Part 7
Anyway, the only way we can escape old age is by dying young. But if we welcome it as a friend, it deals kindlier with us than if we fight it as an enemy.
XVII
GOSSIP, THE POLICEMAN
A young woman writes me that she considers that she has a right to live her own life in her own way and do exactly as she pleases. So she has broken most of the Ten Commandments and snapped her fingers in the face of Mrs. Grundy. And now that she finds that her reputation is being torn to tatters, she thinks that she is being most unfairly treated.
“Oh, how I hate the whole tribe of kitty-cats!” she wails. “Oh, how hard, and cruel, and unjust people are!” Then she asks, “Don’t you think that gossip is the unpardonable sin?”
Not at all. Gossip is one of the most powerful influences in the world for good. It is the invisible, omnipresent policeman that enforces law and order. It is the scourge that keeps the trembling wretch in order and makes the weak-kneed and the wobbly walk the straight and narrow path.
We can stifle the voice of conscience, but we can’t silence the voice of our neighbors. We can dope ourselves into believing that we have a right to make our own code of conduct, but we can’t force the community in which we live to take our point of view on the matter, or to make any exceptions in our behalf to the standards that society has set up for good behavior. And it is this fear of what “they’ll say” that makes us curb our appetites and passions and keep up at least an outward show of decency. For no matter how vain and egotistic we are; no matter how self-complacent and self-satisfied we are; no matter how independent we think we are, we are all cowards who grovel in the dust before public opinion. It is the lifted eyebrow. It is the cold, measured, appraising look that weighs us in the balance and finds us wanting. It is the turn of a shoulder away from us and the little hush that falls on a group as we approach that tells us that we have been the subject of unfavorable discussion, which we dread more than we do the wrath of God.
It is the knowledge that she will be gossiped about if she indulges in any flirtations which keeps many a bored young married woman with romantic yearnings from indulging in little affairs with good-looking bachelors. She knows there might really be no harm in her having lunch with Mr. A. or going to the theater with Captain C., but that she could never explain it to the woman who lives across the street.
And the next time the Current Events Club meets she knows that she will be the current event of burning interest discussed. Therefore she turns down the alluring invitations and stays at home, and minds her p’s and her q’s and her babies.
And it is the fear of gossip that makes many an indiscreet girl watch her step and saves her from the stumble that would land her in the pit. She is easy-going and good-natured, and warm-hearted and affectionate, and she sees no harm in letting boys that she likes kiss her and fondle her, but it makes the flesh creep on her bones to think of the Amalgamated Scandal Mongers’ Union getting out their hammers and going for her if she does. She knows well enough that the neighbors on either side keep tab on what hour her beaux go home and what goes on as they sit on the front porch or stoop of an evening, and she conducts herself accordingly. There is no chaperon so efficient as Mrs. Grundy.
If we could only do as we pleased and get away with it without any censorious comments from our fellow creatures, there would be many more philandering husbands and wives than there are, many more girls wandering down the primrose path, many more neglected children and ill-kept houses, many more wife-beating husbands and virago wives. It is the knowledge that, if they give way to their natural impulses, they will be talked about, which gives many would-be sinners the strength to resist the temptation to be as bad as they would like to be.
The people who think it is so wicked to be talked about are only those who have something to hide, something that reflects on their character. It is our bad deeds we don’t want discussed. We are tickled to death to have our good ones broadcasted to the ends of the earth.
No man objects to having it told about that he is a model husband, a good provider and a tender father. The thing he wants hushed up is that he half starves his family in order to spend the money on a flapper. No woman wants to put the soft pedal on the conversation when her friends are telling what a wonderful wife and mother she is; but she doesn’t know how women, who call themselves her friends, can be catty enough to whisper behind their hands that she went out joy-riding with young Snookums and didn’t get home until 4 in the morning, while the baby was nearly dying with the croup.
Those who are down on gossip and feel that the world should cover up their shortcomings with a blanket of silence are unreasonable. Why should other people be more careful of your reputation than you are yourself? If you do not care enough for your good name to protect it, why demand that service of the general public? Foolish and vain expectation! For the gossipers keep on their good work, and the only way you can escape being talked about is to be so exemplary that you are a dull subject for conversation.
XVIII
THE LUCKY WORKING WOMAN
Why do we hold to the theory that work is a blessing to men, but a curse to women? We know beyond all questioning that the necessity of earning his bread by the sweat of his brow was the consolation prize that Adam was handed along with his eviction papers when he was turned out of Eden. We know that the only happy man is the busy man. We know that only in constructive labor does a man find an interest that never palls and a game in which there is a perpetual thrill. We know that work is the greatest anodyne for sorrow and the best protection against temptation. We know that, as Stevenson says, “if a man loves the labor of any trade apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him, and he is of all men most enviable.”
So manifold are the benefits men derive from work, so salutary are its effects upon them, that we have a contempt for the idle, purposeless man and feel that, no matter how much money he has, he has no right to spend his life in loafing. We are eager to get our boys to work, so that their restless young energy may find a legitimate outlet, instead of being employed in devising new forms of dissipation. The young man must have something to do, and if he isn’t bending his back in honest farming he will be breaking his neck in sowing a wild-oats crop.
Our attitude, however, toward women and work is diametrically opposite. We do not regard work as a good thing for women. On the contrary, we consider it a misfortune for a woman to have to work. We have even coined a phrase for it and speak of the woman who must earn her own living as a “poor working woman.” Worse still, the woman who works pities herself. The mother whose daughters go down to business every morning bewails their fate and feels that destiny has dealt most unkindly by them. The woman who must do her own housework, and look after her own babies, and make her own clothes sheds barrels of tears over her lot.
Men also accept this view of the situation that labor is a curse to women, and work themselves to death in order that their wives and daughters may live in parasitic ease, with servants to wait upon them and have nothing to do but kill time. In fact, the consensus of opinion seems to be that the ideal state for a woman is that in which she never performs any useful labor, but merely sits on a silk cushion and feeds upon strawberries, sugar and cream. All of this is a distorted view of the situation. Women need to work just as much as men do. Idleness has just as disastrous an effect upon the feminine character as it has upon the male, and among women, as among men, the only happy, contented ones are those who are so much engrossed in some useful labor that they haven’t leisure in which to consider whether they are satisfied or not.
Mother “poor Marys” and “poor Sallys” her daughters who have to earn their living, but nowhere else will you see healthier, happier girls than those holding down good jobs in stores and offices. Nine times out of ten the girl behind the counter is brighter, more alert, and finds life a far more entertaining proposition than does her purposeless idle sister before the counter.
Nor is the domestic woman who has to do her own housework entitled to shed any tears of self-pity on our necks. There is no more reason why a husky young woman shouldn’t do her share of the work of the domestic partnership than there is why her husband should not do his. It is no more of a hardship for her to have to work than it is for him, and many a rich old woman who sits now with empty hands that ache for occupation will tell you that her happiest days were the busy, crowded ones when she got up at five o’clock to cook her husband’s breakfast before he went to the factory and sat up until eleven o’clock washing and patching his clothes so that he could make a decent appearance next day.
It is a significant fact that the women who fill sanitariums and enrich nerve specialists are not the overworked, hard-driven wives and mothers. They are the middle-aged and elderly women, who have nothing to do but to canvass their systems for symptoms of every disease they read about in the magazines. It takes leisure to develop invalidism. Busy people keep well because they haven’t time to be sick.
Nearly every man’s ambition is to keep his wife in idleness, and he thinks that he is being a good husband when he can boast that she hasn’t a thing on earth to do but to amuse herself. It is pathetic that the thing that so many good husbands strive for is their undoing. For it is the idle women who are the peevish, fretful, discontented wives. It is the idle women who run off with all sorts of fool fads and fancies. It is the idle women who decide that their good, honest, hard-working husbands are not their real soul-mates, and who get into scandals with jazzhounds and elope with romantic-looking sheiks they have picked up in hotel lobbies.
The idle woman is never a happy woman. Having nothing to do but to think about herself, she is sure to prod around in her mind until she finds a grievance. Having nothing to do, she is sure to get into mischief. Having no interesting occupation, she begins to hunt for thrills. And the net result is that she works harder trying to amuse herself than she would at scrubbing floors, and the only reward is that life is flat, stale and unpalatable in her mouth.
Let us hope that the time will soon come when we will have enough intelligence to perceive that work is a woman’s salvation even as it is a man’s, and when we will congratulate the woman with a job instead of pitying her.
XIX
AN INDOOR SPORT
This is a sad world, mates, with too little sunshine in it, so far be it from me to abridge, abate or curtail any innocent pleasure. But it does seem to me that there are certain diversions that should be indulged in only in the privacy of home. One of these is the family spat. Apparently a large number of men and women get married for the sole purpose of providing themselves with a sparring partner, with whom they can put on the gloves at a moment’s notice with, or without, the slightest provocation. Life has no dull moments for them, because they are always saying something that draws blood, or framing a retort that will cut to the quick, and the excitement of a battle to the death is perpetually thrilling their nerves.
Without doubt, it is a merry and adventurous existence for the doughty domestic warriors who enjoy that kind of thing! I would not be cruel enough to deny them the cheery pastime of going to the mat over every trivial difference of opinion. But I do contend that conjugal quarrels are an indoor sport that should be pursued only when the participants have sought the seclusion that the cabin grants, as they used to say in “Pinafore,” and when all the shades have been pulled down and the keyholes stuffed with cotton.
Possibly the lack of an audience might take off a little of the edge of the bout for the battling husband and spouse; but, oh, how immeasurably it would add to the comfort and happiness of those of us who are the innocent bystanders and who are forced to look on, sick with horror, at these encounters! In all good truth I know of no other situation so miserable and so embarrassing as to be called upon to referee a fight between a married couple. Their quarrel is, to begin with, a matter with which we have no concern; one in which we do not desire to meddle; one in which we ardently wish to take neither side. It makes us feel as if we were cowards to keep silent while a man hurls deadly insults at his wife, and we writhe in vicarious shame while a woman vituperates her husband.
We have the sense of having assisted in an indecent orgy when a husband and wife strip every rag of reserve away from their relationship and fling open the doors of their skeleton closets, and rattle their bones in public. Nor are we consoled by the knowledge that the people who make public exhibitions of their tempers must enjoy doing so or else they would not do it. Yet we all number among our friends, husbands and wives, otherwise estimable and charming individuals, who always stage their fights in the most conspicuous place they can find, and who seem to prefer an audience to privacy. When you meet them for an evening’s diversion they are having a preliminary set-to. Perhaps the husband has come home late from the office, or has forgotten to mail a letter, or possibly the wife has kept her husband waiting while she did her hair over the second time. During the selection of the dinner they get warmed up to the work and put in some punches with real steam behind them. They clinch, and bite, and gouge over the selection of a play, and they reach for each other’s vital spots and get in dirty jabs at the supper dance that follows the play.
Doubtless the fighters are enjoying themselves, but a pleasant time is not being had by all. The abashed onlookers know not what to do. They do not know whether to rush in and make it a free-for-all fight or to try to mediate between the warring couple, or whether to pretend to have been suddenly stricken deaf, dumb and blind. And they wind up by feeling outraged that they should have been placed in such a mortifying position, and wishing heartily that husbands and wives would keep their quarrels for home consumption, and not inflict them on their friends.
The same strictures apply to the woman who henpecks her husband. That also is one of the quiet home joys that should be strictly confined to the domestic circle. I raise no voice of protest against the woman who has wit and strength and determination enough to oust her husband out of his position as head of the house and assume it herself. It is a matter between the husband and wife, and if he hasn’t enough spunk to fight for his rights he deserves to lose them. But why cannot the bossy women be content with exercising their tyranny quietly and unobtrusively? Why do they insist upon rattling the chains by which they lead their husbands until they call public attention to them?
Think of the women you know who always say “MY house.” “MY car.” “MY children.” Who always walk ahead of their husbands and point out a seat, and say, “John, sit there,” and who always tell John where to get on and where to get off! And think how all the rest of us are embarrassed for poor John! Believe me, dirty linen should be washed at home, and family quarrels staged there. That is one of the main things for which homes are designed.
XX
SHOULD WOMEN TELL?
I get a great many letters from women who write that there is a dark stain on their past life. In the headstrong folly of youth they took a step down the primrose path, then repented of their sin, and turned their back upon it, and laid hold upon righteousness.
Sometimes nobody knows of the slip but the girl herself and the man who was her partner in wrong-doing. Sometimes a woman who had mired her skirts to the knees has washed them clean with her tears of remorse, and had the courage to build anew her life in some place where her early escapades are unknown.
Then love comes to these women. Good men offer them marriage and an honorable place in society. And the question they ask is, shall they tell these men the story of their life before they marry them, or bury the secret in their heart, and leave the matter on the knees of the gods?
This is a problem no human wisdom can solve, for, so far as the woman is concerned, it is a case in which she will be damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t. Her chances of getting happiness—or misery—through opening up her skeleton closet and exhibiting its contents to the man who has asked her to be his wife are about even, with the odds for happiness slightly in favor of keeping the lid clamped down good and hard on her secret.
The question of right does not enter into the matter unless you institute a prematrimonial confessional in which men shall bare their souls as well as women. There is no more real reason why a woman should tell a man every detail of her past than there is why he should tell her of every time that he has strayed off of the straight and narrow path.
It is true that a couple who knew the worst of each other would start out their life together on a firm foundation of honest understanding, but nobody can claim that it would make for their felicity, or increase their affection for each other. On the contrary, they would have swept away every illusion. They would have destroyed the faith of each in the other, and they would have called into being an evil spirit, a ghost out of the past, that they could not banish, and that would forever stand between them.
Men have had the wisdom to perceive this. They realize that what a woman doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her, but that the thing that she does know she worries herself to death over, and so few men are foolish enough to furnish a wife with a working diagram of their past lives with which she can torture herself, and them. They draw a discreet veil over episodes that are best forgotten, anyway, and deal only in glittering generalities in referring to their gay bachelor days. Moreover, women are sensible enough to let it go at that. No woman wants her husband to tell her things that stab her every time she thinks of them, and that eat like a canker into her memory.
It is only when the case is reversed, and when it is the woman who has a blot upon her past, that she wonders if it is the right thing, the honorable thing, to tell the man who wants to marry her about it. Of course, the woman is bound in this by the double code of morals, which makes one standard for the woman and another for the man, and that, humorously enough, makes a husband feel that he has been exceedingly ill-used if he discovers that his wife has a past that matches his own.
Therefore, because she is afraid that in future years her husband may find out about her past life, or else driven by her conscience, or for the sheer relief of sharing her burden with another, the woman nearly always tells everything to the man before marriage. Sometimes it drives him from her. Sometimes he loves her enough to marry her, in spite of her revelations.
But, while he forgives, he never forgets. Always he is haunted by the memories of what she has revealed. He never trusts her, never wholly believes in her, and he has to be a bigger-souled man than most men are if he does not reproach her with her past, and use it as a whip of scorpions to scourge her with when he is angry with her.
Of course, when either a man’s or a woman’s past life has in it some sinister curse that reaches out and lays a hand on the future of the one he or she marries, he or she is bound in honor to tell the other one about it. But when there is nothing of this kind, nothing but a youthful folly, a mistake, a blunder in the dark, bitterly repented of and lived down, it seems to me the part of wisdom for both men and women to forego post-mortems, and to wash the slate clean and make a fresh start.
What they have done does not matter so much as what they are going to do. And it often happens that just because a man or woman has stumbled in the past they walk the more carefully among the pitfalls of life, and that out of the sorrows and repentance for their sins they have brought a tenderness, a compassion, a forbearance and an understanding that makes them better men and women than the vast majority of those who have lived blameless lives.
Confession is always weakness. The brave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence. It takes a strong man or woman to keep from blabbing, but it pays never to tell anything that you do not wish the world to know.
XXI
DOMESTIC BOREDOM