It's Up to the Women

PRACTICALLY every woman, whether she is rich or poor, is facing to-day a reduction in income. Sometimes I think the most troubled people I know are the very rich, especially many of them who have grown up in idle luxury. They have never known what it was to deny themselves anything that they really wanted, and now they have to learn to do it cheerfully and without a feeling of martyrdom. Their fathers and husbands have always been able to give them, not only what they needed, but many pleasant things which seemed necessary to those who had really nothing to do, and who therefore felt they must have many luxuries in order to provide variety in what would otherwise be very dull existences.

It is not really necessary to go to the mountains for winter sports, or to seek a summer climate in the south in mid-winter, or in summer a comfortably cool climate in some far-away mountain range or on some sea coast, but if you have done these things all your life, to give them up seems a real hardship.

If a maid has always answered a bell when you rang it, if you have never sewed except to give your idle hands some occupation, it is somewhat disconcerting to find that you have to wait on yourself and that your sewing must serve some useful purpose such as mending a frock or darning your stockings.

I have a theory that the people who have had a great deal and who have the right kind of stuff in them, are the ones who most readily adjust themselves to doing without certain material things. This theory, however, only holds good where the people have had sometime in their lives an opportunity to live simply so that they have made the discovery that the luxuries of life are not really essential to happiness. These women who have lived in this luxurious fashion, and who do not have back of them at least the traditions of early ancestors who had education and some appreciation of the value of mental qualities, and yet who disciplined themselves and were inured to hardships, are frightened to-day and are making their husbands and fathers feel that because they have lost the ability to give them as much materially, they have ceased to be successful. Sometimes they do not even seem to realize that the men are as bewildered and as lost as they are. The men have likewise grown dependent upon their pleasures, perhaps not quite to the same extent, but still it is a rude change for them also. They, too, have gauged their success by how much money they could make. Therefore between such husbands and wives there arises the specter of failure.

Sometimes I think these are the most pathetic people in the world. Even love is an uncertain satisfaction with them, for to grow, love must really give.

When giving is too easy or is purely a matter of giving material things, it ceases to bring real happiness. Writers have often tried to show in poetry and in books how hollow was the relationship which existed between people where wealth had become so great that they depended largely on paid service and very little on each other for comforts or pleasures. The family has been pictured over and over again as gradually drifting apart and this theme is prominent to-day in the literature of every land.

Two people must really do things for each other and when things are done entirely by paid attendants, love is very apt to fade out of the relationship. The only thing that remains is the satisfaction of their mutual comfort, and that is not much foundation for happiness just now since they realize that any day they may lose all these comforts and pleasures. They have nothing more permanent to fall back upon.

All this is made doubly difficult because these women, never having learned how to work, are suddenly faced with the fact that they have no idea of how to take care of themselves. The mere thought that their husbands' earning power is cut down and may vanish entirely and their heretofore assured income may melt into thin air, fills them with apprehension. Instead of being helpful, the woman's own unhappiness and fear makes her add to the man's fears, thereby leaving the man less capable of meeting his difficulties.

I know one woman who, when she found her husband had used poor judgment and had done unwise things, started in on a campaign to make him realize how extremely wrong he had been not to consult her before he had made these mistakes. She talked to all their friends and they agreed with her that he had made mistakes, which many of them had made and which most men in these times had made, but she would only tell him how right they thought her judgment was and how very wrong, therefore, his judgment had been. The result was that the household grew daily more and more unhappy until finally even the little children realized that their father was in some way playing an inadequate rôle. This did no one any good and certainly did not help the man to recover his own self-confidence, and use better judgment, nor did it really help the woman to forget her losses and disappointments.

Another woman I know happens to be more or less alone in the world. She had been left a fair-sized fortune and found it extremely easy not only to live a life of luxury, but because she had wide interests and sympathies, she used her fortune to help many other people. She took the advice of others as to her investments and when hard times came she found that many of these investments sank to rather low levels, but she realized that her advisors had done their best. She did not berate them, she simply curtailed her own pleasures and luxuries in order to continue what she had been doing for other people, and she worked all the harder for certain things which she had started to develop herself, and which had been looked upon as unprofitable hobbies. To such good purpose did she work on these hobbies that they became her main source of income and they have enabled her so far to stand the strain of other losses. Hers is a spirit which would never blame other people and pull them down because she for a time had to face unusual hardships.

These women of wealth, however, will always be, on the whole, a small group and they certainly do not represent the larger group of our countrymen.

Leaving aside in this discussion the very present and distressing question of unemployment, most of the women in the country are women who are living on moderate-sized incomes, mostly earned, with few investments to take into consideration beyond perhaps the ownership of a small house or apartment. These women, many of them, have worked and most of them are willing to work again if they can get work. On the whole they are less afraid, though with each wage cut they have to make changes in their way of living and changes which do vitally affect their entire lives. It may not mean actually less food, but it does mean cheaper food. It means less help if they are accustomed to a maid; it means fewer movies; and if they have a car, it means fewer Sunday trips. It means endless little economies and constant anxiety for fear of some catastrophe such as accident or illness which may completely swamp the family budget.

Fundamentally we see repeated here on a larger scale many of the things we found in richer homes. The happy home will be the one in which the woman is not considering that her husband's success is measured by his salary. As long as the families are free from actual want, if the women can realize that happiness lies within and not without, if they can manage to recreate enjoyment in some of the simpler pleasures which our thriftier ancestors in other countries enjoyed, and which they brought with them to this country; if they can learn to make it a game to get the most out of their dollars and above all to spend their money for those things which they really want, then they will have real success.

It seems to me that we do not really give much thought to what we want out of life, and the development of this thought is one of the things which we can get out of the present depression. We should be able to realize that making up our minds as to what gives us the greatest amount of pleasure and then working for it, is one of the satisfactions of life. Drifting along is easy to do but if we want to see a real pattern in our lives, we must take the trouble to sit down and think out not only what we want for ourselves but what we want for our families. In the past when we did this our wants were chiefly for material things, bigger and better houses, more entertainment, more food, better clothes, etc. Perhaps in the future we may think up some new wants which will not cost more money but which will cost a little more effort. It might be well if we thought a little about doing things which would develop in our children new resources and interests in life. I am often struck by the fact that the members of our younger generation, whether they are rich or poor, feel that to have a good time they must go out and spend money. When life was simpler and there was less money to spend, youth stayed at home and made its own diversions. They found interests in themselves and in their surroundings, which now they haven't time to develop. It may be a happy day for us when an evening at home is not considered wasted, but is looked upon as an opportunity for developing a hobby or cultivating a friendship.

I consider one of the most successful women I have ever met, a woman who was left a widow with five children, four girls and a baby boy a little over a year old. All she had in the world was a rather delightful roomy old house, near a nice old country village, with a mountain at the back and a meadow all around it, and a Carnegie pension of less than one hundred dollars a month.

She took her children to the old house. They attended the village school, and she served on the school board. Her school must have been a fairly good one, for her children all won scholarships at two of the best colleges in the country. They worked their way through. They brought their friends home for week-ends and they had more friends and more fun in a simple way than many of the rich boys and girls in their class. And yet she never had a maid. She and her children did all the work on the place. There were always plenty of books and plenty of good plain food, but very little else. All her children are fine characters and to me she is the outstanding example of what real success in life means.

Of course, the real advantage in having little money is that families draw closer together; they have to depend upon each other and they have to do things for and with each other and the result is that the clan spirit grows. I am sure that that spirit is an essential thing to foster in this country just as much as in Scotland.