The Housework and the Home as Factors in the Neurosis : Part 2

The Nervous Housewife
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 5 of 15)

The most important stimuli are other persons, capable of setting into action new thoughts, new emotions, new conduct. We need what Graham Wallas calls "face to face associations of ideas", - ideas called into being by words, moods, and deeds of others.

It is this group of stimuli that the busy housewife conspicuously lacks. "She has no one to talk to," especially in the modern apartment life. It is true she has her children to scold, to discipline, to teach, and to talk at; but contact with child minds is not satisfying, has not the flavor of companionship, is not reciprocal in the sense that adult minds are. There therefore results introspection and daydreaming, both of which may be of slight importance to some women but which are distinctly disastrous to others.

If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of marriage. The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children that are lovely and marvelous. And the happy woman also finds her thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements of her life.

But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. She is constantly coming back to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams. The daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile. A struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear. The profoundest disgust and deënergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and weariness of life often results.

One may compare interest to a tonic. How often does one see a little group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless. Then a new person enters, a person of importance or of interest. The fatigue disappears like magic, and all are bright, energetic, sparkling. The basis of club life is the monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family, - the hearth. But for the housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her husband does.

Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home. There are plenty of women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework a consecration to their ordained duty. Which type is the better woman depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing number of women to settle down to home-keeping.

The housewife is par excellence a sedentary creature. She goes to work when she gets up in the morning, within doors. She goes to bed at night, very frequently without having stirred from the home. A great many women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery.

It is true that some women so situated get out each day. But they are possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent conscience. At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in. If there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, seem the logical way of resting up.

Now sedentary life has several main effects upon health and mood. It tends quite definitely to lower the vigor of the entire organism. Perhaps it is the poor ventilation, perhaps it is the lack of the exercise necessary for good muscle tone that brings about this result. Though the housewife may work hard her muscles need the tone of walking, running, swimming, lifting, that our life for untold centuries before civilization made necessary and pleasurable.

With this sedentary life comes loss of appetite or capricious appetite. Frequently the housewife becomes a nibbler of food, she eats a bite every now and then and never develops a real appetite. Nor is this a female reaction to "food close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent enough result to find him "logy" on Monday.

Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The dishes must be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that peace of mind so necessary for good digestion.

An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of oilcloth, - then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous waste of human energy and happiness.

An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated biped."

Boston
Little, Brown, And Company
1920