HOUSEWIVES PROTEST

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 110, 3 February 1938, Page 5

HOUSEWIVES PROTEST

They Haled Change And Accepted Labour-Savers With Reluctance JF Adam and Eve had anything in common with the British nation, they probably donned fig leaves, for the first time, with the greatest reluctance, and only under protest went into a cave to get out of the rain. For the British nation, which is so proud of its achievements and progression, accepts change with cautious hesitation and a great deal of beating about the bush.

(CONSIDER a Twentieth Century housewife. Her home is filled with labour-saving devices, appliances for cooking and cleaning which are designed to produce elaborate results with very little effort. As she wipes the gleaming enamel of her stove, or puts her vacuum cleaner away in the cupboard in the hall, she miry, if she is that sort of housewife, observe to the cat that she doesn’t know how people ever managed without such things. There was a time when they not only managed without such things, but were very reluctant to manage with them.

When gas cooking made its first tentative appearance experts proved that food cooked in this way was contaminated, and that if the practice continued it would undermine the health of the nation. Electrical cooking was greeted with .suspicion, and of vacuum cleaners it was said that they would wear through the pile of the thickest carpet in a fortnight.

The humble egg-beater bad tremendous opposition to contend with. Even to-day there are die-hards of the knife-and-dinner-plate school who maintain that the secret of the successful spongecake lies in certain inspired and subtle wrist-manipulation that cannot possibly be conveyed through the inhuman mechanism of tlie rotary-beater. When sewing-machines first appeared on the market our grandmothers looked askance. It was regarded as a clumsy device that only the bone-lazy would resort to, and for some years after the invention of mechanical sewing no selfrespecting woman would wear a garment that had been made by such a subterfuge. Aluminum, which has saved housewives countless hours of scouring, was first, produced commercially in 181)3, and a committee appointed by hardware manufacturers to investigate its possibilities pronounced it a transient fad. Stainless steel was invented by accident, and thrown away as waste material. Even when its non-corrosive properties were fully recognised it was a long time before the public could be induced Io use it to any extent It is true that, as a nation we are opposed to change. The old Tory spirit of “what was good enough for my grandfather is good enough for me” is strong within us, and yet we have progressed a long way from Adam

Perhaps a few adventurous spirits are all that a nation requires. The woman who is putting her vacuum-cleaner away in the hall cupboard is saying smugly bo her eat, “I wouldn’t oppose the innovation of such obviously useful devices.” I wonder. If an enterprising firm introduced an electrical contrivance for turning mattresses and restoring blankets, sheets and pillows to their accustomed daytime orderliness, I think khat she would be the first person to say, “But the bed wouldn’t be properly aired!" and another struggle for progress, would have begun.—M.J.