MARRIED WOMEN AND WORK.—VI.
WE now propose to end the series of articles on married women and their careers, and after the present issue we can print no more letters on this subject. Indeed, " A Working Woman's Husband " and " Bachelor " put a neat enough full-stop to the affair. Though this would seem primarily a question for women, it is, of course, absurd to view any question as affecting only men or women. In the world of fact the interests of the two sexes are too intimately interwoven to be separated. If men have kept women in subjection and not given them a chance to realize their powers, then in their capacity as the fathers, husbands, sons and lovers of women, men have injured themselves. " Not as lovers, surely ? someone may question. But con- sider whether Cleopatra would have -been quite herself under a Salic Law. Doctor Johnson admitted that the excitement of a love affair would be much greater in the case of a countess, and now that hereditary titles are losing or have lost- their glamour, we shall find that Dr. Johnson's added heartbeat will sometimes be given by a woman's own attainments and the position she has made for herself. But, if we come to think of it,- this has always been so ; a great singer, or 'cellist, or actress, or ballerina has always had men at her feet. This is a side of the question which, we notice, has not been touched upon by our correspondents—it shduld have been. To the majority of women domesticity is immensely' attractive. Therefore the majority of women will not, before marriage, take their profession seriously, and consequently will not become shining and desirable through it, if legislation or public opinion makes it sure that they must drop their career if they want to enter the ranks of the domestic and the respected.
A point about the correspondence which is interesting and encouraging is that with all our correspondents and all the " working women " who have written articles the welfare of the children is the first consideration. We gather that there is a consensus of opinion among women that a woman with children cannot keep office hours satisfactorily, but that she can run a small business of her own where she is employing, not employed, or she can do the work of an artist or a craftsman. Mrs. Peel's profession—that of domestic efficiency expert and author —is, of course, extraordinarily a propos. The many ladies who wrote to us assuming that home duties must be less well-performed by a professional woman do not seem to have considered this aspect of the question.
Here was a case in which every moment spent in the exercise of her profession made Mrs. Peel more expert in her duties as house-director. Mrs. Maufe's profession only a little less obviously fits in with " woman's sphere."
In her professional life she is studying as an expert what every woman studies a little, however amateurishly— the application of the figurative arts to man's domestic needs. Mrs. Lynd's and Miss Thorndike's professions of writer and actress are two that have been followed by women in this country for nearly three hundred years with varying degrees of publia applause and have certainly established themselves.
Mrs. Reid is a little indefinite about her work—at any rate about the office part of it—but so far as hours are concerned the amount of time she has to give away from home would seem to show that there must be a number of professions that a woman can undertake without vowing herself to celibacy. Her case, for example, would seem to cover, in addition to her occupation in the publishing trade, shopkeeping, several branches of journalism and such entirely modern professions as that of advertising ; also certain sorts of teaching and perhaps that of architecture. There are at present, we believe, no fully-trained woman architects, though a great many arc training for this profession. We should think that, where an architect is willing to take a partner so that the necessary travelling could be divided, architecture would be a very suitable female profession.
This consideration as to a profession is, of course, of great interest to such of the " new poor " as are parents of daughters. We should like our daughters to take up professions at which they can work with real keenness, but the last thing most of us want arc celibate daughters ; therefore, in helping in the choice of a profession, every parent probably gives a thought to the consideration, " Will Jane or Pamela be able to carry on with this after she marries ? " Obviously the choice of work which can be carried on after marriage is very desirable. The girl will not work with the necessary enthusiasm at her job, if it is one of the arts or a learned profession, for example, if she has a woman's natural desire for a husband and children and knows that her job is one which is not compatible with marriage. Many of us have no money to leave a daughter ; she must work for herself. She may want to marry a poor man when they are both young. There is nothing wrong: there is even something romantically meritorious in wanting to marry a man who is both young and poor. It is the habit of parents to look for- ward to the possible distresses of their children and to guard against them• so far as possible ; and many of us are feeling at the present day that, by the prudent choice of a profession, there is one sort of probable_ love-cross from which we can save our daughters, and incidentally our sons, if their parents will look ahead too and plan so that their girls can also, for a time, be self-supporting comrades to their husbands.
One point which has not been made in so many words, but which seems to us to emerge from this discussion, is that the married woman will certainly never undercut men. She will obviously have to employ a rather high type of labour to carry out those of her home duties which she delegates—a governess, a shorthand typist, lady ser- vants, a thoroughly good cook-housekeeper have all been mentioned, for example. These are skilled professions and must be well paid. Mrs. Reid, again, speaks of short time for shopping ; this, she admits, means less economical shopping. Thus out of her salary the married woman worker must set aside something for extra expenses in her home, besides the salaries of one or more skilled house- hold workers. We wish that some of our correspondents had dealt in actual figures ; but considering present-day prices, one would guess that a married woman could not afford to do the half or three-quarter time work that she is able to undertake under a minimum salary of £500 a year. Therefore, in the labour market she will have to be not less efficient than the £1,000 a year man. It seems another case of there being room only at the top of the tree.
One other.point that the correspondence brings out is the fact that there is one very. fundamental difference between men and women—that is, in women's much more conscientious outlook. There is, perhaps, in all our correspondents almost too little of that quality which Lord Melbourne prized so highly—a quality which he characteristically called " you-be-damnedness," but which we might call reasonable self-interest or self-help. All the writers are anxiously counting the effects of their actions on husbands and children, and only allowing their own, after all, highly respectable and laudable impulse to be producers as well as consumers after the most solicitous calculations of its possible effect on other people. In no discussion of men's affairs should we have found just this balancing of values.
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