The Domestic Sphere.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IV, 28 July 1900, Page 177

The Domestic Sphere.

Be a good housekeeper, and you will be huppy, even if you do not have altogether a good time. You must be a good housekeeper in order to be a good wife and mother, and if you are not these you have missed the noblest end of woman. This, in a nutshell, is popular dogma for the guidance of a woman’s success in ‘iife. What is the truth in it? Absolute truth admits of universal application. A universal sense of duty points to the existence of an absolute truth. It is a fact that all women have it on their conscience, to be good housekeepers. Y’et all women have not the opportunity to be any sort of wife. In the resultant conflict of apparent duty with unavoidable circumstances there seems to be a flaw in the doctrine which urges upon every woman, above all things, application to household arts and sciences, to the end of fitting herself for the office of wife and mother. So there is. It Ties in this —in supplying a reason whywoman should work in the domestic sphere. The reason is not because thus does she best equip herself for marriage. It is rather that thus she best equips herself for service of humanity. That is the missing link of the industrial greatness of woman—the interest of humanity in housework. Household labour builds the foundation of human progress. Incidentally it sustains the estate of wifehood and maternity; but these are also means to the same end, which domestic labour independently serves —perpetuation and perfection of humanity. To progress, humanity must not not only exist, it must endure. Most important in supplying the very nerve and sinew of civilisation are those industries which provide food, health, comfort, for humanity. Remotely, these ends are served by agriculture, the professions, trades, commerce — the sphere of industry in which the "new" woman has sought to build a greater empirt for her sex —but directly it is from the fruits of household labour that the world gets its force. There is no question concerning the natural division of labour which makes work done in the house for the home pre-eminentaly woman’s work. That the importance of this work in the social economy is not recognised proceeds wholly from the error of regarding it as an incident of marriage. ATI women cannot be wives and mothers if they would, but the imperative call to women to labour in the domestic sphere remains so long as an unmothered child cries for bread and for capable hands to make it clean. Woman’s work is home work —not for "my" husband and "my” child because of "my" love for them, but for humanity, because nature has destined woman for this service.