a faint dizzy feeling which awakens great alarm, is +brooded upon, wondered at, and its return feared. This fearful +expectation really makes the return inevitable, and then the disease +starts. If the patient would seek competent advice at this stage, +recovery would usually be prompt. Instead, there is a long unsuccessful +struggle, with each defeat tending to make the fear or anxiety or +obsession habitual. Sometimes, perhaps in most cases, and in all cases +according to Freud and his followers, there is a long-hidden series of +causes behind the symptoms; subconscious sexual conflicts and +repressions, etc. It may be stated here that the present author is not +at all a Freudian and believes that the causes of these forms of +nervousness are simpler, more related to the big obvious factors in +life, than to the curiously complicated and bizarrely sexual Freudian +factors. People get tired, disgusted, apprehensive; they hate where they +should love; love where they should hate; are jealous unreasonably; are +bored, tortured by monotony; have their hopes, purposes, and desires +frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face +they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way +or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance. +These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have +been considering. + +Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is +probably the one having its source mainly in the character of the +patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is +secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of +diseases and has probably played a very important role in the history of +man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria, +for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of +religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in +their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical +blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away +his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every +faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de +Beaupre. + +In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as +well as in her single sisters and brothers. + +There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to +prolonged and freakish manifestations,--the well-known hysterics with +laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics +is this instability, this emotionality, which is however secondary to +an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and +often unable legitimately to earn them. + +A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called +paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a +moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg, +face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to +worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the +nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call +"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions, +ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and +a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any +energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a +physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious +danger. The latter is exemplified in the cases now and then reported of +people who have not been out of bed for years, but are aroused by threat +of some danger, like a fire, reach safety, and thereafter are well. + +Similar in type to the paralyses are losses of sensation in various +parts of the body,--losses so complete that one may thrust a needle deep +into the flesh without pain to the patient. In the days of witch-hunting +the witch-hunters would test the women suspected with a pin, and if they +found places where pain was not felt, considered they had proof of +witchcraft or diabolic possession, so that many a hysteric was hanged or +drowned. The history of man is full of psychopathic characters and +happenings; insane men have changed the course of human events by their +ideas and delusions, and on the other hand society has continually +mistaken the insane and the nervously afflicted for criminals or +wretches deserving severest punishment. + +Especially striking in hysteria are the curious changes in consciousness +that take place. These range from what seem to be fainting spells to +long trances lasting perhaps for months, in which animation is +apparently suspended and the body seems on the brink of death. In olden +days the Delphian oracles were people who had the power voluntarily of +throwing themselves into these hysteric states and their vague +statements were taken to be heaven-inspired. To-day, their descendants +in hysteria are the crystal gazers, the mediums, the automatic writers +that by a mixture of hysteria and faking deceive the simple and +credulous. + +For, in the last analysis, all hysterics are deceivers both of +themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are +theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are +weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of the patient. + +In order to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now +consider in more detail certain phases of emotion. + +Fear curdles the blood, anger floods the body with passion, sorrow +flexes the proud head to earth and stifles the heartbeat; joy opens the +floodgates of strength, and hope lifts up the head and braces man's +soul. + +Man is said to be a rational being, but his thought is directed mainly +against the problems of nature, much more rarely against _his own_ +problems. It is for emotion that we live, for emotion in the wide sense +of pleasure and pride. What guides us in our conduct is desire, and +desire in the last analysis is based on the instincts and the allied +emotions,--hunger, sex, property, competition, cooperation. The +intelligence guides the instincts and governs the emotions, but in the +case of the vast majority of mankind is swept out of the field when any +great decision is to be made. + +We are accustomed to thinking of emotion as a thing purely +psychical,--purely of the mind, despite the fact that all the great +descriptions and all the homely sayings portray it as bodily. "My heart +thumped like a steam engine," or "I could not catch my breath"; "a cold +chill played up and down my back"; "I swallowed hard, because my mouth +was so dry I could not speak." And the Bible repeatedly says of the man +stricken by fear, "His bowels turned to water," with a graphic force +only equaled by its truth. + +William James, nearly simultaneously with Lange, pointed out that +emotion cannot be separated from its physical concomitants and maintain +its identity. That is, if we separate in our minds the weak, chilly +feeling, the dry mouth, the racing heart, the sharp, harsh breathing, +and the tension of the muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling +of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or +anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,--immediately the +jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench +and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in +what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. +Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over +you a feeling not unlike anger. + +In a famous paragraph James essentially states that instead of crying +because we are sorry, it is fully as likely that we are sorry because we +cry. So with every emotion; we are afraid because we run away, and happy +because we dance and shout. In other words he reversed the order of +things as the everyday person would see it; makes primary and of +fundamental importance the physical response rather than the feeling +itself. + +This has been widely disagreed with, and is not at all an acceptable +theory in its entirety. Yet modern physiology has shown that emotion is +largely a physical matter, largely a thing of blood vessels, heartbeat, +lungs, glands, and digestive organs. This physical foundation of emotion +is a very important matter in our study of the housewife as of every +other living person. For it is especially in the emotional disturbance +that the origin of much of nervousness is to be found, and that on what +may be called the physical basis of emotion. + +What can emotion produce that is pathological, detrimental to +well-being? We may start with the grossest, simplest manifestations. It +may entirely upset digestion, as in the vomiting of disgust and +excitement. Or, in lesser measure, it may completely destroy the +appetite, as occurs when a disturbing emotion arises at mealtime. This +is probably brought about by the checking of the gastric secretions. +(Cannon's work; Pavlow's work.) + +It may check the secretion of milk in the nursing mother, or it may +change the quality of the milk so that it almost poisons the infant. It +may cause the bladder and bowels to be evacuated, or it may prevent +their evacuation. + +It may so change the supply of blood in the body as to leave the head +without sufficient quantity and thus bring about a fainting spell; +_i.e._ may absolutely deprive the victim of consciousness. In lesser +degree it causes the blush, a visible manifestation of emotion often +very distressing. + +It may completely abolish sex power in the male, or it may bring about +sex manifestations which the victim would almost rather die than show. + +It may completely deenergize so that neither interest, enthusiasm, or +power remains. This is a familiar effect of sorrow but occurs in lesser +degree with the form of fear called worry. + +The fact is that emotion is an intense bodily response to a situation +which when perceived is the state of feeling. This intense bodily +response, involving the very minutest tissues of the body, may increase +the available energy, may help the bodily functioning, may stimulate the +"psychical" processes, but also it may deenergize to an extraordinary +degree, it may interfere with every function, including thought and +action. It may surely produce acute illness, and it may, though rarely, +produce death. + +Moreover, it is extraordinarily contagious. Every one knows how a hearty +laugh spreads, and how quick the response to a smile. Indeed, emotion +has probably for one of its main functions the producing of an effect +on some one else, and all the world uses emotion for this purpose. Anger +is used to produce fear, sorrow to evoke sympathy, fear is to bring +about relenting, a smile and laughter, friendliness, except where one +smiles or laughs _at_ some one, and then its design is to bring sorrow, +anger, or pain. The leader maintains a hopeful, joyous demeanor so that +his followers may also be joyous or hopeful and thus be energized to +their best. Morale is the state of emotion of a group; it is raised when +joyous, energizing emotions are set working in the group and is lowered +when pessimistic deenergizing emotions become dominant. A city or a +nation becomes energized with good news and success and deenergized when +the battle seems lost. + +The spread of emotion from person to person by sympathetic feeling or +the reverse (as when we get depressed because our enemy is happy) is a +social fact of incalculable importance. The problem of the nervous +housewife is a problem of society because she gives her mood over to her +family or else intensely dissatisfies its members so that the home ties +are greatly weakened. + +This spread of emotion was happily portrayed by a motion picture I +recently saw. Old Grouchy Moneybags, wealthy beyond measure and +afflicted with gout, is seated at his breakfast table. In the next room, +seen with the all-seeing eye of the movie, the butler makes love to the +very willing maid. In the kitchen the fat cook is feeding the ever +hungry butcher's boy with gingerbread and cake, and on the back steps +the household cat is purring gently in contentment. Happiness is the +predominant note. + +Then Old Moneybags savagely rings the bell. Enters the butler, +obsequious and solicitous. "The coffee is bad, the toast is vile, +everything is wrong. You are a _deleted deleted deleted deleted_ +rascal." Exit the butler, outwardly humble, inwardly a raging flood of +anger, and he meets the maid, who archly invites his attentions. She +gets them, only they are in the form of an angry shove and an oath. +White with indignation, she stamps her foot and runs into the kitchen, +bursting into tears. The cook, solicitous, receives a slap in the face, +and as the maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the +gingerbread from the butcher's boy. And that still hungry juvenile +slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back +doorstep. + +Unfortunately the film did not show what the outraged cat did. Possibly +it started a devastation that reached back into Moneybags' career; at +any rate the unusual little picture (which later went on to the usual +happy ending) showed how emotion spreads through the world, just as +disease does. The infection that starts in the hovel finally strikes +down the rich man's child, enthroned in the palace. The mood engendered +by the humiliation of poverty or cruelty or any injustice finally shakes +a king off his throne. + +So when we trace the deenergizing emotions of the housewife, we are +tracing factors that affect her husband, his work, and Society at large; +we trace the things that mold her children, and thus we follow her mood, +her emotion, into the future, into history. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TYPES OF HOUSEWIFE PREDISPOSED TO NERVOUSNESS + + +There are three main factors in the production of the nervousness of the +housewife, and they weave and interweave in a very complex way to +produce a variety of results. All the things of life, no matter how +simple in appearance, are a complex combination of action and reaction. +Our housewife's symptoms are no exception, whether they are mainly +pains, aches, and fatigue, or the deeply motivated doubt or feeling of +unreality. + +The nature of the housewife, the conditions of her life, and her +relations to her husband are these three factors. All enter into each +case, though in some only one may be emphasized as of importance. There +are cases where the nature of the woman is mainly the essential cause, +others where it is the conditions of her life, and still others where +the husband stands out as the source of her symptoms. + +We are now to consider the nature of the housewife as our first factor. +We may preamble this by saying that a woman essentially normal in one +relationship in life may be abnormal in some other, may be the +traditional square peg in the round hole. Moreover, we are to insist on +the essential and increasing individuality of women, which is to a large +extent a recent phenomenon. The cynical commonplace is "All women are +alike"--and then follows the specific accusation--"in fickleness", "in +extravagance", "in unreasonableness", in this trick or that. The chief +effort of conservatism is to make them alike, to fit each one for the +same life by the same training in habits, knowledge, abilities, and +ideals. + +Talk about Prussianism! The great Prussianism, with its ideal of +uniformity, serviceability, and servility, has been the masculine ideal +of woman's life. Man was to be diversified as life itself, was to taste +all its experiences, but woman had her sphere, which belied all +mathematics by being a narrow groove. + +The nineteenth century changed all that,--or started the change which +is going on with extraordinary rapidity in the twentieth. There are all +kinds of women, at least potentially. It may be true that woman +tends less to vary than man, that she follows a conservative +middle-of-the-road biologically, while man spreads out, but no one can +be sure of this until woman's early training to some extent resembles +man's. + +1. From the very start woman is trained to vanity. Every mother loves to +doll up her girl baby, and the child is admired for her dress and +appearance. Now it is an essential quality of the normal human being +that he accepts as an ideal the quality most admired. To the young +child, the girl, the young woman, the important thing is Looks, Looks, +Looks! The first question asked about a woman is, "Is she pretty?" The +pretty girls, the ones most courted, the ones surest on the whole to get +married and to become housewives are usually spoiled by indulgence, +petting, admiration, and this for a quality not at all related to strong +character, and therefore vanity of a trivial kind results. + +2. Moreover, woman is trained to emotionality. It may be that she is by +nature more emotional than man, but again this can only be known when +she has been trained to repress emotional response as a man is trained. +If a boy cries or shows fear, he is scolded, and training of one kind or +another is instituted to bring about moral and mental hardihood. But if +a girl cries, she is consoled by some means and taught that tears are +potent weapons, a fact she uses with extraordinary effect later on, +especially in dealing with men. If she shows fear, she is protected, +sheltered, and given a sort of indulged inferiority. + +3. The romantic ideal is constantly held before her in the private +counsel of her mother, in the books she reads, in the plays she +witnesses, in all the allurements of art. She is to await the lover, the +hero; he will take her off with him to dwell in love and happiness +forever. All stories, or most of them, end before the heroine develops +the neurosis of the housewife. In fact, literature is the worst possible +preparation for married life, excepting perhaps the _courtship_. This +latter emphasizes a distorted chivalry that makes of woman a petty thing +on a pedestal, out of touch with reality; it is an exciting entrance +into what in the majority of cases is a rather monotonous existence. + +All these things--vanity, emotionality, romanticism, courtship--are poor +training for the home. They hinder even the strongest woman, they are +fetters for the more delicate. + +In taking up the special types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife it is to be emphasized that conditions may bring about the +neurosis in the normal housewife. Nevertheless, there are groups of +women who, because of their make-up or constitution, acquire the +neurosis much more easily and much more intensely than do the normal +women. They are the types most commonly seen in the hospital clinic or +in the private consulting room of the neurologist. + +First comes the hyperaesthetic type. One of the chief marks of advancing +civilization is an increasing refinement of taste and desire. The +fundamental human needs are food, shelter, clothes, sex relations, and +companionship. These the savage has as well as his civilized brother, +and he finds them not only necessary but agreeable. What we call +progress improves the food and the shelter, modifies the clothes, +elaborates the sex relations and the code governing companionship. With +each step forward the cruder methods become more actively disagreeable, +and only the refined methods prove agreeable. In other words, desire +keeps pace with improvement, so that although great advances materially +have been made, there has been little advance, if any, in contentment. +This is because as we progress in refinement little things come to be +important, manner becomes more essential than matter, and we get to the +hyperaesthetic stage. + +Thus the dinner becomes less important than the manner of serving it. In +the "highest circles" it is the _savoir faire_, the niceties of conduct, +that count more than character. Words become the means of playing with +thought rather than the means of expressing it, and thought itself +scorns the elemental and fundamental and busies itself with the vagaries +of existence. + +From another angle, to the hyperaesthetic more and more things have +become disagreeable. To the man of simple tastes and simple feelings, +only the calamities are disagreeable; to the hyperaesthetic every breeze +has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the +reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess +boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in +delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So +with the hyperaesthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a +deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of its savor; +sounds become noises; a bit of litter, dirt; a little reality, +intolerable crudity. + +A woman with this temperament is a poor candidate for matrimony unless +there goes with it a capacity for adjustment, unusual in this type. Most +men have their habitual crudities, their daily lapses, and every home is +the theater of a constant struggle with the disagreeable. Intensely +pleased by the utmost refinements, these are too uncommon to make up for +the shortcomings. The hyperaesthetic woman is constantly the prey of the +most deenergizing of emotions,--disgust. "It makes me sick" is not an +exaggerated expression of her feeling. And her afflicted household size +up the situation with the brief analysis, "Everything makes her +nervous." Every one in her household falls under the tyranny of her +disposition, mingling their concern with exasperation, their pity with a +silent almost subconscious contempt. + +Next comes the over-conscientious type. Whatever conscience is, whether +implanted by God, or the social code sanctified by training, teaching, +and a social nature, there can be no question that, as the Court of +Appeals, it does harm as well as good. + +There are people whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of +crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, +and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there +are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two +directions. If they are zealots, convinced of the righteousness of their +own decisions and conclusions, their conscience spurs them on to +reforming the world. Since they are more often wrong than right, they +become, as it were, a sort of misdirected Providence, raising havoc with +the happiness and comfort of others. Whether the conscienceless or +those overburdened with this type of conscience have done more harm in +the world is perhaps an open question, which I leave to the historians +for settlement. + +The other type of the overconscientious does definite harm to +themselves. This type I have called the "Seekers of Perfection" and it +is their affliction that they are miserable with anything less. They are +particularly hard on themselves, differing in this wise from the by +hyperaesthetic. Constantly they examine and reexamine what they have +done. "Is it the best I can do?" "Should I rest now; have I the right to +rest?" + +Into every moment of enjoyment they obtrude conscience, or rather +conscience obtrudes itself. They become wedded to a purpose, and then +that purpose becomes a tyrant allowing no escape, even for a brief +pleasure, from its chains. Nothing is right that wastes any time; +nothing is good but the best. The sense of humor is conspicuously +lacking in this type, for one of the main functions of humor is to +season effort and straining purpose with proportion. + +Should one of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually +"picking up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, +"finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never +finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, +unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly +chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the +strain, even though she have a dozen servants to help. For to this type +each helper is not at all an aid. At once up goes the standard of what +is to be done, and each servant becomes an added care, an added +responsibility. + +"I'd love to go out with you," wails this housewife, "but there's +something I must finish to-day." The word _must_, self-imposed, becomes +the mania of her life, to the open rebellion of her household. The word +drives her to the real neglect of her husband, who becomes irritated at +her constant and to him needless activity, coupled with her complaints. + +"Why don't you rest if you are tired," is his stock remonstrance; "the +house looks all right to me." + +But it is futile. She becomes irritated, perhaps cries and says, "Just +like a man. It's clean to you if there are no cobwebs on the walls." + +Whereupon the debate closes, but the woman is the more deenergized and +the man exasperated at the unreasonableness of women in general and his +wife in particular. + +It is probably true that woman has more conscience, in so far as detail +is concerned, than man. She is more of a lover of order and neatness, +more wedded to decorum. Man loves comfort and his interest is more +specialized and analytical, and as a rule he hates fussiness. + +This hatred of fussiness makes him long for the masculine clubroom, +gives him the kind of uneasiness that sends him off on a fishing trip or +hunting expedition. Further, and this is of great social importance, +many a broken home, many an unexplainable triangle of the Wife, the +Husband, and the Other Woman owes its existence, not to the charms of +the other woman, but to the overconscientious wife. + +The third type predisposed to the neurosis of the housewife is the +overemotional woman. + +We have already considered the effect of certain types of emotion on +health and endurance and may formulate it as follows: Emotion may act +as a great bodily disturbance, affecting every organ and every function +of the body. What we call nervousness is largely made up of abnormal +emotional response, of persistent emotion, of the blocking of energy by +emotion. + +Now people differ from the very start of life in their response to +situations. One baby, if he does not get what he wants, turns his +attention to something else, and another will cry for hours or until he +gets it. One will manifest anger and strike at being blocked or impeded +in his desires, and the other will implore and plead in a baby way for +his wish. + +In the face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts +hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a +fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a +fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past +experience and seeking a definite plan to gain his end. + +A loss, a deprivation, plunges one type of person into deepest sorrow, a +helpless sorrow, inert and symbolic of the hopeless frustration of +love. The same affliction striking at another man's heart makes him +deeply and soberly reflective, and out of it there ensues a great +philanthropy, a great memorial to his grief. For the one, sorrow has +deenergized; for the other it has energized, has raised the efforts to a +nobler plane. + +Now there are women, and also men, to whom emotion acts like an overdose +of a drug. Parenthetically, emotion and certain drugs have very similar +effects. No matter how joyous the occasion and how exuberant their joy, +a mood may settle into their lives like a fog and obscure everything. +This mood may arise from the smallest disappointment; or a sudden vision +of possible disaster to one they love may appear before them through +some stray mental association. They are at the mercy of every sad memory +and of every look into the future. + +Preeminently, they are the victims of that form of chronic fear called +worry, more aptly named by Fletcher "fearthought." He implied by this +name that it was a sort of degenerated "forethought." + +If the baby has a cough, then it may have tuberculosis or pneumonia or +some disastrous illness, of which death is the commonest ending. How +often is the doctor called in by these women and needlessly, and how she +does keep his telephone busy! It is true that a cough may be early +tuberculosis, but this is the last possibility rather than the first. + +If the husband is late, Heaven knows what may have happened. She has +visions of him lying dead in some morgue, picked up by the police, or +he's in a hospital terribly injured by an automobile, or, perchance, a +robber has sandbagged him and dragged him into a dark alley. If she is a +bit jealous, and he is at all attractive, then the disaster lies that +way. It doesn't matter that his work may be such that he cannot be at +home regularly or on schedule; the sinister explanation takes possession +of her to the exclusion of the more rational; _she has a sort of +affinity for the terrible_. And when her husband comes home, the +profound fear in many cases turns sharply and quickly to anger at him. +Her distorted sense of responsibility makes him the culprit for her +unnecessary fear. + +Now it is true that almost every woman has something of this tendency, +but it is only the extreme case that I am here depicting. In this +extreme form, this type of woman is commonly found among the Jews. The +Jewish home reverberates with emotionality and largely through this +attitude of the Jewish housewife. + +Such a woman is apt to make a slave of her family through their fear of +arousing her emotions. How frequently people are chained by their +sympathies, how frequently they are impeded in enjoyment by the tyranny +of some one else's weakness, would fill one of the biggest chapters in a +true history of the human race,--a book that will probably never be +written. + +Naturally enough, this housewife finds plenty to worry about, to react +to, and since these reactions are physical, they have a lowering effect +on her energy. + +To those familiar with the conception that every emotion, every feeling, +needs a discharge, it will seem heretical when I say that the excessive +discharge of emotion is harmful. Freud finds the root of most nervous +trouble in repressed emotion. That is in part true, but it is also true +that excessive emotionality is a high-grade injury, for emotional +discharge is habit forming. It becomes habitual to cry too much, to act +too angry, to fear too much. The conquest and disciplining of emotion is +one of the great objects of training. It has for its goal the supremacy +of the noblest organ of the human being, his brain. For proper living +there must be emotion--there always will be--but it must be tempered +with intelligence if the best good of the individual and the race is to +be reached. + +The type of woman we must now study is a very modern product, the +non-domestic type. + +That the great majority of women have a maternal instinct does not +nullify the fact that a small number have none whatever. One of the +facts of life, not taken into account with a fraction of its true +significance and importance, is the variability of the race, the wide +range of abilities, instincts, emotions, aspirations, and tastes. A +quality is said to be normal when the majority of the group possess it, +but it may be utterly lacking in a smaller number who are thereby +declared abnormal. + +At present, it is normal for woman to be domestic, _i.e._ to yearn for +husband, home, and children; to want to be a housewife. Unfortunately, +all these yearnings do not hang closely together, and a woman may want a +husband and be swept by her own desire and opportunity into matrimony, +and yet she may "detest" children, may dislike the housekeeping +activities of marriage. The sex and other instincts upon which marriage +is based are not always linked with the maternal and home-keeping +instincts. + +While this has probably always been true, it mattered little in olden +days. A woman regarded the home as her destiny and generally had +experienced no other life. But as was shown in the first chapter, +industry and feminism have given woman a taste of other kinds of life +and have developed her individual points of character and abilities. +Perhaps she has been the bookkeeper of a large concern; or the private +secretary to a man of exciting affairs; or she has been the buyer for +some house; or she has dabbled in art or literature; or she has been a +factory girl mingling with hundreds of others, working hard, but in a +large group; or a saleslady in a department store,--and domestic life is +expected of her as if she had been trained for it. In fact, she has been +trained away from it. + +The novelists delight to tell us of the woman who seeks a career and +enters the struggle of her profession and fails. And then there comes, +just when her failure is greatest and she is most weepingly feminine, +the patient hero, and he holds out his arms, and she slips into them, +oh, so joyously! She now has a home, and will be happy--long row of +asterisks, and have children; and if it is a movie, a year or more +elapses and we are permitted to gaze upon a charming domestic scene. + +But alas for reel life as against real life! We are not shown how she +yearns for the activities of her old career; we are not shown the +feeling she constantly has that she is too good for housekeeping. If she +has been fortunate enough to marry a rich and indulgent man, she becomes +a dilettante in her work, playing with art or science. If her first +vocation was business, she is bored to death by domesticity. But if she +marries poverty, she looks on herself as a drudge, and though loyalty +and pride may keep her from voicing her regrets, they eat like a canker +worm in the bud,--and we have the neurosis of this type of housewife. Or +else her experience in business makes her size up her husband more +keenly, and we find her rebelling against his failure, criticizing him +either openly to the point of domestic disharmony, or inwardly to her +own disgust. + +It is not meant that all business and professional women, all typists +and factory girls are dissatisfied with marriage or develop an abnormal +amount of neurosis. Many a girl of this type really loves housekeeping, +really loves children, and makes the ideal housewife. Intelligent, +clear-eyed, she manages her home like a business. But if independent +experience and a non-domestic nature happen to reside in the same woman, +then the neurosis appears in full bloom. Against the adulation given to +women singers and actresses, against the fancied rewards of literature +and business, the domestic lot seems drab to this non-domestic type. + +Here the question arises: Is there room in our society for matrimony and +a business career? That a large number of exceptional women have found +it possible to be mothers, housewives, authors, and singers at one and +the same time does not take away from the fact that in the majority of +cases such a combination means either a childless marriage or the +turning over of an occasional child to servants: it means the +abandonment of the home and the living in hotels, except in the few +cases where there is wealth and trusty servants. Wherever women who have +children are poor and work in factories, there is the greatest infant +mortality, there is the greatest amount of juvenile delinquency, and +there is the greatest amount of marital difficulty. Our present +conception of matrimony demands that woman remains in the home until +such time at least as her children are able to care largely for +themselves. + +In the history of the worst cases of the housewife's neurosis one finds +previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized, +the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously +existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in +college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it +occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This +previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional +strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in +examinations. It may have followed acute illness, like influenza or +pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung, +delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep +readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of +energy. + +This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best +product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and +ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress +and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What +happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?" + +As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how +she marries. For after all a woman does not marry _matrimony_, she +marries a _man_, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic +woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to +give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she +is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than +if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social +worker, typist, factory hand the rest of her days,--and she has +fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an +unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the +first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short +periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid, +the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really +sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust +himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To +differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness +is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some +show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And +the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the +genuineness of the affliction is painful and increases the chasm between +wife and husband. + +That some of the sweetest marriages result where the wife is of this +type does not change the general situation that such a marriage is an +increased risk. Should a man knowingly marry such a woman? The question +is futile in the overwhelming majority of cases. He will marry her, is +the answer. For the fascinating woman is frequently of this type. +Witness the charm of the neuropathic eye with its widely dilated pupil +that changes with each emotion, the mobile face,--delicate, with a play +of color, red and white, that is charming to look at, but which the grim +physician calls "Vasomotor instability." There is nothing neutral about +this type; she is either very lovely or a freak. + +So all advice in the matter is of little avail. And racially speaking it +is good that it is of no avail. I believe firmly that such a woman is +more often the mother of high ability than her more placid sister; that +something of the delicacy of feeling and intensity of reaction of +neurasthenia is a condition of genius. We are too far away from any real +knowledge of heredity to advise for or against marriage in the most of +cases on this basis, and certainly we must not repeat Lombroso and +Nordau's errors and call all variations from stupidity degeneration. + +But this does not change the domestic situation of the man who is +usually much more concerned with his own comfort than the mathematical +possibilities of his offspring being geniuses. Certainly such a woman +as the type now considered is not a poor man's wife, for she really +needs what only the rich can have,--servants, variety, frequent +vacations, and freedom from worry. Now worry cannot be shut out of even +the richest home, for illness, old age, and death are grim visitors who +ask no man's leave. But poverty and its worries are kept away by wealth, +and poverty is perhaps the most persistent tormentor of man. + +Essential in the study of "nervousness" is the physical examination, and +we here pass to the physically ill housewife. + +It is important to remember that the diagnosis of neurasthenia is, +properly speaking, what is called by physicians a diagnosis of +exclusion. That is to say, after one has excluded all possible illnesses +that give rise to symptoms like neurasthenia, then and then only is the +diagnosis justified. That is, a woman physically ill, with heart, lung, +or kidney disease, or with derangements of the sexual organs, may act +precisely like a nervous housewife,--may have pains and aches, changes +in mood, loss of control of emotion; in a word may be deenergized. + +It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a +natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to +the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external +parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth +occurs after twenty-five years of age. Repair of the parts immediately +is indicated, but in what percentage of cases is this done? In a very +small percentage of cases, I venture to state, not only in my own small +experience in this work, but on the statements of men of large +experience and high authority. + +In this connection I may state that the leading obstetricians believe +that the woman of to-day has a harder time in labor than her +predecessors. Aside from the more or less mythical stories of the savage +women who deliver themselves on the march, there seems to be no +reasonable doubt that in an increasing civilization and feminization, +woman becomes less able to deliver herself, especially at the first +birth. + +Why is this? After all, it is a fundamental matter. And moreover it is +more often the tennis-playing, horseback-riding, athletic girl who +falls short in this respect than the soft-limbed, shrinking, +old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy +motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the +occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the +truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point. + +A retroverted uterus, a lacerated perineum, such minor difficulties as +flat feet, such major ones as valvular disease of the heart, are causes +of ill health to be ruled out before "nervousness" (or its medical +equivalents) is to be diagnosed. + +It is superfluous to say that we have here briefly considered only a few +of the types specially predisposed to difficulty. Moreover men and women +do not readily fall into "types." A woman may be hyperaesthetic in one +sphere of her tastes and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros in others. She +may squirm with horror if her husband snores in his sleep, but be +willing to live in an ugly modern apartment house with a poodle dog for +her chief associate. Or the overconscientious woman may expend her +energies in chasing the last bit of dirt out of her house but be +willing to poison her family with three delicatessen meals a day. The +overemotional housewife may flood the household with her tears over +trifles but be a very Spartan in the grave emergencies of life. And the +neurotic woman, a chronic invalid for housework, may do a dragoon's work +for Woman Suffrage. It may be that no man can understand women; it is a +fact they do not understand themselves. But in this they are not unlike +men. + +One might speak of the jealous woman, the selfish woman, the woman +envious of her more fortunate sisters, poisoning herself by bitter +thoughts. These traits belong to all men and women; they are part of +human nature, and they have their great uses as well as their +difficulties. Jealousy, selfishness, envy, three of the cardinal sins of +the theologian, are likewise three of the great motive forces of +mankind. They are important as reactions against life, not as qualities, +and we shall so consider them in a later chapter. + +Though we have discussed the types predisposed to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is a cardinal thesis of this book that great forces of +society and the nature of her life situation are mainly responsible. +From now on we are face to face with these factors and must consider +them frankly and fully. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOUSEWORK AND THE HOME AS FACTORS IN THE NEUROSIS + + +One of the most remarkable of the traits of man is the restless +advancement of desire,--and consequently the never-ending search for +contentment. What we look upon as a goal is never more than a rung in +the ladder, and pressure of one kind or another always forces us on to +further weary climbing. + +This is based on a great psychological law. If you put your hand in warm +water it _feels_ warm only for a short time, and you must add still +warmer water to renew the stimulus. Or else you must withdraw your hand. +The law, which is called the Weber-Fechner Law, applies to all of our +desires as well as to our sensations. To appreciate a thing you must +lose it; to reach a desire's gratification is to build up new desires. + +This is to be emphasized in the case of the housewife, but with this +additional factor: that how one reacts to being a housewife depends on +what one expects out of life and housekeeping. If one expects little out +of life, aside from being a housewife, then there is contentment. If one +expects much, demands much, then the housewife's lot leads to +discontent. + +What is disagreeable is not a fixed thing, except for pain, hunger, +thirst, and death. The disagreeable is the balked desire, the obstructed +wish, the offended taste. It is a main thesis of this book that the +neurosis of the housewife has a large part of its origin in the +increasing desires of women, in their demands for a fuller, more varied +life than that afforded by the lot of the housewife. Dissatisfaction, +discontent, disgust, discouragement, hidden or open, are part of the +factors of the disease. Furthermore there is an increasing sensitiveness +of woman to the disagreeable phases of housework. + +What are these phases that are attended with difficulty? 1. The status +of the house work. + +It is an essential phase of housework that as soon as woman can afford +it she turns it over to a servant. Furthermore there is greater and +greater difficulty in getting servants, which merely means that even the +so-called servant class dislikes the work. No amount of argument +therefore leads away from the conclusion that housework must be +essentially disagreeable, in its completeness. There may be phases of it +that are agreeable; some may like the cooking or the sewing, but no one +likes these things plus the everlasting picking up; no one likes the +dusting, the dishwashing, the clothes washing and ironing, the work that +is no sooner finished than it beckons with tyrannical finger to be +begun. To say nothing of the care of the children! + +I do not class as a housewife the woman who has a cook, two maids, a +butler, and a chauffeur,--the woman who merely acts as a sort of manager +for the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or +nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid +with whom she wrestles to do her share,--who relieves her somewhat but +not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, +only one woman in ten has any help at all! + +It is therefore no exaggeration when I say that though the housewife +may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large +extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the +science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of +child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home +(capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, +but I must remind the indignant ones that ditch diggers, garbage +collectors, sewer cleaners are the backbone of sanitation and +civilization, and yet their occupations are disagreeable. + +"Fine words butter no parsnips." There are some rare souls who lend to +the humblest tasks the dignity of their natures, but the average person +frets and fumes under similar circumstances. In its aims and purposes +housekeeping is the highest of professions; in its methods and technique +it ranks amongst the lowest of occupations. We must separate results, +ideals, aims, and possibilities from methods. + +All work at home has the difficulty of the segregation, the isolation of +the home. Man, the social animal who needs at least some one to quarrel +with, has deliberately isolated his household, somewhat as a squirrel +hides nuts,--on a property basis. There has grown up a definite, +aesthetic need of privacy; all of modesty and the essential family +feeling demand it. + +This is good for the man, and perhaps for the children, but not for the +woman. Her work is done alone, and at the time her husband comes home +and wants to stay there, she would like to get out. Work that is in the +main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads +almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are +essentials, in the housework,--monotony, daydreaming, and introspection. + +Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a +paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst +punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need +the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies +the sights, sounds, smells of the earth; we must have the voices and the +presence of our fellows, not for education, but for the maintenance of +interest in living. For the mind to turn inward on itself is +pleasurable only in rare snatches, for short periods of time or for rare +and abnormal people. Man's mind loves the outside world but becomes +uneasy when confronted by itself. + +The human being, whether male or female, housewife or industrial worker, +is a seeker of sensations. Without new sensations man falls into boredom +or a restless and unhappy state, from which the mind seeks freedom. It +is true that one may become a mere seeker of sensations, a restless and +fickle pleasure lover who passes from the normal to the abnormal, exotic +in his vain search for what is logically impossible,--lasting novelty. +Variety however is not the mere spice of life; it is the basis of +interest and concentrated purpose as well. + +People of course vary greatly in what they regard as variety, and this +is often a constitutional matter as well as a matter of education. What +is new, striking and interest-provoking to the child has not the same +value to the adult; what is boredom to the city man might be of huge +interest to the country man. A person trained to a certain type of life, +taught to expect certain things, may find no need of other newer +things. In other words people accustomed to a wide range of stimuli need +a wide range, while people unaccustomed to such a range do not need it. + +The most important stimuli are other _persons_, capable of setting into +action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham +Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas",--ideas called into +being by words, moods, and deeds of others. + +It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. +"She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It +is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to +talk _at_; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the +flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds +are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of +which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly +disastrous to others. + +If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection +may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of +marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of +understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children +that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her +thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements +of her life. + +But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams +pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back +to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The +daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A +struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep +in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest +disgust and deenergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and +weariness of life often results. + +One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little +group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit +sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a +person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, +and all are bright, energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the +monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, +the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the +unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,--the hearth. But for the +housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her +husband does. + +Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the +woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is +the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of +women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more +strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework +a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman +depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and +the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing +number of women to settle down to home-keeping. + +The housewife is _par excellence_ a sedentary creature. She goes to work +when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, +very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many +women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next +to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as +hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery. + +It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are +possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent +conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If +there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, +seem the logical way of resting up. + +Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It +tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. +Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the +exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. +Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, +running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before +civilization made necessary and pleasurable. + +With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. +Frequently the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite +every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a +female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better +still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good +part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent +enough result to find him "logy" on Monday. + +Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely +eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each +course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The +dishes _must_ be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that +peace of mind so necessary for good digestion. + +An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the +family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and +various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of +oilcloth,--then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much +of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous +waste of human energy and happiness. + +An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under +the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her +mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged +beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate +structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the +hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are +not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism +amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated +biped." + +While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also +true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as +a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it +destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the +efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an +autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the +importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon +mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia. + +These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of +sedentary life bear with especial weight upon the woman of little +means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth. +There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks, +as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and +deenergization. It is also true that the search for pleasure leads to a +sterile sort of strenuousness that breaks down the health, as well as +inflicting injury on the personality. + +Poverty is picturesque only to the outsider. "It's hell to be poor" is +the poor man's summary of the situation. There are serious psychical +injuries in poverty which will demand our attention later, and still +more serious bodily ones. In the case of the housewife, poverty on the +physical side means (1) never-ending work; (2) no escape from drudgery +and monotony; (3) insufficient convalescence from the injuries of +childbearing; (4) a poor home, badly constructed, badly managed, without +conveniences and necessities. + +That there are plenty of poor women who bear up well under their burdens +is merely a testimony to the inherent vitality of the race. A man would +be a wreck morally, physically, and mentally if he coped with his +wife's burdens for a month. Either that or the housekeeping would get +down to bare essentials. If a man kept such a house, dusting and +cleaning would be rare events, meals would become as crude as the needs +of life would allow, ironing and linen would be wiped off as +non-essential, and the children would run around like so many little +animals. In other words an integral part of what we call civilization in +the home would disappear. + +Perhaps men would reorganize the home. The housekeeper of to-day is only +in spots cooperative; her social sense is undeveloped. Men might, and I +think likely would, arrange for a group housekeeping such as that which +they enjoy in their clubs. + +This digression aside, there are debilitating factors in the housewife's +lot which need some amplification. We have referred to the insufficient +time for convalescence from childbirth. There are _sequelae_ of +childbirth, such as varicose veins, flat feet, back strain, that render +the victim's life a burden. The rich woman finds it easy to secure rest +enough and proper medical attention. But the poor woman, not able to +rest, and with recourse either to her overbusy family doctor or to the +overburdened, careless, out-patient department of some hospital, drags +along with her troubles year in and year out, becomes old before her +time, and loses through constant pain and distress the freshness of +life. + +It is impossible to separate the psychical factors from the physical, +largely because there is no separation. One of the aims of a woman's +life is to be beautiful, or at least good looking. From her earliest +days this is held out to her as a way to praise, flattery, and power. It +becomes a cardinal purpose, a goal, even an ideal. + +Unlike the purposes of men this goal is attained early, if at all, and +then Nature or Life strip it away. The well-to-do woman or the +exceptional poor woman may succeed in keeping her figure and her facial +beauty for a relatively long time, though by the forties even these have +usually given up the struggle. For the poor woman the fading comes +early,--household work, bearing children, sedentary life, worry, and a +non-appreciative husband bringing about the fatal change. + +I doubt if men see their youth slipping away with the anguish of women. +To men, maturity means success, greater proficiency, more +achievement,--means purpose-expanding. To women, to whom the main +purpose of life is marriage, it means loss of their physical hold on +their mate, loss of the longed for and delightful admiration of others; +it means substantially the frustration of purpose. + +And I have noticed that the very worst cases of neurosis of the +housewife come in the early thirties, in women previously beautiful or +extraordinarily attractive. They watch the crows'-feet, the fine +wrinkles, the fat covering the lines of the neck and body with something +of the anguish that the general watches the enemy cutting off his lines +of communication or a statesman marks the rise of an implacable rival. + +Popular literature, popular art, and popular drama, including in this by +a vigorous stretching of the idea the movie, are in a conspiracy against +reality. This is of course because of the tyranny of the "Happy Ending." +While the happy ending is psychologically and financially necessary, in +so far as the publishers, editors, and producers are concerned, what +really happens is that the disagreeable phases of life, not being +faced, persist. To have a blind side for the disagreeable does not rule +it out of existence; in fact, it thus gains in effect. + +To say that housekeeping is looked upon essentially as menial, to say +that it is monotonous, that it is sedentary, and has the ill effects +that arise from these characteristics, is not to deny that it has +agreeable phases. It has an agreeable side in its privacy, its +individuality, and it fosters certain virtues necessary to civilization. +That I do not lay stress on these is because novelist, dramatist, and +scenario author, as well as churchman and statesman, have always dwelt +on these. The agreeable phases of the housewife's work do not cause her +neurosis; it is the disagreeable in her life that do. Or rather it is +what any individual housewife finds disagreeable that is of importance, +and it is my task to show what these things are, how they work, and +finally what to do about it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REACTION TO THE DISAGREEABLE + + +A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot +will be of value. + +We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three +groups,--the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two +men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or +disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are +people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another +man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what +one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not +cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. +And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent. + +1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to +cause fear. This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal +reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as +the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. +Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out +of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not +experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in +sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor +religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality. + +As a matter of fact fear is _a_ (I almost said _the_) great motive force +of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear +of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of +disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is +the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of +thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life +insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our +fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity +with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him! + +2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works +hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by +sentimentalists,--anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by +obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze +forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, +or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with +thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may +range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation +against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. +Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or +other it would never be fulfilled. + +3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different +times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or +thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is +paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deenergization. + +Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be +met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive +action, or it may be met with a deenergization, confusion, paralysis, +hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high +constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and +the peculiar agony of doubt. + +This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For +the situation is never clear-cut for decision--there is the ideal +implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to +live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, +weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This +conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can +neither accept nor reject the situation. + +This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of +view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, +some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind +and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon +some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of +his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing +of time. This passing of time can be received equably by the one +conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and +purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt. + +Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases +which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are +reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in +mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where +they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle +is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of +impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a +neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that +a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring +about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, +hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt. + +With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us +turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may +cause her neurosis. + +The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the +biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been +recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of +human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the +mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the +maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love +and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their +natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While +the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for +all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source +of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children. + +Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the +maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the +interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle +between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in +the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. +All the world honors the mother, but few children return in anything +like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother. + +Is the maternal instinct waning in intensity in this period of +feminization? There have always been some bad, careless, selfish +mothers; has their number increased? Probably not, yet the maternal +instinct now has competition in the heart of the modern woman. The +desire to participate in the world's activity, the desire to learn, to +acquire culture, engenders a restless impatience with the closed-in life +of the mother-housewife. This interferes with single-minded motherhood, +brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of +course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of +the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of +many. + +The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her +children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been +touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as +a group. + +We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman +has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her ancestress. If +this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are +often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in +their memories) there are several explanations. + +First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first +child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and +that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing +difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body, +loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for +childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular +organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows +older. + +Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of +the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic +nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important +factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are +part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion +plays a role of importance in childbearing. The modern woman _fears_ +childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater +knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life. + +Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a +need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more +difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and +yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often +seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to +nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it +cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened +sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's +supply. + +The feeling of great responsibility for her child's welfare that the +modern woman has acquired, as a result of popular education in these +matters, undoubtedly saves infants' lives and is therefore worth the +price. A secondary result of importance, and one not good, is the added +liability to fatigue and breakdown that the mother acquires. This factor +we meet again in the next phase of our subject, the education and +training of children. + +Though the number of children has conspicuously decreased, the care and +attention given them has increased in inverse proportion. The woman with +six children or more turned over the younger children to the older ones, +so that her burden, though heavy, was much less than it may seem. +Further, though she loved and cared for them, she knew far less of +hygiene than her descendant; she did not try to bring them up in a +germless way; and her household activities kept her too busy to allow +her to notice each running nose, or each "festering sore." Not having +nearly so much knowledge of disease, she had much less fear and was +spared this type of deenergization. Her daughter views with alarm each +cough and sneeze, has sinister forebodings with each rash; pays an +enormous attention to the children's food, and through an increasing +attention to detail in her child's life and actions has a greater +liability to break under the greater responsibility and +conscientiousness. + +It must be remembered that the feeling of responsibility and +apprehensive attention is not merely "mental." It means fatigue, more +disturbance of appetite, and less restful sleep. These are things of +great importance in causing nervousness; in fact, they constitute a +large part of it. + +Perhaps another generation will find that hygiene can be taught without +producing fussiness and fear. Certainly popular education has its value, +but it has a morbid side that now needs attention. This morbid side is +not only bad for the mother but is unqualifiedly bad for the child. + +For the child of to-day, the center of the family stage in his +attention, is often either spoiled or made neurasthenic by his +treatment. Either he is frankly indulged, or else an over-critical +attitude is taken toward him. "Bad habits must not be formed" is the +actuating motive of the overconscientious parents, for they do not seem +to know that the "trial and error" method is the natural way of +learning. Children take up one habit after another for the sake of +experience and discard them by themselves. For a child to lie, to steal, +to fight, to be selfish, to be self-willed is not at all unnatural; for +him to have bad table manners and to forget admonition in general and +against these manners in particular is his birthright, so to speak. + +Yet many a mother of to-day torments her child into a bad introspection +and self-consciousness, herself into neurasthenia, and her husband into +seething rebellion, because of her desire for perfection, because of her +fear that a "bad act" may form into a habit and thence into a vicious +character. + +Especially is this true of the overaesthetic, overconscientious types +described in Chapter III. I have seen women who made the dinner table +less a place to eat than a place where a child was pilloried for his +manners,--pilloried into sullen, appetiteless state. + +So, too, an unfortunate publicity given to child prodigies brought with +it for a short time an epidemic of forced intellectual feeding of +children, that produced only a precocious neurasthenia as its great +result. Similarly the Montessori method of child training which made +every woman into a kindergarten teacher did a hundred times more harm +than good, despite the merits of the system. That a child needs to +experiment with life himself means that it will be a long time before +the average mother will know how to help him. + +A factor that tends to perplex the mother and hurts the training of the +child is her doubt as how "to discipline." Shall it be the old-fashioned +corporal punishment of a past generation, the appeal to pain and blame? +Shall it be the nowadays emphasized moral suasion, the appeal to +conscience and reason? With all the preachers of new methods filling her +ear she finds that moral suasion fails in her own child's case, and yet +she is afraid of physical punishment. + +This is not the place to study child training in any extensive manner, +yet it needs be said that praise and blame, pleasure and pain, are the +great incentives to conduct. One cannot drive a horse with one rein; +neither can one drive a child into social ways, social conformity by one +emotion or feeling. Corporal punishment is a necessity, sparingly used +but vigorously used when indicated. Of course praise is needed and so is +reward. + +What is here to be emphasized is that a sense of great responsibility +and an over-critical attitude toward the children is a factor of +importance in the nervous state of the modern housewife. Increasing +knowledge and increasing demand have brought with them bad as well as +good results. Here as elsewhere a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, +but a more serious difficulty is this,--though fads in training arise +that are loudly proclaimed as the only way, there is as yet no real +science of character or of character growth. + +The tragedy of illness is acute everywhere, and the sick child is in +every household. In many cases I have traced the source of the +housewife's neurosis to the care and worry furnished by one child. There +are truly delicate children who "catch everything", who start off by +being difficult to nurse, and who pass from one infection to another +until the worried mother suspects disease with every change in the +child's color. A sick child is often a changed child, changed in all the +fundamental emotions,--cranky, capricious, unaffectionate, difficult to +care for. A sick child means, except where servants and nurses can be +commanded, disturbed sleep, extra work, confinement to the house, heavy +expense, and a heightened tension that has as its aftermath, in many +cases, collapse. The savor of life seems to go, each day is a throbbing +suspense. + +With recovery, if the woman can rest, in the majority of cases no +marked degree of deenergization follows. But in too many cases rest is +not possible, though it is urgently needed. The mother needs the care of +convalescence more than does the child. + +There is an extraordinary lack of provision for the tired housewife. +True there are sanataria galore, with beautiful names, in pretty places, +well equipped with nurses and doctors to care for their patients. But +these are prohibitive in price, and at the present writing the cheapest +place is about forty dollars per week. This rate puts them out of the +reach of the great majority who need them. + +Moreover, where there are small children and where there is no trusty +servant or some kindly relative or friend it seems impossible for the +housewife to leave the home. Her husband must work daily for their bread +and unless they are willing to turn to the charitable organizations, it +is necessary for the housewife to carry on, despite her fatigue. So at +the best she gets an hour or two extra rest a day, takes a "little +tonic" from the family doctor and gets along with her pains, her aches, +and moods as best she can. + +But the sick do not always recover. Fortunately, the average human +being grieves a while over death, but the life struggle soon absorbs +him, and the bereavement itself becomes a memory. But now and then one +meets mothers whose griefs and deprivations seem without end. No +religion, no philosophy can bring them back into continuity with their +lives. They go about in a sorrowful dream, hugging their affliction, +resenting any effort to comfort or console; without interest in the +daily task or in those whom they should love. They offer the severest +problem in readjustment, in reenergization, for they actively resent +being helped. Sometimes one believes their grief is an effort to atone +for neglect real or fancied, a self-punishment which is not remitted +until full atonement has been made. + +Aside from the physical difficulties in the bearing and rearing of +children, and in addition to the ordinary mental difficulties, such as +judging what discipline to use, there are especial problems of some +importance. Men vary in character from the saint to the villain, in +ability from the genius to the idiot. The children they once were vary +as much. There are children who go through the worst of homes, the +worst of environments, the worst of trainings,--and come out pure gold, +with characters all the better for the struggle. There are others whom +no amount of love, discipline, training, and benefits help; they are +despicable from the ordinary viewpoint from the first of life to the +last. Some children, adversely situated as to poverty and health, become +geniuses, and their reverse is in the poor child whom heredity, early +disease, or some freak of nature dooms to feeble-mindedness. + +The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, +and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be +overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her +maternal love. + +It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who +evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the +housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love +injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a +nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children. + +The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, destructive, and quarrelsome, +or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually +runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time +goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between +hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc +with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife +neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with +mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results. + +Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the +child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and +the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous +illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the +teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time +the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that +"the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he +should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the +pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and +feeble-mindedness is recognized. + +There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust +themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all +the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their +normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I +am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or +incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with +the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of +fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly +reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental +hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes +with the legitimate work. + +There is no offhand solution for the case of the incorrigible boy or +girl. Of course the largest number sooner or later reform, sometimes +overnight, and in a way to remind one of the religious conversions that +James speaks of in his "Varieties of Religious Experiences." So long as +a child has a social streak in his make-up, so long as he at least is +responsive to the praise and blame of others and understands that he +does wrong, so long may one hope for him. But the child to whom the +opinion of others seems of no value, who follows his own egoism without +check or control by the accepted standard of conduct, by the moral law, +by the praise and blame of those near to him, is almost hopeless. Some +day intelligence may keep him out of trouble, but by itself it cannot +change his nature. + +It is not sufficiently realized that while there has been a rise of +feminism there has also been a great change in the status of children, a +change that makes their care far more difficult than in the past. They +have risen from subordinate figures in the household, schooled in +absolute obedience, "to be seen and not heard," to the central figures +in the household. One of the strangest of revolutions has taken place in +America, taken place in almost every household, and without the notice +of historians or sociologists. That is because these professional +students of humanity have their attention focused on little groups of +figures called the leaders, and not nearly enough on that mass which +gives the leaders their direction and power. + +The age of the child! His development parallels that of women, in that +an individualization has taken place. In the past education and training +took notice of the child-group, not of the individual child. But +child-culture has taken on new aspects, punishment has been largely +superseded, individual study and treatment are the thing. Personality is +the aim of education, especial aptitudes are recognized in the various +types of schools that have arisen: commercial, industrial, classical; +yes, and even schools for the feeble-minded. + +All this is admirable, and in another century will bring remarkable +results. Even to-day some good has come, but this is largely vitiated by +other influences. + +Aside from the fact that the attention paid the child often increases +his self-importance and makes his wishes more capricious, there are +factors that tend to rob him of his naivete. + +These factors are the movies, the newspapers, and the spread of +luxurious habits amongst children. + +The movies are marvelous agents for the spread of information and +misinformation. Because of the natural settings they give to the most +absurd and unnatural stories, their essential falsity and unreality is +often made the more pernicious. Their possibilities for good are +enormous, their actual performance is conspicuously to lower the public +taste, to create a habit which discourages earnest reading or +intelligent entertainment. For children they act as a stimulant of an +unwholesome kind, acquainting them with realistic crime, vice, and +vulgarity, giving them a distaste for childlike enjoyment. One sees +nowadays altogether too often the satiated child who seeks excitement, +the cynical, overwise child filled with the lore of the movies. + +In similar fashion the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an +extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the +funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor +is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and +thoroughly enjoyable to those whom it cannot harm. + +If the historians of, say, 4500 A.D. were by chance to get hold of a few +copies of our newspapers of 1920 they might legitimately conclude that +the denizen of this remote period expressed surprise by falling backward +out of his shoes, expressed disagreement by striking the other person +over the head with a brick or a club; that women were always taller than +their mates and usually "beat them up"; that all husbands, especially if +elderly, chased after every young and pretty girl. They might conclude +that the language of the mass of the people was of such remarkable types +as this: "You tell them Casket, I'm Coffin", or "the Storm and Strife is +coming; beat it!" + +No one I think enjoys the comic page more than the present writer,--yet +it spreads a demoralizing virus amongst children. Of what use is it to +teach children good English when the newspaper deliberately teaches them +the cheapest slang? Of what use is it to teach them manners and +kindliness when the newspaper constantly spreads boorishness and "rough +house" conduct? Of what use is it to raise taste when this is injured at +the very outset of life by giving bad taste a fascinating attraction? + +Throughout the community there is a stir and excitement that is +reflecting on the children. There are so many desirable luxuries in the +world now, so many revealed by movie and symbolized by the automobile, +the cabaret, the increasing vulgarity of the theater (the disappearance +of the drama and the omnipresent girl and music show), a restless search +for pleasure throughout the community even before the War, have not +missed the child. + +All these things make the lot of the housewife harder in so far as the +training of her children is concerned. She is dealing with a more alert, +more sophisticated, more sensuous child,--and one who knows his place +and power. The press and the theater both have knowledge of this and a +recent witty play dealt with the sins of the children, paraphrasing of +course the classic of a bygone day, "Sins of the Fathers." And a wise +old gentleman said to his grandson recently, when the lad complained +about his mother, "Of course you are right. Every son has a right to be +obeyed by his mother." + +I am by no means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but +nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we +shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the +value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a role in the world of +great importance,--but the spread of education and opportunity to the +mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to +survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the +agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the +woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think +are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and +replaced, but which are yet of importance. + +And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep +from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him +from sophistication. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS + + +In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning +of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save +mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty. +Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of +poverty,--the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven, +and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of +reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha +knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the +desperate struggle to reach riches. + +We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of +poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged +or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,--that +would be nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack +of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth +are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect +traceable in the conditions we are studying. + +Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the +cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of +housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does +more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what +the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing +objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That +is the long and short of it,--the Emancipation Proclamation did not +include them. + +Aside from the physical effects of poverty on the housewife, there are +factors of psychical importance that call for a hearing. After all, what +is poverty in one age is riches in another; what is poverty for one man +is wealth to his neighbor. More than that, what a man considers riches +in anticipation is poverty in realization. Here again we deal with the +mounting of desire. + +The philosophical, contented woman, satisfied with her life even though +it is poor, is exempted from one great factor making for breakdown. +Contentment is the great shield of the nervous system, the great bulwark +against fatigue and obsession. But contentment leads away from +achievement, which springs from discontent, from yearning desire. +Whether civilization in the sense of our achievements is worth the price +paid is a matter upon which the present writer will not presume to pass +judgment. Whether it is or not, Mankind is committed to struggle onward, +regardless of the result to his peace of mind. + +There are two principal psychical injuries with poverty--fear and +worry--and we must pass to their consideration as factors in the +neuroses of some women. + +Worry is chronic fear directed against a life situation, usually +anticipated. Man the foreseeing must worry or he dies,--dies of +starvation, disease, disaster. It is true that worry may be excessive +and directed either against imaginary or inevitable ills; ills that +never come, ills that must come, like old age and death. + +Men in comfortable places cry "Why worry?" meaning of course that the +most of worry is about ills that are never realized. That is true, but +the person living just on the brink of disaster, ruined or made +dependent on charity by unemployment, a long illness, or any failure of +power and strength, cannot be as philosophical as the man fortified by a +nice bank account or dividend-paying investments. These well-to-do +advisers of the poor remind one of the heroes of ancient fables who, +having magic weapons and impenetrable armor, showed no fear in battle. +One wonders how much courage they would have had if armed as their +foemen were. + +For the poor housewife who sees no escape from poverty, whose husband is +either a workman or a struggling business man always on the edge of +failure, life often seems like a wall closing in, a losing battle +without end. + +Especially in the middle-aged, in those approaching fifty, does this +happen. Aside from the condition produced by "change of life", the +so-called involution period, there is a reaction of the "time of life" +that is found very commonly. For old age is no longer far off on the +horizon; it is close at hand, around the corner, and the looking-glass +proclaims its coming. The woman wonders whether her husband will long be +able to keep up,--and then "what will become of us?" + +To be thrown on the benevolence of children is a sad ending to +independent natures, to people of experience. Crudely put, those who +have been dependents are now sustainers; those who have been led now +guide; the inferiors are the superiors. This is not cynicism, for with +the best intentions in the world, if the children are also poor, the +care of the parents is a burden that they cannot help showing, sooner or +later. + +Looking forward to such an ending to the hard work and struggle of a +lifetime is part of the worry of poverty, to be classed with the fear of +sickness and unemployment. + +We may loudly proclaim that one honest man is as good as another, that +character is the measure of worth, that success cannot be measured by +money. These things are true; the difficulty is not to make people +believe it, it is to make people _feel_ it. Deeply ingrained in poverty +is not alone to be deprived of things desired; more important is the +feeling of inferiority that goes with the condition. Only in the +Bohemia of the novelists do the poor feel equal to the rich. + +One of the fundamental strivings of the human being is the enlargement +of the self-feeling, which fundamentally is the wish to be superior, to +have the admiration and homage of others. All daydreaming builds this +air castle; all ambition has this as its goal. No matter how we disguise +it to ourselves and others, the main ends of purpose are power and +place. True, we may wish for power and place so as to help others; we +may wish them as the result of constructive work and achievement, but +the enlargement of self-feeling is the end result of the striving. + +To be poor is to be inferior in feeling and applies equally to men and +women. Man is a competitive-social animal and competes in everything, +from the cleverness and beauty of his children to the excellence of his +taste in hats. Money has the advantage of being the symbol of value, of +being concrete and definite, and of having the inestimable property of +purchasing power. + +Now woman is as competitive as her mate. A housewife vies with her +neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her youth, her +husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,--vies with +her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women +(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry +only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the +greater part of it has this origin. + +Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a +great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from +these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends +unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is +envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from +himself. + +Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be +satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that +is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of +the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous +sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of +her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when +she is outstripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by +her relatives and intimate friends. + +Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their +children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a +good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all +their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the +bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children +respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of +their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have +drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then +the breakdown is tragic. + +A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his +children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but +he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,--that the +average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them +for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on +their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother +usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares +this desire except in a mild way. + +It may be that there was a time when classes were more fixed, that +poverty had less of humiliation and blocked desire than it has at +present. That society of all grades is restless with the desire for +luxury seems without doubt. How profoundly the psychology of the masses +is being altered by education, by the newspaper, the magazine, the +movie, the automobile, the fashion changes that make a dress obsolete in +a season and above all the department store and the alluring +advertisement, no one can hope to even estimate. Modern capitalism reaps +great wealth by developing the luxurious, the spendthrift tastes of the +poor. It would be a peculiar poetic justice that will make that +development into the basis of revolution. + +The women of the poor are perhaps even more restless than the men. In +fact, it is the women that set the pace in these matters. This is +because to woman has fallen the spending of the family funds, a fact of +great importance in bringing about discord in the house. As the shopper +the poor woman now sees the beautiful things that her ancestors knew +nothing of, since there were no department stores in those days. To-day +desires are awakened that cannot be fulfilled; she sees other women +buying what she can only long for, and an active discontent with her lot +appears. + +Unphilosophical this, and severely to be deprecated as unworthy of +woman. This has been done so often and so effectively(?) by divines, +reformers, press, that a mere physician begs leave to remark that it is +a natural sequence of the publicity luxury to-day has. _The most +successful commercial minds of America are in a conspiracy against the +poor Housewife to make her discontented with her lot by increasing her +desires_; they are on the job day and night and invade every corner of +her world; well, they have succeeded. The divines, etc., who thunder +against luxury have no word to say against the department store and the +advertising manager. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND + + +The husband differs from the wife in this fundamental,--that essentially +he is not a house man as she is a house woman. For the man the home is +the place where he houses his family and where he rests at night. Here +also he spends his leisure time in amount varying with his domesticity. +Man writes songs and books about the home, but the woman lives there. +Perhaps that is why women have not written sentimental verse about it. + +Marriage is variously regarded. "It is a sacrament, a religious +sanction, and not to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very +large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered +into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is +the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly +is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat +this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction +alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics +is an undisputed fact. + +It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has +been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict +between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This +conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life +of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their +attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate. + +For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean +merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in +the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has +become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their +energies. + +Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its +eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil +relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches +that if it is sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion, +brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a +source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out +their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with +daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods +and emotions of all of us. + +This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part +of the neurosis of the housewife. + +After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with +whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she +becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss +as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live +apart, have no children and meet occasionally,--for obvious purposes. +Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the +virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties. + +This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and +successful the happiest human experience. Soberly speaking, it is then +the flower of existence, satisfying biologically and humanly, giving +peace and satisfaction to body and mind. This is the ideal, the "happy +ending" at which most romances, novels, plays, and all the daydreams of +youth leave us. Warm, cozy, intense domesticity, where passion is +legitimate and love and friendship eternal; where children play around +the hearth fire; of which death only is the ending! + +This ideal is not realized largely because no ideal is. How often is it +closely approximated? Experience says seldom. That implies no reproach +against marriage, for we are to judge marriage by the rest of life and +not by an ideal. A world in which great wars occur frequently, in which +economic conflict is constant, in which sickness and disaster are never +absent; where education is occasional, where reason has yet to rule in +the larger policies and where folly occupies the high places,--why +expect marriage to be more nearly perfect than the life of which it is a +part? To be reasonably comfortable and happy in marriage is all we may +expect. + +What are the difficulties confronting the partners which impede +happiness and especially which bring the neurosis of the housewife? For +after all we can only examine the field for our own purpose. + +We may divide the difficulties as follows from the standpoint of the +neurosis of the housewife: + +1. Those that arise from the sex relationship itself. + +2. Those that arise from conflicts of will, purpose, ideas. + +3. Those that arise from the types of husbands. + +4. Those that arise from the types of wives. (This has already been +considered under the heading Types Predisposed to the Neurosis.) + +Before we go on to the consideration of these various factors we must +repeat what has been emphasized frequently in this book. + +That the change in the status of woman implies difficulty in the +marriage relationship. If only _one_ will is expected to be dominant in +the household, the man's, then there can arise no conflict. If the form +of the household is unaltered, but if the woman demands its control or +expects equality, then conflict arises. If a woman expects a man to beat +her at his pleasure, as has everywhere been the case and still is in +some places, if she considers it just, brutality exists only in extremes +of violence. If she considers a blow, or even a rough word, an +unendurable insult, then brutality arises with the commonest +disagreement. In other words, it is comparatively easy to deal with a +woman expecting an inferior position, whose individual tastes, wills, +ideas, and ideals have never been developed,--the ancient woman; it is +very much more difficult to deal with her modern sister. + +Happily the day is passing when prudery governed the discussion of sex. +Lewdness exists in concealment, suggestion is more provocatory than +frankness. The morbidness of men who condemned themselves to celibacy +has influenced the world; their fear of sex led to a misguided silence +shrouding the wrecks of many a life. + +The sex relationship is the basis of marriage. The famous couplet of +Rosalind still holds good. The sex instinct (or rather instincts, for +coupled with sex-desire is love of beauty, admiration, joy of +possession, triumph, etc.) has the unique place of being more regulated +by law and custom than any other basic instinct. The law holds that no +marriage is consummated until the sex act has taken place, regardless +of the words of preacher or State official. The happiness of the first +year or years of married life is mostly in its voluptuous bonds, for +companionship and comradeship have really not yet arisen. Complementary +to this it may be said that much of married misery, especially for the +woman, arises from the first marital embrace. + +This last is because of the ignorance of men and women, an ignorance +wholly due to prudery. The majority of women have been chaste before +marriage; the majority of men have not. One would expect therefore +knowledge of men, the knowledge of experience. But the experience has +been gained with women of a certain type and has not equipped the man to +deal with his wife. Though most women know in advance what is expected +of them, some are even ignorant of the most elemental facts of sex, and +even those who know are unprepared for reality. + +Too frequently the man regards himself as a Grand Seigneur with a +paramount "Jus Primis Noctis." True, the majority of men are abashed in +the presence of innocence and deal gently with it,--but others follow in +a repellent way their instinct of possession. Any neurologist of +experience has cases where sexual frigidity and neurasthenia in a woman +can be traced back to the shock of that all-important first night. + +There are savage races in which preparation for marriage is an +elementary part of education. We need not follow them into absurdity, +but more than the last silly whispered words to bride and groom at the +ceremony is necessary. A formal antenuptial enlightenment, frank and +expert, is needed by our civilization. + +The sex appetite varies as widely as any other human character. +Generally speaking, it is believed that sexual passion in women is more +episodic than in men, often relating to the menstrual period. In many +cases it does not develop as a conscious factor in the woman's life +until after marriage, and sometimes not until the first child is born. +Certainly desire in the girl is a more generalized, less local, less +conscious excitement than it is in the boy who cannot misunderstand his +feelings. I think it may safely be said that allowing for the freedom of +boys and men, there is native to the male a more urgent passion than to +the female. This would be biologically necessary, since upon him +devolves not only courtship but the fundamental activity in the sexual +act. A passionless woman may have sexual relation, a passionless man +cannot. + +The disparity in sex desire between a husband and wife may be slight or +great. No statistics on the subject will ever be gathered, from the very +nature of the facts, but it is safe to say that much more disparity +exists than is suspected. And likewise it causes more trouble than is +suspected. Where the virility of the mate is inadequate there breeds a +subtle dissatisfaction that may corrode domestic happiness and bring +about conflict on subjects quite remote from the real issue. +Contrariwise, to have relations forced or coaxed on one where desire is +lacking brings about disgust, nervous reactions, fatigue of marked +nature. + +A woman sexually well mated often clings beyond reason to an unworthy +mate. Many an inexplicable marriage, many a fantastic loyalty of a good +woman to a bad man has its origin where it is least expected, in the sex +attachment. Demureness of appearance, refinement of manner, noble +ideals are not at all inconsistent with powerful sex feeling. There is +no reason why strong, well-controlled passion should be considered +anything but a virtue, why the pleasure of the sexual field should, +under the social restriction, be regarded as impure. + +Too often the latter is the case. Fantastic puritanical ideas often +govern both men and women. I have in mind several couples who desired to +live continent until such time as children were desired. The biological +reasons for the sexual relations seemed to them the only "pure" reasons. +Needless to say the resolution broke down under the intimacy of one +roof, but meanwhile a conflict was engendered that took some vigorous +counsel to dissipate. + +This purely occidental idea that sexual pleasure is somehow unworthy is +responsible for a disparity of a further kind. There are parts of the +physical side of love in which the majority of men need education, +though in the well-adjusted married life the proper knowledge comes. +Nature has not completely adjusted the sexes to one another; it is the +part of the man to bring about that adjustment. This part of the +adjustment need not here be detailed; the books of Havelock Ellis are +explicit on the matter. Certainly no small share of the difficulties of +our housewife result, for it is a law that excitement without +gratification brings about nervous instability. + +Whether or not the American domestic life is too intimate, too constant, +is an important question. For the majority of people, after the first +ecstasy of the bridal year, separate rooms might be better than a single +chamber occupied together. There are people to whom one bed and one room +is symbolic of their close unity, of their joined lives, who find +comfort and companionship in the knowledge that their life partner +sleeps beside them. Where sexual compatibility or adjustment exists, +there is nothing but commendation for this arrangement. Where it does +not exist, the separate chambers are better for obvious reasons. + +A development of recent times is the rapidly increasing use of what are +politely known as birth-control measures. This development is rapidly +changing the number of births in the community to a figure below that +necessary for the perpetuation of the race. We are not concerned here +with the morality or immorality of these measures. Modern woman +undoubtedly will continue to take the stand that childbearing should be +voluntary, that involuntary motherhood is incompatible with her dignity +and status as a person. In this, through the increasing cost of living +as well as sympathy with her attitude, she will be backed by her +husband. I predict without fear that Church and State will have to +adjust themselves to this situation. + +The fear of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a +woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her +monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk +almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of +the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, not completely +allayed it. + +Moreover the contraceptive measures, according to the law that every +"solution" breeds new problems, have their place in causing nervousness. +Rarely do these measures replace the natural act in satisfaction. +Further, some are unable to conquer their repugnance and disgust and +some are left excited and unsatisfied. Vasomotor disturbances, +neurasthenic symptoms, obsessions, and hysterical phenomena occur in +many women as well as in some men. One of the stock questions of the +neurologists when examining a married man or woman complaining of +neurasthenic symptoms relates to the contraceptive measures used. The +channel of discharge of sexual excitement is race old. And this new +development blocks that channel. For many persons this is sufficient to +deenergize the organism. + +At the present time there are two trends in the sex sphere, so far as +women are concerned. There is the masculine trend, which is usually +called feminism. Women tend to take up the work formerly exclusively +belonging to men; they tend to dress more like men, with flat shoes, +collars and ties, and tailor-made clothes. They take up the vices of +men,--smoking, drinking,--are building up a club life, live in bachelor +apartments, call each other by their last names, etc. + +Whether with this goes a greater sexual license or not it is difficult +to say. The observers best qualified to comment think there has been a +decrease in female chastity,--that the entrance of women in industrial +life, the growth of the cities, the increase in automobiles, the greater +freedom of women, the dropping of restraint in manner and speech, have +brought women's morals somewhat nearer to men's. + +The other trend, not entirely separate except for externals, is marked +by a hyper-sexuality, an emphasis of femaleness. This is by far the more +common phenomenon and probably more widely spread through society. The +dress of women in general is more daring, more designed for sex +allurement than for a century past. Women paint and powder in a way that +only the demimonde did a generation ago, reminding one of the ladies of +the French Court in the eighteenth century. Further, the plays of the +day would be called mere burlesque a generation back; the girl and music +show has the center of the stage, and the drama in America has almost +disappeared. There is an epidemic of magazines that flirt with the +risque; with titles that are sometimes much more clever than their +contents. + +Such eras have been with us before this, have come and gone. It is +doubtful if they ever affected so large a number of people. The +excitement of the daily life is increased in a sexual way, and this +brings an unrest that reacts on the anchor of the home, the housewife. +She too tugs at her moorings; life must be speeded up for her too as +well as for the younger and unattached women. She becomes more +dissatisfied and therefore more nervous. + +Altogether the sexual relationship of modern marriage needs a candid +examination. No drastic change is indicated, but education in sexual +affairs for men and women is a need. Even the prudish admit the pleasure +of the sex-life, and that seems to be their fundamental aversion to it. +Most of the advice and injunctions in the past seem to have come from +the sexually abnormal. It is time that this was changed; in fact, it is +being changed. The danger lies in a swing to extremes, in leaving the +fields to those who think reform lies in the abolition of restraint, in +the disregard of all social supervision and obligation. Free love is +more disastrous if possible than prudery. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSEWIFE AND HER HOUSEHOLD CONFLICTS + + +The problems of life are not all sexual, and in fact even in the +relations of men and women there are more important factors. After all, +as Spencer pointed out in a marvelous chapter, love itself is a +composite of many things, some, of the earth, earthy, and some of the +finest stuff our human life holds. The aspirations, the ideals, the +yearnings of the girl attach themselves to some man as their +fulfillment; the chivalrous feelings, the desire to protect and cherish, +the passion for beauty of the man lead to some girl as their goal. There +are few for whom the glow and ardor of their young love bring no +refinement of their passion; there are few who have not felt a pulsating +unity with all that love and live, at least for some ecstatic moments. +Something of what James has so beautifully designated as the "aura of +infinity that hangs over a young girl" also lingers over the love of men +and women. + +All the cynics and epigram makers in the world agree that love ends with +marriage, and this not only in modern times but even back into those +days of the French Court of Love, when Margaret de Valois decided that +the lover had more claims than the husband. Romance dies with marriage +is the plaint of poet and novelists; the charm of woman disappears with +her mystery, with possession. And the typical humorist speaks of the +curl papers and kimono of the wife, the snores and unshaven beard of the +husband. "Familiarity is the death of passion" is the theme of countless +writers who bemoan its passing in the matrimonial state. + +How much harm the romantic tales have done to marriage and the +sober-satisfying everyday life, no one can estimate, no one can +overestimate. Romanticism, which extols sex as the prime and only thing +of life, prudery which closes its eyes to it and makes sour faces, need +special places in Dante's Inferno. Neither has dealt with +reality,--reality, which is satisfying and pleasant unless examined +with the prejudices instilled by the hypersexual romance writer and the +perverted sexuality of the prude. + +Nevertheless that two people brought up entirely differently, and having +different attitudes towards love and life, should come into sharp +conflict is to be expected. Further, that disillusionment follows after +the excitement and heightened expectation of courtship is inevitable. +Marriage at the best includes a settlement to routine; it carries with +it an adjustment to reality, a getting down to earth that is painful and +disappointing to minds fed to expect thrill and passion with each +moment. + +The idealization of the mate--the man or woman--gives way to a gradually +increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, +earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save +the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more +solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality +what it loses in intensity. + +Unfortunately, in many cases to a great extent and in all to some +extent, there arises dissension natural wherever two human beings meet +on anything like equal terms. + +In times past (and in many countries at the present time), the +patriarchal household prevailed. The Head of the House was the father, a +sovereign either stern or indulgent according to his nature. Perhaps his +wife ruled him through his love for her, as women have ruled from the +beginning of things, but if she did it was not by right but by +privilege. + +America has changed all that, so say all native and foreign observers. +Here the woman rules; here she drags her husband after her like a tail +to a kite; here she is mistress and he obeys, though nominally still +head of the household. All the humorists emphasize this, and the +novelist depicts it as the common situation. The husband is represented +as yoked to the wheel of his wife's whims, tyrannized over by the one he +works for. + +This is surely a gross exaggeration, though it furnishes excellent +material for satire. The man still makes the main conditions of life for +both; his name is taken, his work sustains the household, his purse +supplies the means of existence, his industrial business situation +determines the residence, his social standing is theirs. This does not +prevent him from being "henpecked" in many cases, but on the whole it +assures his superior status. + +Nevertheless it is true that the American woman of whatever origin has a +will of her own as no other woman has. Since the expression of will is +one of the chief sources of human pleasures, one of the chief, most +persistent activities, man and wife enter into a contest for supremacy +in the household. It may be settled quietly and without even recognizing +its existence, on the common plan that the woman shall have charge of +the home and the man of his business; it may rage with violence over the +fundamental as well as the trivial things of home. After all, it is not +the importance of a thing that determines the size of the row it may +raise; men have killed each other over a nickel because defeat over even +this trifle was intolerable. + +What are the chief sources of conflict? For to name them all would be +simply to name every possible source of difference of opinion that +exists. Let us take as an example Extravagance. + +This is a new development. In the former days the bulk of purchases was +made by the husband, in whose hands the purse strings were tightly +clutched. With the growth of the cities and industry, the development of +the department store and rise of shopping as an institution, the man +gave place to his wife largely because industry would not let him off +during the daytime. So the housewife disbursed most of the funds of her +home,--and there arose one of the fiercest and most persistent of +domestic conflicts. + +Despite the fact that most American husbands turn over their purses to +their wives, they still regard the money as their own. The desire to +"get ahead" is an insistent one, returning with redoubled force after +each expenditure. He finds his entire income gone each week or month, or +finds less left than he expected. "Where does it all go?" is his cry; +"Must we spend as much as we do?" "How do people get along who get less +than we do?" + +To this his wife has the answer, "We must have _this_, and we _must_ +have that. We must live as our neighbors do." + +Here is the keynote to the situation. There has been a democratization +of society of this nature; there has been a spread throughout the +community of aristocratic tastes. The woman of even the poor and the +middle classes must have her spring and autumn suits, her dresses for +summer, her summer and winter hats. Her husband too must change his +clothes with each shift of the season. For this the enterprise of the +clothing trade, the splendid display of the department stores are +responsible, awakening desire and dissatisfaction. + +While the man accuses the woman of extravagance, he is as guilty as she. +He too spends money freely,--on his cigars and cigarettes, on every +edition of the newspapers, on the shine which he might easily apply +himself, on a thousand and one nickels that become a muckle. The +American is lavish, hates to stint, detests being a "piker", says, "Oh, +what's the difference; it will all be the same in a hundred years," but +kicks himself mentally afterwards. + +Meanwhile he quarrels with his wife, who really is extravagant. In this +battle the man wins, even if he loses, for he rarely broods over the +defeat. But it brings about a sense of tension in his wife; it brings +about a disunion in her heart, because she wants to please her husband, +and at the same time she wants to "keep up" with her neighbors and +friends. And who sets the pace for her, for all of her group; who +establishes the standard of expenditure? Not the thrifty, saving woman, +not the one who mends her clothes and makes her own hats, but the +extravagant woman, the rich woman perhaps of recently acquired wealth +who cares little for a dollar. Against her better judgment the woman of +the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely +dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills. + +This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do,--it +predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes +the relations with her husband more difficult. It takes away pleasure +and leaves discontent and doubt,--the mother-stuff of nervousness. + +While most American husbands are generous, there are enough stingy ones +to set off their neighbors. To these men the goal of life is the +accumulation of money, as indeed it is with the majority. But to them +that goal is to be reached by saving every penny, by denying themselves +and theirs all expenditures beyond the necessities. + +The woman who marries such a man is humiliated to the quick by his +attitude. That a man values a dollar more than he does her wish is an +insult to the sensitive woman. There ensues either a never-ending battle +with estrangement, or else a beaten woman (for the stingy are stubborn) +accepts her lot with a broken spirit, sad and deenergized. Or perhaps, +it should be added, a third result may come about; the woman accepts the +man's ideal of life and joins with him in their scrimping campaign. With +this agreement life goes on happily enough. + +It is not of course meant that all or a great majority of American women +have difficulties with their husbands over money. But I have in mind +several patients who would be happy if this never-ending problem were +settled. The struggle "gets on the nerves" of the partners; they say +things they regret and act with an impatience that has its root in +fatigue. + +This difficulty over money and its spending gets worse in the late +thirties and early forties, for it is then the man realizes with a +startled spirit that he is getting into middle age, that sickness and +death are taking their toll of his friends, and that he has not got on. +The sense of failure irritates him, depresses him. He finds that he and +his wife look at the money situation from a different angle. + +"If you loved me," says she, "you would see things a little more my +way." + +"If you loved me," says he, "you would not act to worry me so." + +Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of +life. Capital and Labor are at each other's throats; men cry "profiteer" +at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take +advantage of the world crisis. The air is filled with the whispers that +a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile +manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display +the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns. That the marital happiness of +the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the +discussions on the subject. Yet this phase of the high cost of living is +perhaps its most important result. + +The housewife's money difficulties are not confined to the question of +expenditure. For there is a factor not consciously put forward but +evident upon a little probing. + +If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows +some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she +has a woman friend whose husband has become successful. A subtle sort of +regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle +disrespect for her husband because of his failure. The husband becomes +aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest +place, his pride. One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in +a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and +contempt until exhausted. For she came of a successful family, she had +married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an +entire failure financially. Measuring men by their success, she found +her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge +her error. Out of this division in feelings came a complete +deenergization. + +Whether or not such a housewife deserves any sympathy in her trouble, +it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her. + +While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which +nervousness arises, there are others of importance. + +Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of +the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman--_e.g._ to +a boy's pranks--causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace +of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too +fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he +is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,--tough, +mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father +who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel +results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow. It is when the woman +fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with +vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way +repeatedly described. + +Next perhaps to actual disloyalty women feel most the cessation of the +attentions, courtesies, and remembrances of their unmarried life. Women +expect this to happen and usually they forgive it in the man who devotes +himself to his family, struggles for a livelihood or better, and helps +in the care of the children. It is the hyperaesthetic type of housewife +spoken of previously who weighs against her husband's devotion a minor +dereliction in courtesy. + +For it is too common in women to let a momentary neglect or +absent-minded discourtesy outweigh a lifetime of devotion. This is part +of a feminine devotion to manner and form, of which men are, +comparatively speaking, innocent. + +Aside from this phase of woman's character there are men who either +rapidly or gradually resume after marriage their bachelor freedom, to +the neglect of their wives. Though for some time after marriage they +give up their "freedom" to play consort and escort, sooner or later they +sink back into finding their recreation with their male friends,--at +club, lodge, saloon, pool room, etc. When night comes they are restless. +At first one excuse or another takes them out, later they break boldly +from the domestic ties and only occasionally and under protest do they +stay at home or escort the housewife to church, visiting, or the +theater. + +(It needs be said at this point that in America married life often +proceeds too far in the domestication of the man, in his complete +separation from male companionship, in a never-broken companionship +between man and wife. This is distinctly unhealthy for the man, for he +requires in his recreation the sense of freedom from restraint that he +can have only in masculine company; where the difficult attitude of +chivalry can be discarded for an equality and a frankness impossible +even with his wife.) + +The housewife, thus left alone, though wounded, may adjust herself. She +may build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her +neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become +unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote +herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene +life against odds. + +But often she does none of these things. Hurt in her pride, she +struggles to gain back her husband. Tears and reproaches fail, sickness +sometimes succeeds. If she is childless she becomes obsessed with the +belief that a child would hold her husband home. If she is failing in +the freshness of her beauty she makes a pathetic effort to hold her +indifferent mate through cosmetics and beauty specialists. Without the +courage and character to make or break the situation she falls into a +feeling of inferiority from which originates her headaches, her feelings +of unreality, her loss of enthusiasm, her depressed mind and body. + +This type of woman, dependent upon the love and affection of her husband +for her health and strength, mental and physical, is the type that +woman's education and training, at least in the past, have tended to +make. She has not been taught, she has not the power, to stand in life +alone; she is the clinging vine to the man's oak, she is the traditional +woman. She is happy and well with the right man, but Heaven help her if +the marriage ceremony links her with a philanderer! For she has been +taught to accept as true and right that mischievous couplet: + + Love is of man's life a thing apart, + 'Tis woman's whole existence. + +We need for our womanhood a braver standpoint than that, one more +firmly based, less apt to bring failure and disaster. For neither man +nor woman should love be the whole existence. It should be a fundamental +purpose interwoven with other purposes. + +Fortunately one source of domestic difficulty will soon pass from +America,--alcoholism. Politicians and theorizers may speak of the blow +to individual liberty and satirically prophesy that soon coffee and +tobacco will be legislated out also. They need to read Gilbert +Chesterton and learn that though "a tree grows upward it stops growing +and never reaches the sky." To see, as I do, the almost complete absence +of delirium tremens from the emergency and city hospitals, where once +every Sunday morning found a dozen or two of raving men; to witness the +disappearance of alcoholic insanity from our asylums, where once it +constituted fifteen per cent of the male admissions; to see cruelty to +children drop to one tenth of its former incidence; to know that former +drunkards are steadily at work to the joy of their wives and the good of +their own souls,--this is to make one bitterly impatient with the +chatter about the "joy and pleasure of life gone," etc. etc., that has +become the stock-in-trade of the stage and the press. Though alcoholism +did not cause all poverty, it stupefied men's minds so that they +permitted much preventable poverty; though it did not cause all +immorality, a few drinks often sent a good man to the brothel; and what +is more, many of the brothel inmates endured their life largely because +of the stupefying use of alcohol. + +No one knows the evil of alcohol more than the poor housewife. Of course +the woman brought up to believe that drunkenness was to be expected in a +man--and who often drank with him--was a victim without severe mental +anguish, though her whole life was ruined by drink. But for the refined +woman who married a clean, clever young fellow only to have him come +home some day reeking of liquor,--silly, obscene, helpless,--_her_ +contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life. +She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a +chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted. + +A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a +century that saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the +X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could +make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the +habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity. + +After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of +the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness +to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion +against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,--these are the basic +elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are +unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly +to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two +five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many +husbands and wives. + +Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not +leadership), overready temper and overready tears,--these cause more +domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The +education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these +defects, which are not necessarily feminine, from her character. In the +domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman +has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet +demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses. + +Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her +mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds +her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy +of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which +we shall deal with later. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND + + +Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of +human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to +Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire +to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth +(power), to write a great book (influence or power), to become a +religious leader (power), to be successful in any department of human +effort. In every group, from a few tots playing in the grass to +gray-headed statesmen deciding a world's destinies, there is a struggle +of these wills to power. In the children's group this takes the trivial +(to us) form as to who shall be "policeman" or "teacher", in the +statesmen it takes the "weighty" form as to which river shall form a +boundary line and which group of capitalists shall exploit this or that +benighted country. The will to power includes all trends which inflate +the ego,--love of admiration, pride, reluctance to admit error, desire +for beauty, lust for possession, cruelty, even philanthropy, which in +many cases is the good man's desire for power over the lives of his +fellows. + +Side by side with this group of instincts and purposes, interplaying and +interweaving with it, modifying it and being modified by it, is the +group we call the will to fellowship. This is the social sense, the need +of other's good will, the desire to help, sympathy, love, friendly +feeling, self-sacrifice, sense of fair play, all the impulses that are +essentially maternal and paternal, devotion to the interests of others. +This will to fellowship permeates all groups, little and big, old and +young, and is the cement stuff of life, holding society together. + +There are those who find no difference between the _egoism_ of the will +to power and the _altruism_ of the will to fellowship. They assert that +if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you +have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism of a larger ego. +However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may +separate these two trends in human nature. + +In each individual there goes on from cradle to grave a struggle between +the will to power and the will to fellowship. The teaching of morality +is largely the government, the subordination of the will to power; the +teaching of success and achievement is largely the discovery of means by +which it is to be gained. However we may disguise it to ourselves, power +is what we mainly seek, though we may call our goal knowledge, science, +benevolence, invention, government, money. + +Without the will to fellowship the will to power is tyranny, harshness, +cruelty, autocracy, and men hate the possessor of such a character. +Without the will to power, the will to fellowship is sterile, futile, +and the owner becomes lost in a world of striving people who brush him +aside. The two must mingle. And a curious thing becomes evident in the +life of men, which in itself is simple enough to understand. When men +who have been ruthless, concentrated on success, specialists in the will +to power, reach their goal, they often turn to the thwarted will to +fellowship for real satisfaction in life, become philanthropists, world +benefactors, etc. On the other hand those who start out with ideals of +altruism and service, specialists in the will to fellowship, generally +lose enthusiasm for this and turn slowly, half reluctantly, to the will +for power. In life's cycle it is common to see the egotist turn +philanthropist, and the altruist, the idealist, lose faith and become an +egotist. + +How does this apply to the nervous housewife? Simply this, that there +are various ways of seeking power, of gaining one's ends. + +There is first the method of force, directly applied. The strong man +disdains subtlety, persuasion, sweeps opposition aside. "Might is right" +is his motto; he beats down opposition by fist, by sword, by thundering +voice, or look. Men who use this method are little troubled by codes; +they follow the primitive line of direct attack. + +There is second the method of strategy, the disguise of purpose, the +disguise of means. The effort is to shift the attention of the opponent +to another place and then to walk off with the prize. "Possession is +nine points of the law" say these folk. And a straight line is _not_ +the shortest way for strategy. Or exchange with your opponent, give what +_seems_ valuable for what _is_ valuable and then fall back on the adage, +"A fair exchange is no robbery." + +Third, there is persuasion. Here, by stirring your opponent into +friendliness, he talks matters over, he aligns his interest with yours. +Compromise is the keynote, cooperation the watchword. "'Tis folly to +fight, we both lose by battle; whose is the gain?" + +Fourth is the method of the weak, to gain an end through weakness, +through arousing sympathy, by parading grief, by awakening the +discomfort of unpleasant emotion in an opponent who is of course not an +implacable enemy. This has been woman's weapon from time immemorial; +tears and sobs are her sword and gun. Unable to cope with man on an +equal plane, through his superior physical strength, his intrenched +social and legal position, she took advantage of her beauty and +desirability, of his love; if that failed, she fell back on her grief +and sorrow by which to plague him into submission, into yielding. +Children use this weapon constantly; they cry for a thing and develop +symptoms in the face of some disagreeable event, such as a threatened +punishment. In their day-dreams the idea of dying to punish their cruel +parents is a favorite one. + +This appeal to the conscience of the stronger through a demonstration of +weakness may be called "Will to Power through Weakness." It has long +been known to women that a man is usually helpless in the presence of +woman's tears, if it is apparent that something he has done has brought +about the deluge. And in the case of some housewives, certain +similarities between tears and the symptoms appear that show that in +these cases, at least, the symptoms of nervousness appear as a +substitute for tears in the marital conflict. + +Not that this is a deliberate and fully conscious process, nor that it +causes the symptoms. On the contrary, it is a use for them! + +Such a conclusion of course is not to be reached in those cases where +the symptoms arise out of sickness of some kind, or where they follow +long and arduous household tasks. But every one knows that the woman +who gets sick, has a nervous headache, weakness, a loss of appetite, or +becomes blue as soon as she loses in some domestic argument, or when her +will is crossed; these symptoms persist until the exasperated but +helpless husband yields the point at issue. Then recovery takes place +almost at once. + +In some of the severer cases of neurasthenia in women such a mechanism +can be traced. There is a definite relation between the onset of the +attacks and some domestic difficulty, and though the recovery does not +take place at once, an adjustment in favor of the wife causes the +condition to turn soon for the better. + +I do not claim that the above is an original discovery. True, the +medical men have not formulated it in their textbooks, but every +experienced practitioner knows it to occur. And the humorists and the +satirists of the daily press use the theme every day. The favorite point +is that the brutal husband is forced to his knees through the +disabilities of his wife, and that cure takes place when--he gets her +the bonnet or dress she wants, when the trip to Florida is ordered, etc. +etc. + +Discreditable to women? Discreditable to those women who use it? Men +would do the same in the face of superior force. In the battle of wills +that goes on in life the weak must use different weapons than the +strong. Doubtless the women of another day, trained otherwise than our +present-day women and having a different relationship to men, will +abandon, at least in larger part, the weapons of weakness. Wherever +women work with men on a plane of equality they ask no favors and resort +to no tears. They play the game as men do, as "good sports." But where +the relationship is the one-sided affair of matrimony, a certain type +uses her tears, her aches and pains, her moods, and her failings to gain +her point. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HISTORIES OF SOME SEVERE CASES + + +The cases that follow represent mainly the severe types of nervousness +in the housewife. To every case that comes to the neurologist there are +a hundred that explain their symptoms as "stomach trouble", "backache", +etc., who remain well enough to carry on, and who think their pains and +aches inevitably wrapped with the lot of woman. + +It will be seen, upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic +attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a +series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that +by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it +would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the +majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a +number cannot be essentially benefited. Some of them have temperaments +utterly incompatible with matrimony, others have husbands of the +incorrigible type, others have life situations to change which would +make it necessary to change society. Therefore in these cases all a +doctor can do is to _relieve symptoms_, relieve some of the distress and +rest content with that. + +I am essentially neither pessimist nor optimist in the presentation of +these cases, nor do I seek to present the man or woman's case with +prejudice. In life a realistic attitude is the best, for if we were to +remove much of the sentimental self-deception at present so prevalent, +huge reforms would occur almost overnight. Sentimentality decorates and +disguises all kinds of horridness and makes us feel kindly toward evil. +Strip it away, and we would immediately break down the evil. + +There is always this danger in presenting "cases" to a lay public, that +symptoms are suggested to a great many people. How deeply suggestible +the mass of people can be is only appreciated when one sees the result +of public health lectures and books. Many persons tend to develop all +the symptoms they hear of, from pains and aches to mental failure. Even +in the medical schools this is so, and every medical teacher is +consulted each year by students who feel sure they have the diseases he +has described. + +So in presenting the following cases symptoms will be largely omitted. +What will be presented is history and to a certain extent treatment. +That part of treatment which is strictly medical can only be indicated. + +It may be said that in obtaining the intimate history of a woman a +difficulty is met with in the natural reluctance to telling what often +seems to the patient painful and unnecessary details. To some people it +seems inconceivable that fears, pains and aches, sleeplessness, etc., +can arise out of difficulties like the monotony of housework, +temperament, or troubles with the husband. Furthermore, though some +women understand well enough the source of their conflicts, they are +ashamed to tell and rest mainly on the surface of their symptoms. To +obtain the truth it is necessary to see the patient over and over again, +to get somewhat closer to her. This is especially easy to do after the +physician has to a certain extent relieved the patient. In other words, +except in the cases where the woman is quite prepared to tell of her +intimate difficulties, it is best to go slowly from the medical to the +social-psychological point of view. + +Case I. The overworked, under-rested type of housewife. + +Mrs. A.J., thirty years old, is a woman of American birth and ancestry. +Her parents were poor, her father being a mechanic in a factory town of +Massachusetts. She had several brothers and sisters, all of whom reached +maturity and most of whom married. + +Before marriage she was a salesgirl in a department store, worked fairly +hard for rather small pay, but was strong, jolly, liked dancing and +amusements, liked men and had her girl friends. + +At the age of twenty-two she married a mechanic of twenty-four, a good, +sober, steady man, devoted to her and very domestic. Unfortunately he +was not very well for some time following a pneumonia in the third year +of their marriage. They drew upon all their savings and fell seriously +in debt. This meant borrowing and scrimping for several years,--a fact +which had great bearing on the wife's illness later. + +They had three children, born the twelfth month, the third year, and +the fourth year after marriage. After the first child the mother was +very well, nursed the baby successfully, and the little family +flourished. Then came the unfortunate illness of the husband, which +threw him out of work for six months, during which time they lived on an +allowance from his union, his savings, and finally ran into debt. This +greatly grieved the man and depressed the woman, but both bore up well +under it until the birth of the second child, when their circumstances +forced them to move to a poorer apartment. The wife was delivered by a +dispensary physician, who did his duty well but allowed the woman, who +protested she felt well, to get up and care for her husband and baby +much earlier than she should have done. + +The nursing of this baby was more difficult. The mother's breasts did +not seem to be nearly as active as in the previous case. The baby cried +a great deal and needed attention a good part of the night. The husband +was unable to help as he had previously done and the fatigue of the care +of child and man brought a condition where the woman was tired all the +time. Still she bore up well, though when the summer came she greatly +missed the little two weeks' vacation that she and her husband had +yearly taken together from the days of their courtship. + +The husband recovered, but his strength came back very slowly. He went +to work as soon as possible but worked only part time for six months. At +night he came home utterly exhausted and could not help his wife at all. + +During the next year both children were sick, first with scarlet fever +and then with whooping cough. The mother did most of the nursing, though +by this time the father was able to help and did. The necessary expenses +so depleted the family treasury that when the summer came neither could +afford to go away. + +Both noticed that the mother was getting more irritable than was natural +to her. She went out very seldom and her youthful good looks had largely +been replaced by a sharp-featured anxiety. Though she carried on +faithfully she had to rest frequently and at night tossed restlessly, +though greatly fatigued. + +She became pregnant again, much to her dismay and to the great regret +of her husband. At times she thought of abortion, but only in a +desperate way. The last few months of her term were in the very hot +months of the year and she was very uncomfortable. However, she was +delivered safely, got up in a week to help in the care of her other two +children and to get the house into shape again. Her milk was fairly +plentiful, despite her fatigue and "jumpy nerves." Unfortunately at this +time, when they had accumulated a little surplus and she was looking +forward to better clothes for her family and more comforts, the plant at +which her husband was employed suspended operations because of some +"high finance" mix-up. Coming at this time, the news struck terror into +her heart; she broke down, became "hysterical" _i.e._ had an emotional +outburst. This passed away, but now she was sleepless, had no appetite, +complained of headache and great fatigue. + +Though she was assured that the plant would reopen soon (in fact it soon +did), she made little progress. That she was suffering from a +psychoneurosis was evident; what remained was to bring about treatment. + +This was done by enlisting a development of recent days,--the Social +Service agencies. Out of the old-time charity has come a fine successor, +social service; out of the amateurish, self-consciously gracious and +sweet Lady Bountiful has come the social worker. Unfortunately social +service has not yet dropped the name "Charity", perhaps has not been +able to do so, largely because the well-to-do from whom the money must +come like to think of themselves as charitable, rather than as the +beneficiaries of the social system giving to the unfortunates of that +system. + +Let me say one more word about social service and the social worker, +though I feel that a volume of praise would be more fitting. The social +worker has become an indispensable part of the hospital organization, an +investigator to bring in facts, a social adjuster to bring about cure. +For a hospital to be without a social service department is to confess +itself behind the times and inefficient. + +Briefly, this is what was done for this family. + +Their prejudices against social aid were removed by emphasizing that +they were not recipients of charity. The husband was allowed to pay, or +arrange to pay, for a six weeks' stay in the country for the mother and +the new baby. The home for this purpose was found by the agency and was +that of a kindly elderly couple who took the woman into their hearts as +well as over their threshold. The social worker arranged with a nursing +organization to send a worker to the man's house each day to clean up +the home while the children stayed in a nursery. One way or another the +husband and children were made comfortable, and the wife came back from +her stay, made over, eager to get back to her work. + +It is obvious that in such a case as this the physician is largely +diagnostician and director, the actual treatment consisting in getting a +selfish and inert social system to help out one of its victims. That a +sick man should be left to sink or swim, though he has previously been +industrious and a good member of society, is injustice and social +inefficiency. That a woman, under such circumstances, should be left +with the entire burden on her hands is part of the stupidity and +cruelty of society. + +How avert such a thing? For one thing do away with the name "Charity" in +relief work,--and find some system by which industry will adequately +care for its victims. What system will do that? I fear it may be called +socialistic to suggest that some of the fifteen billions spent last year +on luxuries might better be shifted to social amelioration. The record +in automobile production would be more pleasing if it did not mean a +shift from real social wealth to individual luxury. + +Case II. The over-rich, purposeless woman. + +This type is of course the direct opposite of the woman in Case I and +represents the kind of woman usually held up as most commonly afflicted +with "nervousness." "If she really had something to do," say the +critics, "she would not be nervous." + +This is fundamentally true of her, though not true of the majority of +women whom we have discussed. It seems difficult to believe that hard +work and worry may bring the same results as idleness and +dissatisfaction, but it is true that both deenergize the organism, the +body and mind, and so are kindred evils. What's the matter with the +poor is their poverty, while the matter with the rich is their wealth. + +Mrs. A. De L. is of middle-class people whose parents lived beyond their +means and educated their only daughter to do the same. Here is one of +the anomalies of life: bitterly aware of their folly, the extravagant +and struggling deliberately push their children into the same road. Mrs. +De L. learned early that the chief objects of life in general were to +keep up appearances and kill time; that as a means to success a woman +must get a rich husband and keep beautiful. Being an intelligent girl +and pretty she managed to get the rich husband,--and settled down to the +rich housewife's neurosis. + +Her husband was old-fashioned despite his rather new wealth, and they +had two children,--a large modern American family. Though he allowed her +to have servants he insisted that she manage their household, which she +did with rebellion for a short time, and then rather quickly broke away +from it by turning over the household to a housekeeper. This brought +about the silent disapproval of her husband, who let her "have her own +way", as he said, "because it's the fashion nowadays." + +She became a seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of +amusement to the other in an intricately mixed cooperation and rivalry +with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old +Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished +dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, +subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, +dabbled in new religions, became enthusiastic: about social work for a +month or two,--and became a professional at bridge. Summers she rested +by chasing pleasure and flirting with male _habitues_ of fashionable +summer resorts; part of the winter she recuperated at Palm Beach, where +she vied for the leadership of her set with her dearest enemy. + +Her husband financed all her ventures with a disillusioned shrug of his +shoulders. As she entered the thirties she became intensely dissatisfied +with herself and her life, tried to get back to active supervision of +her home but found herself in the way, though her children were greatly +pleased and her husband sceptical. The need of excitement and change +persisted; gradually an intense boredom came over her. Her interest in +life was dulled and she began a mad search for some sensation that would +take away the distressing self-reproach and dissatisfaction. Shortly +after this she lost the power to sleep and had a host of symptoms which +need not be detailed here. + +The medical treatment was first to restore sleep. I may say that this is +a first step of great importance, no matter how the sleeplessness +originates. For even if an idea or a disturbing emotion is its cause, +the sleeplessness may become a habit and needs energetic attention. + +With this done, attention was paid to the social situation, the life +habits. It was pointed out that all the philosophies of life were based +on simple living and work, and that all the wise men from the beginning +of the written word to our own times have shown the futility of seeking +pleasure. It was shown that to be a sensation seeker was to court +boredom and apathy, and that these had deenergized her. + +For interest in the world is the great source of energy and the great +marshaler of energy. From the child bored by lack of playmates, who +brightens up at the sight of a woolly little dog, to the old and +vigorous man who makes the mistake of resigning from work, this function +of interest can be shown. + +She was advised to get a fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that +would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally +she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that +from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in +reasonableness and purpose. + +That she improved greatly and came back to her normal health I know. +Whether she continued to remain well and how far she followed the advice +given I cannot say. From the earliest time to this, necessity has been +the main spur to purpose, and probably the lure of social competition +drew the lady back to her old life. Experience, though the best teacher, +seems to have the same need of repetition that all teaching does. + +Case III. The physically sick woman who displays nervousness. + +Though this is one of the most important of the types of nervous +housewife the subject is essentially medical. We shall therefore not +detail any case, but it is wise to reemphasize some facts. + +There are bodily diseases of which the early and predominant symptoms +are classed as "nervousness." Hyperthyroidism, or Graves' Disease, a +condition in which there is overactivity of the thyroid gland and which +is particularly prevalent among young women, is one of those diseases. +In this condition excitability, irritability, emotional outbursts, +fatigue, restlessness, digestive disorders, vasomotor disorders, appear +before the characteristic symptoms do. + +Neuro-syphilis is another such disease. This is an involvement of the +nervous system by syphilis. One of the tragedies that distresses even +hardened doctors is to find some fine woman who has acquired +neuro-syphilis through her husband, though he himself may remain well. +In the early stages this disease not only has neurasthenic symptoms but +is very responsive to treatment, and thus the early diagnosis is of +great importance. + +What is known as reflex nervousness arises as a result of minor local +conditions, such as astigmatism and other eye conditions, trouble with +the nose and throat and trouble with the organs of generation. The +latter is especially important in any consideration of nervousness in +the housewife, particularly in the woman who has borne children. +Frequently too the existence of hemorrhoids, resulting from +constipation, acts to increase the irritability of a woman who is +perhaps too modest to consult a physician regarding such trouble. Where +such modesty exists (and it is found in the very women one would be apt +to think were the very last to be swayed by it), then a competent woman +physician should be consulted. With good women physicians and surgeons +in every large community there is no reason for reluctance to be +examined on the part of any woman. + +Further details are not necessary. Enough has been said to emphasize the +fact that the nervousness of the housewife is first a medical problem +and then a social-psychological one. + +Case IV. A case presenting bad hygiene as the essential factor. + +Bad hygiene is something more than exposure to bad air, poor food, +contaminated water, etc. It includes habits and times of eating, +attention to the bowels, outdoor exercise, sleep, and in the marital +state it includes the sexual indulgence. + +The housewife under consideration, Mrs. T.F., aged twenty-eight, married +five years, two children, complained mainly of headache, occasional +dizziness, great irritability, and fatigue, so that quarrels with her +husband were very common, though there seemed nothing to quarrel about. +The family was not rich, but lived in a comfortable apartment; there +were no serious financial burdens, the children were reasonably healthy +and good, and the closest questioning revealed the husband as a kindly +man who never took the initiative in quarrels but who was never able to +keep silent under provocation. The couple was still in love and there +seemed to be no essential incompatibility. + +Questioned as to her habits, Mrs. F. said she did all her own housework +except the washing and ironing and scrubbing. She had a little girl +three times a week to take the baby out. Before marriage she had been a +stenographer, but never earned high pay and had no love for her work. In +fact she gave it up with relief and found housework with its +disagreeable features much more to her taste than business. She had been +of a placid, pleasant temperament and could not understand the change in +her. + +Since all this did not explain her symptoms, closer inquiry was made +into her habits. She arose with her husband at seven-thirty, prepared +his breakfast, sent the oldest child off to kindergarten and then had +her own breakfast, which usually consisted of toast and coffee. At noon +she had a very small piece of meat or an egg and a few potatoes with +tea. At night she ate sparingly of the dinner, which usually was meat, +potatoes, another vegetable, and a dessert. Her husband here stated that +she ate at this meal less than the boy of four and a half. + +Comparing her buxom figure with the diet a discrepancy was at once +apparent. She then confessed with shame that she was a constant nibbler, +eating a bit of this or that every half hour or so, and consequently +never had an appetite. The food thus nibbled usually was either spicy or +sweet, and she consumed quite a bit of candy. Her bowels moved +infrequently and she always needed laxatives. In her spare time she felt +rather "logy", rarely went out, except now and then at night with her +husband, and spent her leisure hours on the couch reading or nibbling. + +This in itself would have quite explained much of her trouble. It has +been pointed out that body and mind are not separable; that mental +functions are based on the bodily functions, and that mood may rest on +no more exalted cause then the condition of the bowels. But a more +intimate questioning revealed sexual habits which are easily drifted +into by people of an amorous turn of character and who are really fond +of one another. These both husband and wife frankly said they had not +meant to speak of, but with their disclosure it was evident that a good +deal of importance was to be attached to them. + +The correction of the life habits was of course the fundamental need. +The young woman was instructed in detail as to diet, the care of the +bowels and outdoor exercise. Since she was in perfect condition except +for stoutness she could easily look for recovery, and as an added +incentive the restoration of youthful good looks was held out as +certain. + +The sexual life was frankly discussed, and necessary restrictions were +imposed. Both the husband and wife agreed willingly to the changes +ordered and promised faithfully to carry out instructions. + +The patient made a splendid recovery and very rapidly. Here was a +deenergization dependent solely upon the sedentary life of the housewife +and upon ignorance of sex hygiene. Here were quarreling and impending +marital disaster removed by attention to details in living. Here was a +complete proof that not only does a sound mind need a sound body, but +that a sound marriage needs one as well. + +Case V. The hyperaesthetic woman. + +Mrs. J.F. is twenty-seven years of age. She was born in the United +States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty +man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the +like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was +an old-fashioned housewife, fond of her home and family, in fact perhaps +more attached to the former than the latter. She hated servants and got +along without them (except for a day woman) until she became rather too +old to do the work. + +J.'s sister and two brothers were duplicates of the parents,--hearty, +stolid, and remarkably plain looking. J., the younger sister, though not +the youngest in the family, was as different from her family as if she +had sprung from another stock. She was slender, very pretty, with a +quick, alert mind which jumped at conclusions, because labored analysis +fatigued it. Above all, from the very start of life she was sensitive to +a degree that perplexed her family, who were however intensely +sympathetic because they adored her. This adoration arose from the fact +that J. was brighter and prettier than most of her friends, and that her +cleverness in many directions--music, writing, talking, handiwork--was +the talk of their little group. + +This sensitiveness arose from two main factors. First, an egoism +fostered by the worship of her friends and the leadership of her +group,--an egoism which led her to regard as a sort of insult anything +disagreeable. Accustomed to praise, the least criticism implied or +outspoken cut like a knife; accustomed to being waited upon, she +resented physical discomfort of the slightest kind. Second, there must +also have been an actual physical sensitiveness to sights, sounds, +smells, tastes, etc. that made her perceive what others failed to +notice. This led to an artistry manifested by her nice work in music and +decoration and also by an excessive displeasure at the inartistic. + +With this training, experience, and natural temperament she should have +married a rich collector of art products, who would have added her to +his collection and cherished her as his most fragile possession. +Instead, through the working of that strange law of contraries by which +Nature strikes averages between extremes, she fell in love with a hulk +of a man whose ideas on art were limited to calling a picture "pretty", +who loved sports and the pleasures of the table, and whose business +motto was "Beat the other guy to it." A successful man, troubled with +few subtleties either of approach or conscience, he viewed the marriage +relationship in the old-fashioned way and the new American indulgence. A +man's wife was to be given all the clothes she wanted, servants to help +run the home, ought to bear two or three children, and love her +indulgent husband. As for any real intimacy, he knew nothing of it. +Kindly, self-indulgent, wife-indulgent, child-indulgent, ruthless in +business, he may stand as something America has produced without any +effort. + +From the very first night J.'s world was shattered. We need not enter +into details in this matter, but a woman of this type needs finesse in +the initiation into marriage more than at any other time. Cave-man style +outraged her every fiber, and the man was dumbfounded at her reaction. +Though he tried to make amends his very effort and lack of understanding +complicated matters. + +Aside from this matter, which in the course of time became adjusted, so +that though she rebelled desire arose in her, she found herself at odds +with her husband's tastes and conduct in little things. Though his table +manners were good enough, the gusto of his eating annoyed her and took +away her own appetite. When they went to a play together the coarse +jokes and the plainly sensuous aroused his enthusiasm. He lacked +subtlety and could not understand the "finer" things of life. As he grew +settled in matrimony, which he enjoyed in spite of her nerves (which he +took for granted as like a woman), he grew stouter and this irritated +and jarred her. + +She finally realized she no longer loved him. It is doubtful if she +realized this before the birth of her first and only child. She lacked +maternal feeling and rebelled with a bitter rebellion against the +distortion of her figure that came with the pregnancy. The nursing +ordered by the doctor and expected by all around her nearly drove her +"wild", she said, for she felt like a "cow", a "female." Indeed she +reacted bitterly against the femaleness that marriage forced on her and +hated the essential maleness of her husband. Her emotional reaction +against nursing took away her milk, and finally the disgusted family +doctor ordered the baby weaned and he was turned over to a servant. + +She went back to her own life, determined to become a housewife, to see +if she could not love her husband and her home. But everything he did +irritated her, and everything in the house made her feel as in a +"luxurious cage." Yet she was by no means a feminist; she detested +"noisy suffragettes", thought women doctors and lawyers ridiculous, and +had been brought up to regard marriage as indissoluble. + +Gradually out of the conflict, the chilling fear that she had made a +mistake which could not be rectified, the constant irritation and +annoyances, the revolt against her own sex feeling and her life +situation, arose the neurosis. It took the form mainly of sudden +unaccountable fears with faint dizzy feelings. The family physician on +the aside told me that it was "just a case of a damn fool woman with +everybody too good to her." + +What constitutes a "damn fool" will include every person in the world, +according to some one else. It seemed obvious to me that J. was not +meant by nature to be a housewife or any kind of wife. Matrimonially she +was a misfit, unless she met some man of a type like herself, though I +doubt if any man could have pleased her. I doubt if her over-exacting +taste would not rebel against the animal in life itself. For though the +animal of life is essentially as fine as the human, certain types find +it impossible to acknowledge it in themselves. + +At any rate I advised separation for a time,--six months at least. I +told the woman her reaction to her husband was abnormal and finicky. She +answered that she knew this but could not conceive of any change. We +discussed the matter in all its ramifications, and though she and her +husband agreed to the separation, I knew that he was determined to hold +her to her contract. She improved somewhat but I believe that such a +temperament is incompatible with marriage, at least to such a man. The +outlook is therefore a poor one. + +Case VI. The over-conscientious housewife,--the seeker of perfection. + +The woman whose history is to be discussed comes from a family of New +England stock, _i.e._ the Anglo-Saxon strain modified by New England +climate, diet, history, religion, and tradition into a distinct type. +This type, often traditionally conservative and often extraordinarily +radical, has this prevailing trait,--standards of right and wrong are +set up somehow or other, and a remarkably consistent effort is made to +maintain these inflexibly. However, the hyperconscientious are not +peculiarly New England alone; I have met Jewish women, Italians, French, +Irish, and Negroes who showed the same loyalty to a self-imposed ideal. + +This lady, Mrs. F.B., thirty-five years of age, with three children, +was brought by her husband against her will. He declared that both she +and he were on the verge of nervous prostration; that unless something +was done he would start beating her, this last of course representing a +type of humorous desperation that usually has a wish concealed in it. +She was "worn to a frazzle", always tired, sleepless, of capricious +appetite, irritable, complaining, and yet absolutely refused to see a +physician. She had taken tonics by the gallon, been overhauled by a +dozen specialists, all of whom say, "nothing wrong of any +importance--yet she is a wreck and I am getting to be one." + +Her husband was a jolly looking personage from the Middle West, in a +small business which kept his family comfortably. He looked domestic and +admitted he was, which his wife corroborated. Evidently he was +exasperated and worried as he gave the history of the case, with his +wife now and then putting in a word: "Now, John, you are stretching +things there; don't believe him, Doctor; not so bad as all that," etc. + +She was a slender person, rather dowdily dressed as compared with her +husband, with garments quite a little behind the prevailing mode. Her +hair was unbecomingly put up, and it was evident that she disdained +cosmetics of any kind, even the innocent rice powder. Her hands were +quite unmanicured, though they were, of course, clean and neat. The hat +was the simplest straw, home trimmed and neat, but a mere "lid" compared +to the creations most women of her class were at the time wearing. That +clothes were meant to be ornamental as well as useful was an attitude +she completely rejected. + +It turned out that life to her was an eternal housekeeping,--from the +beginning of the day to the end she was on the job. Though she had a +maid this did not relieve her much, for she constantly fretted and fumed +over the maid's slackness. Everything had to be spotless _all the time_; +she could not bear the disordered moments of bedtime, of the early +morning hours, of wash day, of meal preparation, of the children's room, +etc. She was obsessed by cleanliness and order, and her exasperated +efforts, her reaction to any untidiness kept her husband and children +bound in a fear like her own, though they rebelled and scolded her for +it. + +"She's always after the children," said her husband. "She is crazy +about them, but she has got them so they don't dare call their soul +their own. They don't bring their playmates into the house largely +because they know that mother, though she wants children to play, goes +after them picking up and cleaning." + +This restlessness in the presence of disorder was accompanied by the +effort to eradicate all vices, all discourtesies, all errors in manners +from the children. She feared "bad habits" as she feared immorality. She +thought that any rudeness might grow into a habit, must be broken early; +any selfish manifestation might be the beginning of a gross selfishness, +any lying or pilfering might be the beginning of a career of crime. + +Here one might hold forth on the necessity for trial and error in +children's lives. They want to try things, they form little habits for a +day, a week, a month which they discard after a while; they try out +words and phrases, playing with them and then pass on to a new +experiment. They are insatiable seekers of experience, untiring in their +quest for experiment,--and they learn thereby. Not every mickle grows +into a muckle, and the supplanting of habits, the discarding of them as +unsatisfactory, is as marked a phenomenon as the formation of habits. + +So our patient allowed nothing for imperfections, experimental stages, +developing tastes in her children. She was, however, hardest on herself, +self-critical, scolded herself constantly because her house was never +perfect, her work never done. She never had time to go out; she had +become a veritable slave to a conscience that prodded her every time she +read a book, took a nap, or went to a picture show. + +It was not at first obvious either to her or her husband that her own +ideal of cleanliness and perfection was responsible for her +neurasthenia. If her "stomach was out of order ought she not have some +stomach remedy; if her nerves were out of order would the doctor not +prescribe a nerve tonic or a sedative?" The idea of a medicine for +everything is still strong in the community and especially amongst +dwellers in small towns, and represents a latent belief in magic. + +In addition to such medicines as I thought the situation demanded, and +to such advice as bore on her attitude to work and play, I hinted that +dressing more fashionably might be of value. For the poorly dressed +always have a feeling of inferiority in the presence of the better +dressed, and this feeling is seriously disagreeable. To raise the +ego-feeling one must remove feelings of inferiority, and here was a +relatively simple situation. This woman really cared about clothes, +admired them, but had got it into her head early in life that it was +sinful to be vain about one's looks. Though she had discarded the sin +idea the notion lingered in the form of "unworthy of a sensible woman", +"extravagance", etc. As she was painfully self-conscious in the presence +of others as a result, this was a hidden reason for sticking to her +home. + +This woman had a really fine intelligence, wanted to be well and made a +gallant effort to change her attitude. In this she succeeded, became as +she put it more "careless of her things and more careful of her people." +Of course one cannot expect her ever to be anything but a fine +housekeeper but she manages to be comfortable and has conquered an +over-zealous conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OTHER TYPICAL CASES + + +Case VII. The ambitious woman discontented with her husband's ability. + +In the American marriage relationship the woman makes the home and the +man makes the fortune. In some countries the wife is an active business +partner. This is notably true in France, among the Jews in Russia, and +many immigrant races in the United States. The wife may even take the +leadership if her superiority clearly shows up. Perhaps the American +method works well enough in a majority of cases, but there are superior +women yoked to inferior men who finally despair of their husband's +advancement, and who, as the phrase goes, ought to be "wearing the +trousers" themselves. + +Mrs. D.J., thirty-nine years old, married fourteen years, two children, +had excellent health before marriage. Her family, originally poor, had +been characterized by great success. Her brothers occupy important +places in the business world and are wealthy. One of her sisters is +married to a man who is successful in law, and the other sister is an +executive in a department store. + +Before marriage Mrs. J. was in her brother's business, and at the time +of her marriage earned a comfortable salary. She married a man who +inherited a small business, and when they married she was enthusiastic +over the prospects of this business. But unfortunately her husband never +followed her plans; he listened impatiently and went ahead in his own +way. As a result of his conservatism they had not advanced at all +financially. Though they were not poor as compared with the mass of +people, they were poor as compared with her brothers and brother-in-law. + +In addition to the exasperation over her husband's attitude toward her +counsel (which was approved by her brothers), she developed a disrespect +for him, a feeling that he was to be a failure and a certain contempt +crept into her attitude. Against this she struggled, but as the time +went on the feeling became almost too strong to be disguised and caused +many quarrels. It is probable that if her own brothers and sisters had +not done so well her feeling toward her husband would not have reached +the proportions it did, for she became envious of the good things they +enjoyed and to a certain extent resented her sisters-in-law's attitude +toward her husband and herself as poor. The part futile jealousy and +envy play in life will not be underestimated by those who will candidly +view their own feelings when they hear of the success of those who are +near them. One of the reasons that ostentation and bragging are in such +disfavor is because of the unpleasant envy and jealousy they tend +involuntarily to arouse. + +With disrespect came a distaste for sexual relations, and here was a +complicating factor of a decisive kind. She developed a disgust that +brought about hysterical symptoms and finally she took refuge in refusal +to live as a wife. This aroused her husband's anger and suspicions; he +accused her of infidelity and had her watched. The disunion proceeded to +the point of actual separation, and she then passed into an acute +nervous condition, marked by fear, restlessness, sleeplessness, and +fatigue. + +The analysis of this patient's reactions was difficult and as much +surmised as acknowledged. With her breakdown her husband's affection +immediately revived and his solicitude and tenderness awoke her old +feeling, together with remorse for her attitude towards his lack of +business success. It was obvious to me in the few times I saw her that +she was working out her own salvation and that no one's assistance was +necessary after she understood herself. Intelligence is a prime +essential to cure in such cases,--an ignorant or unintelligent woman +with such reactions cannot be dealt with. Gradually her intelligence +took command, new resolves and purposes grew out of her illness, and it +may confidently be said that though she never will be a phlegmatic +observer of her husband's struggles she has conquered her old criticism +and hostility. + +Case VII. The nondomestic type and the mother-in-law. + +That there is a nondomestic type of woman to-day is due to the rise of +feminism and the fascination of industry. Where a woman has once been in +the swirl of business, has been part of an organization and has tasted +financial success, settling down may be possible, but is much more +difficult than to the woman of past generations. Such a woman probably +has never cooked a meal, or mended a stocking, or washed dishes,--and +she has been financially independent. For love of a man she gives all +this up, and even under the best of circumstances has her agonies of +doubt and rebellion. + +Mrs. A. O'L. had added to these difficulties the mother-in-law question. +She was an orphan when she married, and was the private secretary of a +business man who because she was efficient and intelligent and loyal +gave her a good salary. She knew his affairs almost as well as he did +and was treated with deference by the entire organization. + +She married at twenty-six a man entirely worthy of her love, a junior +official in a bank, looked on as a rising man, of excellent personal +habits and attractive physique. She resigned her position gladly and +went into the home he furnished, prepared to become a good wife and +mother. + +Unfortunately there already was a woman in the house, Mr. O'L.'s mother. +She was a good lady, a widow, and had made her home with the son for +some years. She was a capable, efficient housewife, with a narrow range +of sympathies, and with no ambitions. There arose at once the almost +inevitable conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. + +Some day perhaps we shall know just why the husband's mother and his +wife get along best under two roofs, though the husband's father +presents no great difficulties. Perhaps in the attachment of a mother to +a son there is something of jealousy, which is aroused against the other +woman; perhaps women are more fiercely critical of women than men are. +Perhaps the mother, if she has a good son, is apt to think no woman good +enough for him, and if she is not consulted in the choosing is apt to +feel resentment. Perhaps to be supplanted as mistress of the household +or to fear such supplantment is the basic factor. At any rate, the old +Chinese pictorial representation of trouble as "two women under one +roof" represents the state in most cases where mother-in-law and +daughter-in-law live together. + +The senior Mrs. O'L. began a campaign of criticism against the younger +woman. There was enough to find fault with, since the wife was +absolutely inexperienced. But she was entirely new to hostile criticism, +and it impeded her learning. Furthermore, she was not inclined to try +all of the mother-in-law's suggestions; she had books which took +diametrically the opposite point of view in some matters. There were +some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took +possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found +herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the +office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. +Further, the distracted husband, in his roles of husband and son, found +himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. He tried to get the +girl to subordinate herself, since he knew that this would be impossible +for his mother. To this his wife acceded, but was greatly hurt in her +pride, felt somehow lowered, and became quite depressed. The house +seemed "like a prison with a cross old woman as a jailer", as she +expressed it. + +Another factor of importance needs some space. The bridal year needs +seclusion, on account of a normal voluptuousness that attends it. No +outsider should witness the embraces and the kisses; no outsider should +be present to impede the tender talks and the outlet of feeling. It +sometimes happens that the elderly have a reaction against all +love-making; having outlived it they are disgusted thereby, they find it +animal like, though indeed it is the lyric poetry of life. So it was in +this case; the mother was a third party where three is more than a +crowd, and she was a critical, disgusted third party. The young woman +found herself taking a similar attitude to the love-making, found +herself inhibiting her emotions and had a furtive feeling of being spied +on. + +The previously strong, energetic girl quickly broke down. Physical +strength and energy may come entirely from a united spirit; a disunited +spirit lowers the physical endurance remarkably. She became disloyal to +matrimony, rebelled against housework, and yet loved her husband +intensely. A prey to conflicting ideas and emotions, she fell into a +circular thinking and feeling, where depressed thoughts cannot be +dismissed and depressed energy follows depressed mood. Prominent in the +symptoms were headache, sleeplessness, etc., for which the neurologist +was consulted. + +How to remedy this situation was to tax the wisdom of a Solomon. It +probably would have remained insoluble, had not the statement I made +that the main element in the difficulty was the mother-in-law _vs._ +daughter-in-law situation come to the ears of the old lady. +Conscientious and well-meaning, that lady announced her determination to +take up her residence with a married daughter who already had a +well-organized household, and whose husband was a favorite of the +mother's. Despite the mother-in-law joke of the humorists, the +mother-in-law is far more friendly to a daughter's husband than to a +son's wife. + +This solved part of my patient's problem. There remained the adjustment +to domestic life. This was hard, and though in part successful, it was +delayed by the sterility of the marriage. The husband and wife agreed +that pending a child she might well become active again in the larger +world. Though the best place would have been her old work, pride and +convention stood in the way, and so she entered upon more or less +amateurish social work. Finally, perhaps as an unconsciously humorous +compensation for her own troubles, she became an ardent and thoroughly +efficient secretary to a league of housewives that aimed at better +conditions. This work took up her time except for the supervising of a +servant, and this nondomestic arrangement worked well since she had no +children. + +Case VIII. The childless, neglected woman. + +It happened that two of the severest cases I have seen occurred, one in +a Jewish woman and the other in a young Irish woman, with such an +identity of symptoms and social domestic background that either case +might have been interchanged for the other without any appreciable +difference. The factors in the cases might simply be summarized as +childlessness, anxiety, neglect, and loneliness, and in each case the +main symptoms were anxiety, attacks of cardiac symptoms, fatigue, and +sleeplessness. + +The young Jewish woman, thirty years of age, had been married since the +age of twenty. Before marriage she worked in the needle trades, was well +and strong and had no knowledge of any particular nervous or mental +disease in her family. She married a man of twenty-four, who had also +been in the tailoring business and had branched out in a small way in +business. This business required him to go to work at about seven-thirty +in the morning and he finished at nine-thirty in the evening. In the +earlier years of their marriage he came home rather promptly at the end +of his long day and the pair were quite happy. + +At about the third year after marriage the woman became quite alarmed at +her continued sterility. She commenced to consult physicians and in the +course of the next three years underwent three operations with no +result. She began to brood over this, especially since about this time +her husband began to show a decided lack of interest in the home. He +would come home at twelve and later, and she found that he was playing +cards,--in fact had become a confirmed gambler. When she first +discovered this, she became greatly worried; made a trip to New York +where his people lived and induced them to bring pressure to bear on him +for reform. This they did, with the result that for about six months he +remained away from cards and gave more attention to his wife. + +The reform lasted only for a short period and then the husband plunged +deeper into gaming than ever, and there were periods of three and four +days at a stretch when he would not return home at all. At such times +the lonely wife, who still loved her husband, fell into a perturbed and +agitated frame of mind, the worse because she confided her difficulties +to no one. When he would return, shamefaced and repentant, she would +reproach him bitterly and this would bring about renewed attention, +gifts, etc., for a week or so,--and then backsliding. Finally even the +brief spasmodic reforms grew less common, her reproaches were answered +hotly or listened to with indifference, and she became "practically a +widow" except for the occasions when the sexual feeling mastered them +both. + +The neurosis in this case approached almost an insanity. The dwelling +alone, the desperate obsessive desire for a child to bring back his love +and attentions and to satisfy her own maternal instinct, the pain the +sight of happy couples with children gave her and which made her shun +other women and their company, the fear that her husband was unfaithful +(which fear was probably justified), and the lack of any fixed or +definite purpose, the lack of a great pride or self-sufficiency, brought +on symptoms that necessitated her removal to a sanitarium. + +This of course pricked the conscience of her husband. He visited her +frequently, vowed a complete change, promised to bring his business to +the point where he would be able to come home at six, etc., etc. +Gradually she improved and finally made a partial recovery. + +Whether or not the husband kept his promises I cannot say. On the +chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The +lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm +has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the +inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he +is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and +his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he knows only one +_constant_ attraction,--Chance. + +The other woman suffered in much the same way except that she was +fortunate enough finally to be deserted by her husband. This ended her +doubts and fears, broke her down for a short while, and then she went +back to industry. In this I have no doubt she found only an incomplete +satisfaction for her yearnings and desires, but she had something to +take up her time, and built up contacts with others in a way that was +impossible in her lonely home. + +Case IX. The will to power through weakness; a case of hysteria in the +home. + +This case is classic in the outspoken value of the symptoms to the +woman. It is not of course typical, except as the extreme is typical, +and that is what is usually meant, Roosevelt, we say, was a typical +American, meaning that he represented in extreme development a certain +type of man. So this case shows very clearly what is not so clear at +first in many cases of conflict between man and wife. + +The woman in question was twenty-seven, of French-Canadian origin, but +thoroughly American in appearance and speech. She was of a middle-class +rural family and had married a farmer who finally had given up his farm +and was a mechanic in a small city. + +The young woman had always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As +a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", _i.e._ to displease +her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her +family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased +when she married off their hands and left the home. + +Married life soon provided her with sufficient to displease her. Her +husband drank but not sufficiently to be classed as a heavy drinker. He +was a quiet, rather taciturn man, utterly averse to the pleasures for +which his wife longed. She wanted to go to dances, to take in the +theaters, to live in more expensive rooms, and especially she became +greatly attached to a group of people of a sporty type whom her husband +tersely called "tinhorn bluffs" and whom he refused to visit. + +They quarreled vigorously and the quarrels always ended one way,--she +became sick in one way or other. This usually brought her husband around +to her way of thinking, at least for a time, and much against his will +he would go with her to her friends. + +Finally, however, she set her heart on living with these people, and he +set his will firmly against hers. She then developed such an alarming +set of symptoms that after a while the physician who asked my opinion +had made up his mind that she had a brain tumor. She was paralyzed, +speechless, did not eat and seemed desperately ill. + +The diagnosis of hysteria was established by the absence of any evidence +of organic disease and by the history of the case. The relief of +symptoms was brought about by means which I need not detail here, but +which essentially consisted in proving to the patient that no true +paralysis existed and in tricking her into movement and speech. + +When she was well enough to be up and about and to talk freely, she and +her husband were both informed that the symptoms arose because her will +was thwarted, and _that_ part of their function was to bring the man to +his knees. He agreed to this, but she took offense and refused to come +any more to see me,--a not unnatural reaction. + +The outlook in such a case is that the couple will live like cats and +dogs. Such a temperament as this woman's is inborn. She is essentially, +in the complete meaning of the word, unreasonable. Her nature demands a +sympathetic attention and consideration that her character does not +warrant. Throughout life she demands to receive but has no desire to +give. Nor is she powerful enough to take, so there arise emotional +crises with marked disturbance in bodily energy, and especially symptoms +that frighten the onlooker, such as paralyses, blindness, deafness, +fainting spells, etc. Whatever is the source of these symptoms, they are +frequently used to gain some end or purpose through the sympathy and +discomfort of others. + +Not all hysteria, either in men or women, is united with such a +character as this woman's. Sufficient stress and strain may bring about +hysterical symptoms in a relatively normal person and short hysterical +reactions are common in the normal woman. The height of cynicism may be +found in the discovery that war causes hysteria in some men in much the +same way that matrimony causes hysteria in some women. A humorous review +of a paper on the domestic neuroses was entitled "Kitchen Shell Shock." +But severe hysteria, when it arises in the housewife, springs mainly +from her disposition and not from the kitchen. + +Case X. The unfaithful husband. + +Monogamous marriage is based upon the assumption that loyalty to a +single male is moral and possible. It is probable that in no age has +this agreement been loyally carried out by the husbands; it is probable +that in our own time the single standard of morals has first been +strongly emphasized. With the rise of women into equality one of the +important demands they have made is that men remain as loyal as +themselves. Therefore the reaction to unchastity or unfaithfulness on +the part of the man is apt to be more severe than in the past, on the +theory that where more is demanded failure in performance is felt the +keener. + +The housewife, Mrs. F.C., aged thirty-five, is a prepossessing woman, +the mother of two children, and has been married for nine years. Her +health has always been fairly good, though in the last four years she +has been somewhat irritable. She attributed this to struggle to make +both ends meet, her husband being a workman with wages just over the +border line of sufficiency. They quarreled "no more than other couples +do", were as much in love "as other couples are", to use her phrases. +She was above her class in education, read what are usually called +advanced books, was "strong for suffrage", etc. However she was a good +housekeeper, devoted to her children and faithful to her husband. Their +sexual relations were normal and up till six months before I saw her she +thought herself a well-mated, rather fortunate woman. + +Out of a clear sky came proof of long-continued unfaithfulness on the +part of her "domestic" husband: a chance bill for women's clothes +fluttered out of his pocket and under the bed, so that next morning she +found it; an unbelieving moment and then a visit to the address on the +bill, and proof plenty that he had been disloyal, not only to her but to +the children, who had been obliged to scrimp along while he helped +maintain another woman. Humiliated beyond measure by her disaster, +unable to endure her past memories of happiness and faith, with an +unstable world rocking before her, through the revelation that a quiet, +contented, loving man could be completely false, she found no adequate +reason for living and became a helpless prey to her troubled mind. "A +temporary unfaithfulness, a yielding to sudden temptation" she could +understand, but a determined plan of duplicity shattered her whole +scheme of values. A very severe psychoneurosis followed, and her +children and she were taken over by her parents and cared for. + +Sleeplessness was so prominent in her case and so evidently the central +physical symptom that its control was difficult and required a regular +campaign for success. With sleep restored and the resumption of eating, +the most of her acute symptoms were passed, though a profound depression +remained. + +Her husband, thoroughly abashed and ashamed, made furtive attempts at +reconciliation. These were absolutely rejected, and from her attitude it +was obvious that no reconciliation was possible. "Had he not been found +out," said the wife, "he would still be living with her. I can never +trust him again; I would die before I lived with him." + +Little by little her pride recovered, for in such cases the deepest +wound is to the ego, the self-valuation. The deepest effort of life is +to increase that valuation by increasing its power and its respect by +others; the keenest hurt comes with the lowering of the valuation of +one's own personality. A woman gives herself to a man, without lowering +a self-feeling if he is tender and faithful; if he holds her cheap, as +by flagrant disloyalty, then her surrender is her most painful of +memories. + +With the recovery of pride came the restoration of her interest in her +children, and her purposes reshaped themselves into definite plans. Part +of the process in readjustment in any disordered life is to centralize +the dispersed purposes, to redirect the life energies. She agreed that +she would accept aid from the husband, as his duty, but only for the +children. For herself, as soon as the children were a year or so older, +she would go back to industry and become self-supporting. Her plans +made, her recovery proceeded to a firm basis, and I have no doubt as to +its permanence. Nevertheless, life has changed its complexion for her, +and there will be many moments of agony. These are inevitable and part +of the recovery process. + +I shall not attempt to settle the larger problem of whether she should +have forgiven her husband and returned to him. Granting that his +repentance was genuine, granting that no further lapse would occur, she +would never be able to forget that when he deceived her he had _acted_ +the part of a devoted husband. She would never be able fully to trust +him, and this would spoil their married happiness entirely. "For the +children's sake," cry some readers; well, that is the only strong +argument for return. But on the whole it seems to me that an honest +separation, an honest revolt of a proud woman is better than a dishonest +reunion, or a "patient Griselda" acceptance of gross wrong. + +Case XI. The unfaithful wife. + +In such cases as the preceding and the one now to be detailed, the +difficulties of the physician are multiplied by his entrance into +ethics. Ordinarily medicine has nothing to do with morals; to the doctor +saint and sinner are alike, and the only immorality is not to follow +orders. To do one's duty as a doctor, with one's sole aim the physical +health of the patient, may mean to advise what runs counter to the +present-day code of morals. This is the true "Doctor's Dilemma." In +such cases discretion is the safest reaction, and discretion bids the +physician say, "Call in some one else on that matter; I am only a +doctor." + +A true neurologist must regard himself as something more than a +physician. He needs be a good preacher, an astute man of the world, as +well as something of a lawyer. The patient expects counsel of an +intimate kind, expects aid in the most difficult situations, viz., the +conflicts of health and ethics. + +Mrs. A.R., thirty-one years of age and very attractive, has been married +since the age of eighteen. She has two children, and her husband, ten +years her senior, is a man of whose character she says, "Every one +thinks he is perfect." A little overstaid and over dignified, inclined +to be pompous and didactic, he is kind-hearted and loyal, and successful +in a small business. He is an immigrant Swiss and she is American born, +of Swiss parentage. + +Always romantic, Mrs. A.R. became greatly dissatisfied with her home +life. At times the whole scheme of things, matrimony, settled life, got +on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. She was bored, and it seemed +to her that soon she would be old without ever having really lived. "I +married before I had any fun, and I haven't had any fun since I married +except"--Except for the incident that broke down her health by swinging +her into mental channels that made her long for the quiet domesticity +against which she had so rebelled. Her daydreaming was erotic, but +romantically so, not realistic. + +There are in the community adventurers of both sexes whose main interest +in life is the conquest of some woman or man. The male sex adventurers +are of two main groups, a crude group whose object is frank possession +and a group best called sex-connoisseurs, who seek victims among the +married or the hitherto virtuous; who plan a campaign leisurely and to +whom possession must be preceded by difficulties. Frequently these +gentry have been crude, but as satiation comes on a new excitement is +sought in the invasion of other men's homes. Undoubtedly they have a +philosophy of life that justifies them. + +Since this is not a novel we may omit the method by which one of these +men found his way to the secret desires of our patient, and how he +proceeded to develop her dissatisfaction into momentary physical +disloyalty. She came out of her dereliction dazed; could it be she who +had done this, who had descended into the vilest degradation? She broke +off all relations with the man, probably much to his surprise and +disgust, and plunged into a self-accusatory internal debate that brought +about a profound neurasthenia. + +Naturally she did not of her own accord speak of her +unfaithfulness,--largely because no one knew of it. Her husband did not +in the least suspect her; he thought she needed a rest, a change, little +realizing how "change" had broken her down. (For after all, the most of +infidelity is based on a sort of curiosity, a seeking of a new stimulus, +rather than true passion.) The truth was forced out of her when it was +evident to me that something was obsessing her. + +When she had confessed her difficulty the question arose as to her +husband. She was no longer dissatisfied, no longer eager for romance; +but could she live with him if she had been unfaithful? Ought she not to +tell him; and yet she feared to do this, feared the result to him, for +she felt sure he would forgive her. In reality the conflict in her mind +arose first from self-depreciation and second from indecision as to +confession. + +As to the self-accusation, I told her that though she had been very +foolish she had punished herself severely enough; that her reaction was +that of an _essentially moral_ person; that an essentially immoral woman +would have continued in her career, and at least would not have been so +remorseful. As to confessing, I told her that I believed that if she +came to peace without such a confession wisdom would dictate not to make +it, and that perhaps a little romanticism was still present in the +quixotic idea of confession. Discretion is sometimes the better part of +veracity, and I felt sure that she would not find it difficult to forget +her pain. + +It may be questioned whether such advice was ethical. I am sure no two +professors of ethics could agree on the matter, and where they would +disagree I chose the policy of expediency. Moreover, I felt certain that +Mrs. R.'s remorse did not need the purge of confession to her husband, +that she was not of that deeply fixed nature which requires heroic +measures. Her confession to me was sufficient, and since it was apparent +that she would not repeat her folly it was not necessary to go to +extremes. + +The last two cases make pertinent some further remarks on sex. It has +previously been stated that the sex field is the one in which arise many +of the difficulties which breed the psychoneuroses. It would not be the +place here to give details of cases, though every neurologist of +experience is well aware of the neuroses that arise in marriage, among +both men and women. Some day society will reach the plane where matters +relating to the great function by which the world is perpetuated can be +discussed with the freedom allowed to the discussion of the details of +nutrition. + +No one seriously doubts that women are breaking away from traditional +ideas in these matters. There was a time (the Victorian Age) in the +United States and England when prudery ruled supreme in the manners and +dress of women. That this has largely disappeared is a good thing, but +whether there is a tendency to another extreme is a matter where +division of opinion will occur. A transition from long skirts to dress +that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a +feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would +remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of +woman. But a transition from long skirts to short tight ones, impeding +movement, is the transition from prudery to pruriency and is by no means +a clear gain. Plenty of scope for art and beauty might be found in a +costume of which pantalettes of some kind are the basis. I doubt if +women will ever be regarded quite as human beings so long as they paint, +wear fantastic coiffures, hobble along on foolish heels, and are clad in +over tight short skirts. + +Similarly with the literature of the period. The so-called sex story, +the sex problem, obsesses the writers. Nor are these frank, free +discussions of the essential difficulties in the relation between man +and woman. Usually the stories deal with the difficulties of the idle +rich woman without children, or concern themselves with trivial +triangles. In the type of interminable continued stories that every +newspaper now carries, the woman's difficulties range around the most +absurd petty jealousies, and she never seems to cook or sew or have any +responsibility, and they always end so "sweetly." On the stage the +epidemic of girl and music shows has quite displaced the drama. Here sex +is exploited to the point of the risque and sometimes beyond it. + +Sex is overemphasized by our civilization on its distracting side, its +spicy and condimental values, and underemphasized so far as its +realities go. The aim seems to be to titillate sex feeling constantly, +and a precocious acquaintance with this form of stimulation is the lot +of most city children. Such things would have no serious results to the +housewife if they did not arouse expectations that marriage does not +fulfill at all. This is the great harm of prurient clothes, literature, +art, and stage,--it unfits people for sex reality. + +In how far the delayed marriages of men and women are good or bad it is +almost impossible to decide. That unchastity increases with delay is a +certainty, that fewer children are born is without doubt. Whether the +fixation of habit makes it harder for the wife to settle down to the +household, and the man less domestic, cannot be answered with yes or +no. There seems to be no greater wisdom of choice shown in mature than +in early marriages, though this would be best answered by an analysis of +divorce records. + +That contraceptive measures have come to stay; that they are increasing +in use, the declining birth rate absolutely evidences. I take no stock +in the belief that education reduces fertility through some biological +effect; where it reduces fertility it does so through a knowledge of +cause, effect, and prevention. Some day it will come to pass that +contraceptive measures will be legal, in view of the fact that our +jurists and law makers are showing a decline in the size of their own +families. When that time comes the discussion of means of this kind +consistent with nervous health will be frank, and some part of the +neurasthenia of our modern times will disappear. The vaster racial +problems that will arise are not material for discussion in this book. + +Though not perhaps completely relevant to the nervousness of the +housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the +engaged." The freedom of the engaged couple is part of the emancipation +of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just +short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are +aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted meetings. +Sweet as this period of life is, in many cases it brings about a mild +exhaustion, and in other cases, relatively few, a severe neurosis. On +the whole the engagement period of the average American couple is not a +good preparation for matrimony. How to bring about restraint without +interfering with normal love-making is not an easy decision to make. But +it would be possible to introduce into the teaching of hygiene the +necessity of moderation in the engaged period; it would be especially of +service to those whose engagement must be prolonged to be advised +concerning the matter. Here is a place for the parents, the family +friend, or the family physician. + +Men and women as they enter matrimony are only occasionally equipped +with real knowledge as to the physiology and psychology of the sex life. +That a great deal of domestic dissatisfaction and unhappiness could be +obviated if wisdom and experience instructed the husband and wife in +the matter I have not the slightest doubt. The first rift in the +domestic lute often dates from difficulties in the intimate life of the +pair, difficulties that need not exist if there were knowledge. That +reason and love may coexist, that the beauty of life is not dependent on +a sentimentalized ignorance are cardinal in my code of beliefs. He who +believes that sentiment disappears with enlightenment is the true cynic, +the true pessimist. He who believes that intelligence and knowledge +should guide instinct and that happiness is thus more certain is better +than an optimist; he is a rationalist, a realist. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TREATMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES + + +It is obvious that what is largely a problem of the times cannot be +wholly considered as an individual problem. Yet individual cases do +yield to treatment (to use the slang of medicine) or at least a large +proportion do. The minor cases in point of symptoms are very frequently +the most stubborn, since neither the patient nor the family are willing +to concede that to alter the life situation is as important as the +taking of medicine. + +Most housewives are nervous, both in their own eyes and in those of +their husbands, yet rightly they are not regarded as sick. They are +uncomfortable, even unhappy, and the way out seems impossible to find. I +believe that even with things as they are, adjustments are possible that +can help the average woman. It is conceded that where the life situation +involves an unalterable factor, relief or help may be unobtainable. + +It is necessary first of all to rule out physical disease. To do this +means a thorough physical study. By doing this a considerable number of +women will be immensely helped. Flat feet, varicose veins, injuries to +the organs of generation, eye strain, relaxed gastro-intestinal tract, +and the major diseases,--these must be remembered as factors that may +determine nervousness. + +With this question settled, let us assume that there is no such +difficulty or it has been remedied, and we have next to consider the +life situation of the patient. Here we enter into a difficult place, +where knowledge of life and understanding of men and women, as well as +tact, are the essentials. + +It is necessary to remedy whatever bad hygienic habits exist. A rich +woman may have settled down to a deenergizing life, with too much time +in bed, too many matinees, too many late nights, too many bonbons, etc. +Aside from the psychical injuries that such a life produces, it is bad +for "the nerves" in its effects upon digestion, bodily tone, and the +sources of mood. On some simple detail of life, some unfortunate habit, +the whole structure of misery may rest. + +I always keep in mind an incident of some years ago when I lived in a +small town in Massachusetts. For some reason our furnace threw coal gas +into the house in such a way as nearly to poison us. The landlord sent +several plumbers down, and one after the other suggested drastic +remedies,--a new chimney, a new furnace, etc. Finally the landlord and I +investigated for ourselves. At the bottom of the chimney we found an +inconspicuous loose brick which allowed air to enter the chimney beneath +the entrance of the pipe from the stove. We got ten cents' worth of lime +and fastened the brick in firmly. A complete cure, where the specialists +had failed. + +So there often exists some drain on the energy and strength of the woman +which may be simple and easily changed, and yet is critical in its +significance and importance. + +An overdomestic woman may stick too closely to the house; an +underdomestic one may go too often to movies and suffer the fatigue of +mind and body that comes from over-indulgence in this most popular +indoor sport. Carelessness about the eating and the care of the bowel +functions may have started a vicious chain of things leading through +irritability and fatigue into neurasthenia. We say human beings are all +the same, but the range of individual susceptibility to trouble is such +that a difficulty not important to most people will raise havoc with +others who are in most ways perfectly normal. + +Look then for the bad hygiene! Look for the evils of the sedentary life +Look for the root of the trouble in lack of exercise, poor habits of +eating, insufficient air, disturbed sleep! Search for physical +difficulties before inquiring into the psychical life. + +If poverty exists, then one may inquire into the amount of work done, +the character of the home, the opportunities for recreation and +recuperation. All or any of the factors I have mentioned in previous +chapters may be critical, and the moil and turmoil of a crowded tenement +home may be responsible. That such conditions do not break all women +down does not prove that they do not break _some_ women down, women with +finer sensibilities, or lesser endurance (which often go together). The +most depressing problems are met among the poor, the cases where one can +see no way out because the social machinery is inadequate to care for +its victims. + +What is one to do when one meets a poor woman with three or four or +more children, living in a crowded way, overworked, racked in her nerves +by her fears, worries, and the disagreeable in her life, drudging from +morning till night, yearning for better things, despairing of getting +them, tormented by desires and ambitions that must be thwarted? "What +right has a poor woman anyway to desires above her station, and why does +not she resign herself to her lot?" ask the comfortable. Unfortunately +philosophy and resignation are difficult even for philosophers and +saints, and much more so for the aspiring woman. And our American +civilization preaches "Strive, Strive!" too constantly for much +philosophy and resignation of an effective kind to be found. + +One must give tonics, prescribe rest, try to get social agencies +interested, obtain vacations and convalescent care, etc. Can one purge a +woman of futile longings and strivings, rid her of natural fears and +even of absurd fears? It can be done to a limited degree, if the patient +has intelligence and if one gives liberally of one's time and sympathy. +But unfortunately the consulting room for the poor is in the crowded +clinic, the thronged dispensary, and how is the overworked physician to +give the time and energy necessary? + +For the time required is the least requirement. To deal adequately with +the neurasthenic is to have unending sympathy and patience and an energy +that is limitless. Without such energy or endurance the physician either +slumps to a prescriber of tonics and sedatives, a dispenser of such +stale advice as "Don't worry" and "You need a rest", or else himself +gives out. + +In dealing with the cases in the better-to-do and the rich, one has more +weapons in the armamentarium. The worry is more futile here, more +ridiculous, and one can attack it vigorously. Usually it is not overwork +in these cases; it is monotony, boredom, discontent with something or +other, a vicious circle of depressing thoughts and emotions, some +difficulty in the sex life, some reaction against the husband, a +rebellion of a weak, futile kind against life, maladjustment of a +temperament to a situation. + +Some difficulties, even when ascertained and clearly understood, are +insurmountable. "The truth shall make ye free" is true only in the very +largest sense. Some temperaments are inborn, and are as unchangeable as +the nose on one's face. In such cases the ordinary physical therapeutics +help the acute symptoms that flare up now and then, and that is as much +as one may expect. + +But it is certain that in the majority of cases more than this may be +accomplished. It is often a great surprise and relief to a woman to +realize that her overconscientiousness, her fussiness, her rebellion, +and discontent, her reaction to something or other is back of her +symptoms. She has feared disease of the brain, tumor, insanity, or has +blamed her trouble on some other definite physical basis. + +If one deals with intelligence, explanation helps a great deal. The +intelligent usually want to be convinced; they do not ask for miracles, +they seek counsel as well as treatment. + +It is my firm belief that the function of intelligence is to control +instinct and emotion, and that temperament, if inborn, is not +unchangeable, even at maturity. Once you convince a person that his or +her symptoms are due to fear, worry, doubt, and rebellion you enlist the +personal efforts to change. + +A new philosophy of life must be presented. Less fussiness, less fear, +more endurance, less reaction to the trifles of their life are +necessary. The aimless drifter must be given a central purpose or taught +to seek one; the dissatisfied and impatient must be asked, "Why should +life give you all you want?" "What cannot be remedied must be endured!" +What a wealth of wisdom in the proverb! One seeks to establish an ideal +of fortitude, of patience, of fidelity to duty,--old-fashioned words, +but serenity of spirit is their meaning. Suddenly to come face to face +with one's self, to strip away the self-imposed disguise, to see clearly +that jealousy, impatience, luxurious, and never satisfied tastes, a +selfish and restless spirit, are back of ennui and fatigue, pains and +aches of body and mind, is to step into a true self-understanding. + +If a situation demands action, even drastic action, "surgical" action, +then that action must be forthcoming, even though it hurts. To end +doubt, perplexity, to cease being buffeted between hither and yon, is to +end an intolerable life situation. I have in mind certain domestic +situations, such as the effort to keep up in appearance and activity +with those of more means and ability. + +Sexual difficulties, so important and so common, demand the cooperation +of the husband for remedy. He should be seen (for usually the wife +consults the physician alone) and the situation gone over with him. Men +are usually willing to help, willing to seek a way out. A neurasthenic +wife is a sore trial to the patience and endurance of her husband and he +is anxious enough to help cure her. + +Where there is conflict of other kinds the situation is complicated by +the intricacy of the factors. Financial difficulties especially wear +down the patience and endurance of the partners, and the physician +cannot prescribe a golden cure. In prosperous times there is less +neurasthenia than in the unprosperous, just as there is less suicide. + +Sometimes it is just one thing, one difficulty, over which the conflict +rages. I have in mind two such cases, where one habit of the husband +deenergized his wife by outraging her pride and love. When he was +induced to yield on this point the wife came back to herself,--a highly +strung, very efficient self. + +In fact, the basis of treatment is the painstaking study of the +individual woman and then the painstaking _adjustment_ of that +individual woman. It may mean the adjustment of the whole life +situation to that housewife, or conversely the adjustment of the +housewife to the life situation. + +In many marital difficulties that one sees, not so much in practice as +in contact with normal married couples, the trouble reminds one of the +orang-outang in Kipling's story who had "too much Ego in his Cosmos." +Marriage, to be successful, is based on a graceful recession of the ego +in the cosmos of each of the partners. The prime difficulty is this; +people do not like to recede the ego. And the worst offenders are the +ones who are determined to stand up for the right, which usually is a +disguised way of naming their desire. + +One might speak of a thousand and one things that every man and every +woman knows. One might speak of the death of love and the growth of +irritation, the disappearance of sympathy,--these are the hopeless +situations. But far more common and important, though less tragic, is +the disappearance of the little attentions, the little love-making, the +disappearance of good manners. Men are not the only or the worst +offenders in this; the nervous housewife is very apt to be the scold +and the nag. Perhaps the neurasthenia of the husband arises from his +revolt against the incessant demands of his wife, but that's another +story. + +At any rate, there is what seems to be a cardinal point of difference +between men and women, perhaps arising from some essential difference in +make-up, perhaps in part due to difference in training. An essential +need of the average American-trained woman is sympathy, constantly +expressed, constantly manifested. The average man tends to become +matter-of-fact, the average woman finds in matter-of-factness the death +of love. She acts as if she believed that the little acts of love and +sympathy are the more important as manifesting the real state of +feeling, that the major duties were of less importance. + +On this point most men and women never seem to agree. The man gets +impatient over the constant demand for his attention. He thinks it +unreasonable and childish. Intent upon his own struggle he is apt to +think her affairs are minor matters. He thinks his wife makes mountains +out of molehills and lacks a sense of proportion. He forgets that the +devotion of the husband is the woman's anchor to windward, her grip on +safety,--that his success and struggle are hers only in so far as he and +she are intimate and lover-like. And women, even those who trust their +husbands absolutely so far as physical loyalty goes, jealously watch +them for the appearance of boredom, or lack of interest, for the falling +off of the lover's spirit and feeling. + +After marriage the rivalry of men expresses itself in business more than +in love. Even where a woman does not fear another woman as a rival she +fears the rivalry of business,--and with reason. So she craves +attention, sympathy, as well as the dull love of everyday life. She +ought to have it; it is her recompense for her lot, for her married +life, her smaller interests. Now and then some great man intent upon a +great work has some excuse for absorption in that work; for the great +majority of men there is no such excuse. Their own affairs are also +minor and are no more important than those of their wives. Fair play +demands that the women they have immured in a home have a prior claim to +their company, in at least the majority of the leisure hours. If in the +time to come the home alters and a woman who continues to work marries +a man who works, and they meet only at night, then it will be ethical +for each to go his or her way. Marriage at present must mean the giving +up of freedom for the man as well as for the woman, in the interests of +justice and the race. + +In medicine we prescribe bitter tonics which have the property of +increasing appetite and vigor. For the husband of every woman there is +this bit of advice; sympathy and attention constitute a sweet tonic, +which if judiciously administered is of incomparable power and +efficiency. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE FUTURE OF WOMAN, THE HOME, AND MARRIAGE + + +No true sportsman ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in +favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days +of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to +reproach or mock him. + +Therefore I do not claim to be a prophet in discussing the future of +woman, the home, and marriage. At any time just one invention may come +along that will totally alter the face of things. Moreover we are now in +the midst of great changes in industry, in social relations, in the +largest matters of national and international nature. Men and women +alike are involved in these changes, but it is impossible to judge the +outcome. For history records many abortive reformations, many +reactionary centuries and eras as well as successful reformations and +progressive ages. + +Whether or not it fits woman to be a housewife of the traditional kind, +feminism is certain to develop further. Women will enter into more +diverse occupations than ever before, they will enter politics, they +will find their way to direct power and action. More and more those who +work will be specialized and individualized--- the woman executive, the +writer, the artist, the doctor, lawyer, architect, chemist, and +sociologist--will resist the dictum "Woman's place is the Home." The +woman of this group will either be forced into celibacy, or in +ever-increasing numbers she will insist on some sort of arrangement +whereby she can carry on her work. She will perhaps refuse to bear +children and transform domesticity into an apartment hotel life, in +which she and her husband eat breakfast and dinner together and spend +the rest of the waking time separately, as two men might. + +Such a development, while perhaps satisfying the ideas of progress of +the feminist, will be bad eugenically. There will be a removal from the +race of the value of these women, the intellectual members of their +sex. Whether the work this group of women do will equal the value of +the children they might have had no one can say. + +But after all, the number of women who will enter the professions and +remain in them on the conditions above stated will be relatively small. +The main function of women will always be childbearing. If ever there +comes a time when the drift will be away from this function, then a +counter-movement will start up to sway women back into this sphere of +their functions. Moreover, the bulk of women entering industry will +enter it in the humbler occupations and they will in the main be willing +enough to marry and bear children, even in the limited way. Yet since +they enter marriage with a wider experience than ever before, the +conditions of marriage and the home must change, even though gradually. + +So on the whole we may look to an increasing individuality of woman, an +increasing feeling of worth and dignity as an individual, an increasing +reluctance to take up life as the traditional housewife. Rebellion +against the monotony and the seclusive character of the home will +increase rather than diminish, and it must be faced without prejudice +and without any reliance on any authority, either of church or state, +that will force women back to "womanly" ways of thinking, feeling or +doing. + +Sooner or later we shall have to accept legally what we now recognize as +fact,--the restriction of childbearing. Whether we regard it as good or +bad, the modern woman will not bear and nurse a large family. And the +modern man, though he has his little joke about the modern family, is +one with his wife in this matter. With husband and wife agreed there +seems little to do but accept the situation. + +That this condition of affairs is leaving the peopling of the world to +the backward, the ignorant, and the careless is at present accepted by +most authors. One has only to read the serious articles on this subject +in the journals devoted to racial biology to realize how deeply +important the matter is. Yet there may be some undue alarm felt, for +contraceptive measures are becoming so prevalent in Europe, America, and +Asia that all races will soon be on the same footing, and moreover all +classes in society except the feeble-minded are learning the +procedures. The prolificness of the feeble-minded is indeed a menace, +and society may find itself compelled to lower their fertility +artificially. + +What will probably happen is that the one, two, or three-child family +will be born before the mother's thirty-fifth year, and she will then or +before forty become free from the severest burdens of the housewife. +What will she do with her time; what will the better-to-do woman do? +Will she gradually give her energies to the community, or will she while +away her time in the spurious culture that occupies so many club women +to-day? + +It is safe to say that women will enter far more largely than ever +before into movements for the betterment of the race. Though their way +of life may breed neurasthenia for some, it will have this great +advantage,--the mother feeling will sweep into society, will enter +politics, and social discussions. That we need that feeling no one will +deny who has ever tried to enlist social energies for race betterment +and failed while politicians stepped in for all the funds necessary even +for some anti-social activities. We have too much legalism in our social +structure and not near enough of the humanism that the socially minded +mother can bring. + +Is the increasing incidence of divorce a revolt against domesticity? To +some extent yes, but where women obtain the divorce it is mainly a +refusal to tolerate unfaithfulness, desertion, incompatibility of +temperament. It does not mean that the family is threatened by +divorce,--rather that the family is threatened by the conditions for +which divorce is nowadays obtained and which were formerly not reasons +for divorce. In many countries adultery on the part of the man, cruel +and abusive treatment, chronic intoxication, and desertion were not +grounds for divorce. These to-day are the grounds for divorce, and in +the opinion of the writer they should invalidate a marriage. I would go +even further and say that wherever there was concealed insanity or +venereal disease the marriage should be annulled, as it is in some +States. + +Divorce will not then diminish, despite the campaign against it, until +the conditions for which it is sought are removed. Until that time +comes, to bind two people together who are manifestly unhappy simply +encourages unfaithfulness and cruelty, and is itself a cruelty. + +Whether we can devise a system where woman's individuality and humanness +can have scope and yet find her willing to accept the roles of mother +and homekeeper, is a serious question. It seems to me certain that woman +will continue to demand her freedom, regardless of her status as wife +and mother. She will continue to receive more and more general and +special education, and she will continue to find the role of the +traditional housewife more uncongenial. Out of that maladaptation and +the discontent and rebellion will arise her neurosis. + +In other words what we must seek to do--those of us who are not bound by +tradition alone but who seek to modify institutions to human beings +rather than the reverse--is to find out what changes in the home and +matrimonial conditions are necessary for the woman of to-day and +to-morrow. + +That there has been a huge migration to the cities in the last century +is one of its outstanding peculiarities. This urban movement has meant +the greater concentration of humans in a given area, and it is therefore +directly responsible for the apartment house. That is to say, there has +been a trend away from individual homes, completely segregated and +individualized, to houses where at least part of the housework was +eliminated, in a sense was cooperative. This cooperation is increasing; +more and more houses have janitors, more and more houses furnish heat. +In the highest class of apartment house the trend is toward permanent +hotel life, with the exception that individual housekeeping is possible. + +Because of the limited space and the desire of the modern well-to-do +woman to escape as much as possible from housekeeping, because of the +smaller families (which idea has been fostered by landlords), the number +of rooms and the size of the rooms have grown less. The kitchenette +apartment is a new departure for those who can afford more room, for it +is well known that the poor in the slums have long since lived in one or +two rooms serving all purposes. The huge modern apartment house, the +huge modern tenement house, are part first of the urban movement and +second of that movement away from housekeeping which has been sketched +in the Introduction. + +The home has been praised as the nucleus of society, its center, its +heart. Its virtues have been so unanimously extolled that one need but +recite them. It is the embodiment of family, the soul of mother, father, +and children. It is the place where morality and modesty are taught. In +it arise the basic virtues of love of parents, love of children, love of +brothers and sisters; sympathy is thus engendered; loyalty has here its +source. The privacy of the home is a refuge from excitement and struggle +and gives rest and peace to the weary battler with the world. It is a +sanctuary where safety is to be sought, and this finds expression in the +English proverb, "Every Englishman's home is his castle." It is a +reward, a purpose in that men and women dream of their own home and are +thrilled by the thought. Throughout its quiet runs the scarlet thread of +its sex life. Home is where love is legitimate and encouraged. + +Yet the home has great faults; it is no more a divine institution than +anything else human is. Without at all detracting from its great, its +indispensable virtues, let us, as realists, study its defects. + +On the physical-economic side is the inefficiency and waste inseparable +from individual housekeeping. Labor-saving machinery and devices are +often too expensive for the individual home, and so small stoves do the +cooking and the heating, each individual housewife or her helper washes +by hand the dishes of each little group. Shopping is a matter for each +woman, and necessitates numberless small shops; perhaps the biggest +waste of time and energy lies here. The cooking is done according to the +intelligence and knowledge of nutrition of each housewife, and +housewives, like the rest of the world, range in intelligence from +feeble-mindedness to genius, with a goodly number of the uninformed, +unintelligent, and careless. Poets and novelists and the stage extol +home cooking, but the doctors and dietitians know there are as many +kinds of home cooking as there are kinds of homekeepers. The laboratory +and not the home has been the birthplace of the science of nutrition, +and we have still many traditions regarding the merits of home cooking +and feeding to break from. + +Take as one minor example the gorging encouraged on Sunday and certain +holidays. The housewife feels it her duty to slave in a kitchen all +Sunday morning that an over-big meal may be eaten in half an hour by her +family. She encourages gluttony by feeling that her standing as cook is +directly proportional to the heartiness of her meal. Thanksgiving, +Christmas,--the good cheer of gluttony is sentimentalized and hallowed +into poetry and music. The table that groans under its good cheer has +its sequence in the diners who groan without cheer. + +While we might further dilate on the physical deficiencies and +inefficiencies of the segregated home, there is a disadvantage of vaster +importance. After all, institutionalized cooking is rarely satisfactory, +because it lacks the spirit of good home cooking, the desire to meet +individual taste without profit. It lacks the ideal of service. + +There are bad effects from the segregation and the privacy of the home, +even of the good kind. For there are very many bad homes; those in which +drunkenness, immorality, quarreling, selfishness, improvidence, +brutality, and crime are taught by example. After all, we like to speak +too much in generalities--the Home, Woman, Man, Labor, Capital, +Mankind--forgetting there is no such thing as "the Home." There are +homes of all kinds with every conceivable ideal of life and training and +having only one thing in common,--that they are segregated social units, +based usually on the family relationship. Montaigne very truly said +approximately this: "He who generalizes says 'Hello' to a crowd; he who +_knows_ shakes hands with individuals." + +In the first place the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to +generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown +to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is +exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the +lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the +quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either +positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or +develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is +traditional that some of the children brought up overstrictly, +overcarefully, throw off as soon as possible and as completely as +possible conventional morals and manners. Such persons have simply +overreacted to their training, revolted against the prejudice of their +teaching by building counter-prejudices. + +Further, the home fosters an anti-social feeling, or perhaps it would be +kinder to say a non-social feeling. Your home-loving person comes in the +course of time to that state of mind where little else is of importance; +the home becomes the only place where his sympathies and his altruistic +purposes find any real outlet. The capitalist of the stage (and of real +life too) is one so devoted to his home and family that he decorates one +and the other with the trophies of other homes. There is none so devoted +to his home as the peasant, and there is no one so individualistic, so +intent in his own prosperity. The home encourages an intense altruism, +but usually a narrow one. The feeling of warmth and comfort of the +hearth fire when a blizzard rages outside too often makes us forget the +poor fellows in the blizzard. + +Thus the home is the backbone of conservatism, which is good, but it +becomes also the basis of reactionary feeling. It is the people that +break away from home and home ties who do the great things. + +When the home is quiet and harmonious it is the place where great +virtues are developed. But when it is noisy and disharmonious, then its +very seclusiveness, its segregation, lends to the quarrels the +bitterness of civil war. The intensity of feeling aroused is +proportional to the intimacy of the home and not to the importance of +the thing quarreled about. Good manners and that sign and symbol of +largeness of spirit, tolerance for the opinions of others, rarely are +born in the home. + +It is hardly realized how much quarreling, how much of intense emotional +violence goes on in many homes. Its isolation and the absence of the +restraining influence of formality and courtesy bring the wills of the +family members into sharp conflict. Words are used that elsewhere would +bring the severest physical answer, or bring about the most complete +disruption of friendly relations. Love and anger, duty and self-interest +bring about intense inner conflict in the home, and the struggle between +the two generations, the rising and the receding, is here at its height. + +That courtesy to each other might be taught the children, might be +insisted on by the parents is my firm belief. Love and intimacy need not +exclude form. Manners and morals are not exclusive of each other. If the +marriage ceremony included the vow to be polite, it might leave out +almost everything else. The home should be the place where tolerance, +courtesy, and emotional control are taught both by precept and example. + +Can the home be altered to bring in more of the social spirit and yet +maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human +heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is +easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into +programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of +treatment,--so in society at large. + +Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men +and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and +drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the +sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by +some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger +cooperation, at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built +so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as cooperative +stores are springing up, so cooperative kitchens, community kitchens +organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, +without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her +own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a +development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens +now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the +housewife in most need,--the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real +social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, +nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be +eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would +disappear in a generation. + +That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the +disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius +has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. +Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even +the lower middle class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of +them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device +ought to be judged are these: + +First--Is it efficient? + +Second--Is it labor saving? + +Third--Is it time saving? + +We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional +diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating +ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, +fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the +housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would +also be of great benefit to her husband. The cult of hearty eating, +which results in keeping a woman (mistress or maid) in the kitchen for +three or more hours that a man may eat for twenty or thirty minutes is +folly. The type of meal that either takes only a short time for +preparation and devices which render the attention of the housewife +unnecessary are ethical and healthy, both for the family and society. +The joys of the table are not to be despised, and only the dyspeptic or +the ascetic hold them in contempt; but simplicity in eating is the very +heart of the joy of the table. + +Elaboration and gluttony are alike in this,--they increase the housework +and decrease the well-being of the diner. + +How to maintain the sweetness of the family spirit of the home and yet +bring into it a wider social spirit, break down its isolated +individualistic character, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to +solve. Ancient nations emphasized the social-national aspect of life +overmuch, as for example the Spartans; the modern home overemphasizes +the family aspect. We must avoid extremes by clinging to the virtues and +correcting the vices of the home. + +Alarmists are constantly raising the cry that marriage is declining and +that society is thereby threatened at its very heart. There is the +pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; +there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds +in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding +old-fashioned morality. Divorce, late marriage, and child-restriction +are the manifestations of this decadence, and the press, the pulpit, +science, and the State all have taken notice of these modern phenomena, +though with widely differing attitudes. + +That matrimony is changing cannot be questioned or denied. The main +change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose +rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no +longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, +when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in +exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the +horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to +this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely +enough, seemed to glory in it. + +With the rise of woman into the status of a human being (a revolution +not yet accomplished in entirety) the property relationship weakened but +lingers very strongly as a tradition that molds the lives of husband and +wife. Women are still held more rigidly to their duties as wives than +men to their duties as husbands, and the will of the husband still rules +in the major affairs of life, even though in a thousand details the wife +rules. Theoretically every man willingly acknowledges the importance of +his wife as mother and homekeeper, but practically he acts as if his +work were the really important activity of the family. The obedience of +the wife is still asked for by most of the religious ceremonies of the +times. Two great opinions are therefore still struggling in the home and +in society; one that matrimony implies the dependence and essential +inferiority of woman, and the other that the man and woman are equal +partners in the relationship. I fully realize that the advocate of the +first opinion will deny that the inferiority of woman is at all implied +in their standpoint. But it is an inferior who vows obedience, it is the +inferior who loses legal rights, it is the inferior who yields to +another the "headship" of the home. + +The struggle of these two opinions will have only one outcome, the +complete victory of the modern belief that the sexes are, all in all, +equal, and that therefore marriage is a contract of equals. Meanwhile +the struggling opinions, with the scene of conflict in every home, in +every heart, cause disorder as all struggles do. When the victory is +complete, then conduct will be definite and clear-cut, then the home +will be reorganized in relation to the new belief, and then new problems +will arise and be met. How conduct will be changed, what the new +problems will be and how they will be met, I do not pretend to know. + +Meanwhile there is this to say,--that marriage should be guarded so that +the grossly unfit do not marry. A thorough physical examination is as +necessary for matrimony as it is for civil service, and many of the +horrors every generation of doctors has witnessed could be eliminated at +once and for all time. + +Further, if marriage is a desirable state, and on the whole it must be +preferred to a single existence, surely so long as our code of morals +remains unchanged, and so long as we believe the race must be +perpetuated, then the too late marriage should be discouraged. The ideal +age for women to enter matrimony is from twenty-two to twenty-five; the +ideal age for men is from twenty-five to twenty-eight. It is not my +province to deal at length with this subject, but I may state that I +believe that continence beyond these ages becomes increasingly +difficult, that immorality is encouraged, that adaptability becomes +lessened, and that wiser selection of mates does _not_ occur. But how +bring about early marriages in a time when the luxuries seem to have +become necessities, and therefore the necessity of marriage is eyed more +and more as an extravagance of the foolhardy? How bring about early +marriage when women are earning pay almost equal to that of the men and +are therefore more reluctant to enter matrimony unless at a high +standard of living. The late marriage is an evil, but how it can be +displaced by the early marriage under the present social scheme I do not +see. + +We have considered divorce before this. It is not an evil but a symptom +of evil; not a disease in itself. It cannot be lessened or abolished +unless we are willing to state that a man and a woman should live +together as husband and wife, hating, despising, or fearing one another. +We cannot countenance brutality, unfaithfulness, or temperamental +mismating. It is true that divorces are often obtained for trivial +reasons, but usually the partners are not adapted to one another, +according to modern ways of thinking and feeling. What is commonplace +in one age is cruelty in the next, and this is a matter not of argument +but of expectation and feeling. + +Nothing more need be said of contraceptive measures than this: they are +inevitably increasing in use and soon will be part of the average +marriage. Society must recognize this, and the lawmakers must legalize +what they themselves practise. + +Matrimony, the home, woman, these are nodal points in the network of our +human lives. But they are not fixed centers, and the great weaver, Time, +changes the design constantly. Through them run the threads of the great +instincts, of tradition, of economic change, of the ideas, ideals, and +activities of man the restless. Man will always love woman, woman will +always love man; children will be born and reared, and sex conflict, +maladjustment, will always be secondary to these great facts. How men +and women will live together, how they will arrange for the children, +will be questions that women will help the world answer as well as their +mates. That the main trend of things is for better, more ethical, more +just relationship, I do not doubt. The secondary, most noisy changes +are perhaps evil, the main primary change is good. + +Meanwhile in the hurly-burly of new things, of complex relationships, +working blindly, is the nervous housewife. This book has been written +that she may know herself better and thus move towards the light; that +her husband may win sympathy and understanding and be bound to her in a +closer, better union, and that the physician and Society may seek the +direct and the remote means to helping her. + + + + +INDEX + +Alcoholism and housewife, 157 +Anger, 88 + +Beauty, loss of, 88 +Birth control, 14-16 +Birth control measures and nervousness, 137 + +Cases, treatment of, 231-243 +Child and cartoons, 113 + and movies, 111 +Childbearing and modern woman, 15 +Children and the neurosis, 97-115 + +Daydreaming, 81 +Diet and Cooking, 259 +Disagreeable, reaction to the, 90 +Divorce, 13 + +Emotions, effects of, 27-30; 42-45 +Engagement period, 229 +Extravagance of the housewife, 145 + +Fear, 93 +Feminism and individualization of woman, 10-13 + +Happiness and high cost of living, 151 +Histories of cases: + case with bad hygiene, 183-187 + hyperaesthetic woman, 187-193 + over-rich, purposeless type, 177-181 + overworked, under-rested type, 171-177 + physically ill type, 181-183 +Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5 +Home, + aboriginal, 5 + faults of, 225 + future of, 250 + isolation of, 77 +Household conflicts, 141-159 +Housewife, + hyperaesthetic type of, 51 + non-domestic type of, 61 + overconscientious type of, 53 + overemotional type of, 57 + physically ill, 69 + previously neurotic, 65 + types predisposed to nervousness, 47-73 +Housewife and abnormal child, 107 + and childbearing, 99 + and neglect, 153 + and poverty, 117 +Housewife of past generation, 3 +Housework, + evolution of, 5-10 + nature of, 75 +Housework and factory, 9 +Husband and housewife, 127 +Hysteria, 35 + +Jealousy and envy, 123 + +Marriage, conflicting views of, 127 +Marriage and sex relationship, 131-140 +Monotony, effects of, 79 +Nervousness, 17-20 +Nervousness and child hygiene, 100 +Nervousness and sick child, 104 +Neurasthenia, + causes, 9 + symptoms, 20-26 +Neurasthenia and fear, 23 + +Pruriency of our times, 275 +Psychasthenia, 31 +Psychoneuroses, 18 + +Sedentary life, effects of, 83 +Sex and society, 139 +Subconscious, 29 +Symptoms as weapons against husband, 161 + +Voltaire and constipation, 23 + +Will to power through weakness, 163, 212 +Woman, arts and crafts, 6-8 +Woman, + discontent of, 13 + future of, 244 + training of, 48-50 +Woman, industry and home, 8-10 +Worry, 119 + + + + +_By the Author of "RELIGION and HEALTH"_ + +=HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER= + +_By_ JAMES J. WALSH, M.D. + +_Medical Director of Fordham University School of Sociology_ + +12mo. Cloth. 288 pages. + + * * * * * + +"The American Public sorely needs the gospel of health that Dr. Walsh +preaches to it in his new book." + +--_The Pilot, Boston._ + + +"I do not wonder that your splendid book 'Health Through Will Power' has +met with such great success. I know that I could hardly leave the book +out of my hands, it was so interesting and instructive." + +--_Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, of New York._ + + +"'Health Through Will Power' is packed with medical wisdom translated +into the vernacular of common sense." + +--_The Ave Maria._ + + +"Your book is capable of adding largely to happiness, as well as health. +It is also wonderful, spiritually. I feel like recommending the book to +everyone I know." + +--_Mgr. M.J. Lavelle, of New York._ + + +"This book should find a place in every home, as it will help to bring +us back to a more natural manner of living." + +--_The Rosary Magazine._ + + * * * * * + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS + +34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Nervous Housewife, by Abraham Myerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NERVOUS HOUSEWIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 14196.txt or 14196.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/9/14196/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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