Herself by Edith Belle Lowry (e books free to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Edith Belle Lowry
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Just how men have conceived the idea that it is only the modern woman who is a money earner, I cannot understand, nor can I understand how some men expect women to be happy in idleness. The most unhappy women in the world are the women who have a great deal of leisure time. Many a man objects to his wife taking up any outside work even though it would not interfere with her household duties. This usually is due to false pride on his part. He is afraid of what others will say; afraid his friends will think he is not capable of supporting his wife. Some of these men forget to take into account the possibility that an accident or illness may take him away, business failures may sweep away his accumulations and then his wife must face the necessity of earning her living. Alas, how seldom is she prepared to do this! If, during the leisure time of her protected life, she had been perfecting herself in some branch of industry, her future would be easily solved.
A woman can devote several hours a day to outside affairs and still not neglect her home duties. Home-making does not necessarily mean that the woman herself must do the washing, ironing, cooking, baking or sewing. She must see that these are performed properly but the actual work may all be done by others. A business man does not attempt to do all the work of the office himself. He employs a bookkeeper, a clerk and a stenographer to attend to the details while he directs. It is the same way with a home, a woman may employ others to do the physical labor while she directs.
Then as to the married woman earning money. Let me give you an illustration. A woman has spent the early part of her life perfecting herself in some branch of work, for instance, book cover designing. She marries a man in moderate circumstances and does not feel that she can afford to be idle and employ someone else to do her house work. She is a slenderly built woman and it would be a great tax on her strength to perform all the household duties—for some parts of housekeeping require such hard physical labor that even many men would not care to attempt them. It certainly would seem a very reasonable thing for this woman to devote several hours a day to book cover designing and use the money so earned to employ a strong woman to do the heavy housework. This arrangement would be better for all concerned; first, the woman would be happier and more contented; next, the man would enjoy his home more, for any man certainly would rather come home and find his wife contented and happy and with leisure time to devote to him, than to come home and find her all tired out, and consequently cross, with the housework so unfinished she must devote her evening to some household task.
If circumstances have given a woman home and children, they always must come first, but this does not mean the woman must do housework if conditions permit the employment of somebody to do it. She must do the work for which she is best fitted both by nature and by training.
In whatever occupation a woman is engaged she should endeavor to make a success of that work, to do it a little better than anyone else could; for in every field of endeavor there is joy and reward for always being and doing one's best. The great secret of success is concentration. Too many women waste their energies thinking and talking about the things they would like to do. Every time you talk about the thing you would like to do you waste just that much energy and make your goal less possible of achievement. That which seems difficult before is usually found easy to accomplish, once undertaken. If you wish to accomplish anything hold the thought in your mind and concentrate all your powers in that direction. Do not scatter your energies like chaff to be blown hither and thither.
How often do we meet women who complain of being nervous. What they really mean is that they have not control of their nerves but let them run away. A woman may be of a nervous temperament and yet have such good control of her nerves that she never complains of being nervous. This lack of nerve control manifests itself in various ways. Sometimes it only is a tendency to cry at trivial things or an inclination to despondency—to have "the blues," or to worry over real or fancied slights. Many women waste so much time thinking over things that are past and gone. A visit with a friend loses its joy in the afterthought, for this victim of the nerves lives over again every moment of the visit. She recalls everything that has been said and wonders if a different meaning were meant. Things that were said as a joke and originally taken that way now are brought up for criticism and pondered over until the woman convinces herself of the presence of a hidden meaning. She is not satisfied until she has bent and shapen the original thoughtless sentence into an ugly sting.
These nervous women are the ones who continually are tormented with the demon of jealousy. If one of them should suddenly meet her husband on the street walking with another woman, what a curtain lecture he would receive that evening; or if not that, he finds his wife wearing the air of one who considers herself much abused. The real facts of the case may be that her husband met the other woman quite accidentally and, as they were going in the same direction, he could not avoid walking with her without being positively rude. In this age men must, of necessity, have business transactions with women. It is a common occurrence for two men to lunch together in order to have a chance to talk over some important business without fear of interruption. There is no reason why a man and woman might not do the same, and yet how impossible it would be to convince the jealous woman that this was the case. To be jealous is to acknowledge the superior charms of the other woman. "If I cannot hold you against all women, then I do not want you." If you think some other woman is attracting your husband, wake up and beat her at her own game. Do not sit idly in the corner and complain. You only are making yourself miserable and not trying to right the wrong.
A woman who is nervous usually does not realize what is the cause of her condition. When excitable and irritable and suffering from a nervous headache, she takes various remedies to deaden the symptoms, instead of looking the matter squarely in the face and going after the cause.
Many women need a hobby to take up their spare time and to occupy their minds. If their minds are occupied and their bodies kept in good condition by proper care, they soon will gain control of their nerves. If you find yourself getting nervous, make up your mind to overcome it by filling your life so full of work and play that you will have no time to give way to the nerves. When you feel an attack coming on, get busy and "work it off."
There is a class of women who possess comfortable homes, with a maid to do the work, whose home duties are not confining and who find themselves with a great deal of extra time on their hands. To these women the days are long and they endeavor to pass away the time by doing nerve racking fancy work or by "fussing" around the house. They are not happy and contented, chiefly because their minds are being neglected—are growing up to weeds like a neglected garden. For such a woman club work is a boon. She should take up some especial kind of work, and devote several hours a day to the study of it. At first this will be hard, for a mind that has fallen into lazy ways is not easily aroused to continual effort, the deeply rooted weeds are not easily destroyed.
Many half contented women realize this need of mental food but hesitate. As one woman said, "Why, my husband would leave me if I started to work!" Some men take a peculiar attitude towards women. They would like to treat them as a woman treats her pet dog. The dog is provided with a comfortable home, plenty of food, someone to bathe it and carry it around. The dog is contented with this. It loves to sleep and eat the livelong day; it comes when its mistress calls, and goes when she is tired of it. Unfortunately, perhaps, all women cannot be contented with such a life. The woman was given a brain which refuses to be dormant. If it is not required to be used in a useful way, it occupies itself with bad thoughts—it worries and becomes fault finding or gossiping.
No woman should allow her mind to grow up to such weeds. If the circumstances of her position, her education or her environment seem to make it unwise that she take up any work that would bring a monetary reward, she easily can find some charitable work that needs all the energies she can devote to it. If such a woman would take up some special branch of philanthropic work she would be amply rewarded, not only by the consciousness of the good she had done, but by the improvement in her own health and happiness.
There is another phase to this lack of nerve control shown in a nervous tension, an inability to relax and enjoy life. Some people go through the day on such a nervous tension that they are unable to take cognizance of their surroundings. Eventually this tension will manifest itself in some disorder, as headache, nervous indigestion or complete nervous prostration. In the latter case the nerves have been so abused, so strained that at last they are worn out. A rest is imperative!
A woman who, if she has a few spare moments, can lie down and relax absolutely, perhaps even drop to sleep, has a better chance to stand the stress and strain of business or of housekeeping than the one who finds it impossible to do so. Try making it a point to lie down for two or three minutes several times a day; lie flat on your back and relax every muscle; put every worry or ugly thought out of your mind by thinking some pleasant but soothing sentence as, "I am glad I can rest. I will be happy when I arise." You will be surprised at the effect these few moments a day will produce upon your health and happiness.
Plenty of sleep is imperative for these women and yet so many of them neglect this great restorer of the nervous system. Frequently these women complain of an inability to go to sleep easily, and spend long hours of the night lying awake and entertaining worry thoughts. This symptom of disordered nerves should not be neglected. A warm bath before retiring, followed by a gentle massage, especially along the spine, will, by relaxing the nerves and muscles, produce very good results. A hot foot-bath, by drawing the blood away from the brain, often will be
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