The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎635v] (161/239)

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THE EXTRAVAGANT ECONOMY OF WOMEN.
the average woman that she squanders the one and is prodigal of
the other in the most appalling way. And by the average woman,
I mean not those who earn their own living, no matter how
modestly, nor those who have some serious purpose in life,
though without the object of earning, nor those who, as wives and
mothers, may estimate their time as of the value of a general
servant’s! But apart from these the rank and file of women,
including a good many wives and mothers of all classes, whether
rich or poor, high or low, consist of the aimless ones who potter
vaguely through life, through shops, through streets, through joy,
through sorrow; think feebly, talk feebly, and feel feebly, and
finally fade away, and cease to exist. Now think of the majority
of men frittering away life like that! For ten years I lived
opposite an able-bodied, middle-aged woman who sat in a rocking-
chair by the window, crocheting from luncheon time until dark,
four mortal hours, and this for ten long years ! Then she moved
or died, I don’t remember which. And yet, after all, how many
of us sit with our hands folded, doing nothing, thinking nothing,
but just mentally and physically limp, weighed down by empty,
useless time which we try to kill with yawning desperation.
We are adepts of the idle industries because our time is of no
earthly consequence. Think of the miles of lace we crochet, the
impossible embroideries we make, the countless odds and ends
we construct, of no earthly use except to catch dust. Think of
the hours we waste at the piano which no one wants to hear and
which we never learn to play; think of the awful pictures we
make, which no one wants to see; the innumerable things we do
that are so much better done by some one else. There may be
male loafers, superabundant male loafers, but it seems to me as if
their united numbers are as nothing compared to those worthy
lady loafers who are perfectly respectable and perfectly idle.
Why should a woman be permitted to loaf unreproved? Is
idleness a feminine privilege?
The average man is trained to do some one thing as well as his
intelligence and his industry will permit, but the average woman
is trained to do nothing, at least nothing well—she cannot even
keep house well. Her only object is to fill her aimless existence
with something, anything, just to kill time. In other days girls
were carefully taught all domestic employments; they had to
learn to keep house, to sew delicately, to cook, and, indeed, to
do all those innumerable minor things which are of such vast
importance. The modern girl is only taught not to be illiterate,
that is all. With this negative quality as a dowry, a pretty face
and nice clothes, and some empty chatter, she is bestowed on a
perfectly innocent young man in search of a helpmate.