ANOTHER VOICE
A radical suggestion on the future of women is firmly dismissed
AUBERON WAUGH
Why should women do the house- work, iron the shirts, look after the chil- dren, bear the babies? The question is often raised in ordinary conversation, as well as in Great Family Debates. After long and careful thought, I decided that the most complete explanation for this phe- nomenon is probably contained in the two words: piss off. Women bear children because it is their necessary biological function if the human species is to survive. To those who next enquire why it is a good or useful thing for the human species to survive, why planet earth should not be left to its rain forests, seal pups, whales, etc, the best answer is surely, once again, 'piss nfr. But the question seldom takes that form. It is grudgingly acknowledged that even the human species has some sort of right to a survival urge. The question is posed more subtly. Of course it is all very well for women who want to have children, but why should they be expected to want them? Why should a socially convenient arrangement such as marriage be expected to produce further human debris in the shape of soiled 'disposable' nappies, illiter- ate lager louts, mewling and puking Sun- day Times readers of the future?
Why should anyone wish to fulfil his historical or biological destiny? Why should the caterpillar wish to turn into a chrysalis, the chrysalis into a butterfly? Why should the butterfly wish to lay eggs and die?
At least I think that is what butterflies do. I never studied biology, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on the subject is incomprehensible. I think I have seen two butterflies on the job, but I may have been wrong. What does it matter? The most satisfactory answer to all these questions is the same: PISS OFF. The important fact is that a large and growing number of modern women do not want to have babies — or are persuaded by econo- mic circumstances not to have them. They are not prepared to lay eggs any more than they are prepared to countenance the thought of dying. And so the delicate question of who should iron the shirts, prepare the food and wash up afterwards is bound to arise.
Historically, I suppose, women did the housework because if they didn't, their husbands, being bigger and stronger, would first beat them up and then throw them out of the house (or cave, as the case might be) in exchange for a more amenable female. This brutal aspect of the marriage bond was obscured for many people over the last few thousand years — what might come to be known as the 'civilised' era of human history — by the existence of domestic servants. Now the `civilised' age has ended, the stark reality emerges again.
These gloomy reflections are prompted by last Saturday's 'Free Speech' page of the Independent, when various women were invited to reflect on the horrors and rewards of being a housewife. One contri- butor, Lil Butler, had six children, and had written four unpublished novels: So it is an honour to wipe a disgusting little bum at 7 a.m. before retching miserably because another little unseen bum is on the way. . . Throughout this life of abject slavery, demeaning drudgery, stifling bore- dom, there lurks a pulse, an ostinato of mockery called sex. . . Have you ever tried looking glamorous with leaking tits behind the cornflakes packet and a damp yelling bundle in the pram?... It is because housework is a time-consuming, messy, de- meaning job that men opt out, and children too, given half a chance. . . . This trivial bullshit is my life and has been for nearly 30 years. . . . They think I'm dotty. After all, I have a lovely man, a beautiful family and home, including grandchildren. What more can a woman ask for?
Butler, we learn, has now retired to North Yorkshire in order to write. One wishes her well, but such a searing cata- logue of complaint cannot be lightly tossed aside. As Dorothy Parker would say, it must be hurled with great force. If she sees her life for the last 30 years as 'trivial bullshit' so be it. Perhaps her novels will be more worthwhile. But as the cries ofr undeveloped ego, of selfishness in chains, die down, they are replaced by noises from the new generation whose selfishness has never been bridled, whose talents have never been buried except by their own reluctance to develop them. Which brings us back to the institution of marriage and survival of the species. The first may seem to be secured by the free market in housing. Until fairly recently, mortgage companies were not prepared to take a wife's earnings into account, on the grounds that women's fertility made them bad risks. Since mortgage companies have been prepared to take a wife's earnings into account, the price of all housing has risen to a level sustainable only by a two-income family. As a result, fertility has plummeted among the house-buying clas- ses, and would be almost out of sight if it were not for an equally dramatic rise in illegitimate, single-parent births.
The reason for this second phenomenon is that the state bribes single women to have babies — with free housing and vastly increased DHSS entitlements — in a way that it is no longer prepared to bribe married women. A naturally broody woman would do better to stay single than to marry. Where single-parent households are concerned, of course, the problem of who prepares the food, washes up etc does not arise. In the two-parent-but-no- children household which seems to be the pattern for the future, the question arises with increased urgency. Why should a woman do the housework?
Well, a husband can still beat his wife up, of course, but he can no longe throw her out of the cave or married home to seek another, more amenable wife because she owns half of it. Nor, in the claustropho- bic circumstances of modern living, would many husbands relish the sort of bonding arrangement which required him to beat up his wife every time he wanted her to boil an egg or iron his handkerchief.
So, if one studies the trends, they would appear to point to two types of household in the future: the childless, house-owning couple, who are models of sharing, meaningfulness and equality; and the im- poverished, single-parent family, living in council accommodation where the mother does everything. Unfortunately, the over- all fertility rate remains dangerously low, as more and more take the first option.
It is hard to know what to suggest. There is no carrot to offer, since, as Mr Fowler pointed out in Cambridge on Friday, the economy requires an ever-increasing num- ber of women workers to offset the effects of our declining birth-rate. Where sticks are concerned, it would be abhorrent to our residual morality, and electorally unvi- able, to propose that all women who reach retirement age without having had at least one child should be put to death. But then, 50 years ago, it would have been equally abhorrent — and electorally unviable — to propose that any inconvenient baby should be aborted. At present, we are chiefly worried about overcrowding. In ten years' time, we may well be more worried about the geriatric explosion.
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