THE HOME-MAKING WOMAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15900, 24 April 1915, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE HOME-MAKING WOMAN

It is somewhat difficult to tell wherein lies the capacity for home-making that Bomo women possess. They may not be particularly blessed with the eloments of tidiness; their houses may often bo in a state of mild disorder; their servants are frequently rather haphazard; yet there is a feeling about the whole establishment of perfect homeliness. In other houses where tho day's routino moves with almost oiled smoothness, where everything is absolutely the pink of perfection and neatness and the essence of order and good taste, yet the home-feeling is lacking. Thcro is so much to say in favour of the woman who is .a perfect housewife that it comes as a shock to find that mere housekeeping cannot create a true home. Good taste can be run to death. A room may be so very beautiful and so exquisitely arranged that the beholder cannot adjust herself to the surroundings. It appears to be almost sacred. Ono is absolutely afraid to sit on ft chair for fear of soiling the dainty covering. One feels as if tho eyes of the hostess were' anxiously investigating the amount of dust on your shoes or that she was mentally calculating whether you were creasing the embroidery of the cushion against which you leaned. In your nervousness tho cake in your fingers

persists in crumbling to an alarming extent, and you begin to wonder whether the crumbs will leave a greaso mark upon the delicate grey pink of tho carpet. You are literally on pins and needles. Your hostess has infected you with her intense anxiety for the welfare of.her surroundings. In the home-making woman's house you ! sink with relief into a roomy chair, while | tiio cushion boliiud your back looks as if I it were meant to bo used, and is of good serviceable colour. The wholo surround-' ; ings look as if they had been made for comfort and not merely to look at. You • immediately feel that you aro at home; , that your hostess is happy to welcome you, and sho endeavours to mako you realise how very comfortable everything is in the house of the real home-making woman. This is not to suggest that tho untidy woman is naturally a home-maker, for very often she is far from it; but the real home-making woman does not set her house up as a fetish and expect the inmates of the homo to tako a second place. The house with her is the home of the human beings that inhabit it. The family i conies first and the house next, and because it shelters the family in it must bo just the most comfortable place upon earth.

The home-making woman is born, not made. No amount of education can create the home-making instinct in a nfind in which it is quite deficient. Fortunately for the good of humanity the home-making woman is in the majority. Although just before the war many writers declared that tho British woman was fast losing her home-making qualities, thero has been a return to homo life under the stress of war and once more we can say our women are the greatest home-makers in the world.