CHAPTER V

WOMEN OF LEISURE

Many laboring women are benefited by the transition of work from the home to the factory, or the introduction of new industries which were never allied to the home but represent an entirely new venture into the business world. But distinct from these, there is a class of women who reap the benefits of present industrial conditions in a greater or less degree by virtue of their parasitic relations to some man. These are the women "to whom leisure has come unsought, a free gift of the new industrial order... Never before in the history of civilization have women enjoyed leisure comparable to that which falls to the lot of those in comfortable circumstances in America.' The new era of industrialism has brought into prominence a large class of successful or partially successful business men whose financial remuneration is sufficient to allow their homes to be adapted to all the industrial changes which lighten household tasks. The husband's economic importance is often marked, and there is no necessity for the wife to add to the income of the family. She profits by the development of new industries in the business world which supersede those carried on in the home and her demand for the output of the new industry is no small item in determining its success. She is not deterred from trying the new because of the financial outlay it involves. She welcomes the era of canned meats and vegetables; the new uses of gas and electricity, and the application of compressed air for cleaning purposes. She is the household innovator in a conservative society.

She knows that whatever advantage her husband wins in the industrial field, increases the possibility of her leisure rather than his own. For whatever time the business man may gain

1 Kelly, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, p. 112.

for himself, it is most often utilized to increase the volume of his business. By virtue of his success his wife can afford to take advantage of home industry performed by people outside her home. The results are evident. It is no longer necessary to hire a large number of servants in the household to carry on the productive industries. The word servant is rapidly becoming synonymous with menial, for personal services, as household tasks, are being divorced from production.

The compensation for the absence of the servants in the home is the ability to purchase the finished article outside the home. In the earlier stages of production, few women were idle, for if they themselves were not actually engaged in production within the home, they were called upon to supervise the tasks performed by their underlings. But modern industry has not only freed many women from productive work within the home, but released others from the necessity of managing large households. Responsibility has been shifted from the home to the business world. This shifting of responsibility so apparent in production can be also perceived in those activities which are closely allied to consumption. The business world is no respecter of tradition. Wherever financial opportunity presents itself, business takes hold.

We are accustomed to close our eyes and not admit the possibility of change until it is upon us. Our immediate past presents to us the pleasing spectacle of a domestic wife, her head encircled with a halo. More often this vision is that of mother, the memory of whom is associated with some form of domestic activity. But time makes changes and now the successful business man is expected to shield his wife from all irksome employments; and no matter how much he or his wife cherishes the occupations of the last generation, tradition does not prevent the courting of comfort and leisure when possible. Hence all employments dealing with consumption are willingly transferred to the business world, and the lady of the house becomes indeed a lady of leisure.

Of course there are exceptions. There are families of wealth that persist in clinging to occupations closely allied to the home in the immediate past. The preservation and preparation of foods, the making of all articles of clothing, including hosiery,

are still the work of a few households, and it is clung to with an affection and a loyalty indicating the close mental association of these occupations with the idea of home.

Nevertheless, time continues to bring about an adjustment of family life to economic life. The better-to-do classes tend to flock to family hotels and apartment houses and the new generation laughs at the fears and prophecies of the old. The possibility of a higher plane of comfort at less cost is too much for even the conservative man. He cherishes his ideal of family life, and would gladly enforce it upon society in general, but often he thinks circumstances justify the discrepancy between this theory and his practice. He frequently gives up his separate dwelling, and takes advantage of modern business methods of extensive co-operation. Thus specialization and co-operation are freeing many women from household responsibilities and are bringing about for some the possibility of idleness.

The theory that women have suffered and are still suffering from the tyranny of men does not seem sound when one considers that the women of the well-to-do classes are always the first to benefit by a surplus of leisure. Many men work eight or more hours a day while their wives are not obliged to perform any kind of work. The women's time is their own and their husbands resent neither their leisure nor their idleness. This indifference on the part of men to the complete economic dependence of women has its basis in sex, out of which arose a feeling of responsibility for the protection of the family, at first from enemies and later from economic cares.

The employments of the women of the leisure class are tersely stated by Veblen when he says of the well-to-do household: "Under a mandatory code of decency, the time and effort of the members of such a household are required to be ostensibly all spent in a performance of conspicuous leisure, in the way of calls, drives, clubs, sewing-circles, sports, charity organizations, and other like social functions. Those persons whose time and energy are employed in these matters privately avow that all these observances, as well as the incidental attention to dress and other conspicuous consumption, are very irksome but altogether unavoidable. Under the requirement of

conspicuous consumption of goods, the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bric-a-brac, wardrobe, and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help. Personal contact with the hired persons whose aid is called in to fulfill the routine of decencies is commonly distasteful to the occupants of the house, but their presence is endured and paid for, in order to delegate to them a share in this generous consumption of household goods. The presence of domestic servants, and of the special class of body servants in an eminent degree, is a concession of physical comfort to the moral need of pecuniary decency.'

The status of the women of leisure is social rather than economic. It has its basis in the economic strength of the hus- . band but the social status of the wife is far superior to that of the man of the family.

Although men depend upon their economic strength to give them a social status, they depend upon their wives to maintain it, and willingly surrender to them the reins of authority. Authority in the home among the higher social classes in the more democratic countries rests in the hands of women rather than in the hands of men. This is one of the results of a divorce of the economic life from family life, and the substitution of a social unit for an economic one. The change in itself need not be condemned if the new social unit promotes a higher ethical development of its members than is possible under the old economic regime. But in the leisure class the family as a social unit rarely has as its goal the ethical advancement of its members. Its desire is for prestige in a circle conspicuous for display of material wealth.

Social prestige is closely connected with economic prosperity and only in so far as the social goal has attained an importance greater than the economic, is the authority of women conspicuous. The economic idea is fundamental until a degree of security is attained eliminating the possibility of want.

changed relation so apparent in the United States causes no

2 Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, pp. 65-6.

little amusement to the foreigners who have not yet accepted. feminine rule.

Although the leisure-class women are not conspicuous in demanding political equality, it is no new phenomenon to see them play a significant part in the political affairs of the day. Their influence and support has been sought and is still sought by political aspirants. But upon the whole their ambitions are purely social. They do not challenge the admiration of the saner element of the population but they represent an extreme social type just as many of their fortunes represent an abnormal and unhealthy financial condition. Their principal function is that of conspicuous consumption and dissipation.

With no serious purpose in life degeneracy is bound to be the ultimate result. If it were not for the dormant abilities and capacities for good which exist among the women of the leisure class, and which generate in high society an undercurrent toward better things, their self elimination would be only a question of time. Patten says: "At the present time, excessive consumption of wealth, dissipation, and the vices are destroying successive aristocracies by self-induced exhaustion, and the suicidal group quickly disappears without establishing a line of decent. They continually reform on the old basis and bequeath to society, not sons, but a body of traditions. The present leisure class of America, for instance, is governed by concepts handed down by the continental nobility of an era that recognized no industrial or business man's ideas.”3

Earnest social workers are making a strong effort to utilize this excessive leisure on the part of women, and are attempting to direct it to channels useful to the city, the commonwealth, and society in general.

Any one who has associated intimately with women whose entire time is their own to employ as they see fit, or with women who have a few hours of leisure daily and who represent a large proportion of our prosperous middle class, must be impressed with the fact that there is a great waste of talent, ability, and culture.

"The wives of tens of thousands of business men and well

Patten, New Basis of Civilization, p. 62.