CHAPTER X
THE SOCIALIST HOME
If there be one individual more than another who will feel the benefit of a fully–established Socialism in her life and upon her work it is the average working–man's wife.
What heavier drudgery could be imagined, what more depressing existence conceived than the life of such a woman? Every little task in the house to be done by one pair of hands, when the children are young, at any rate; washing, ironing, cooking, baking, scrubbing, cleaning, sewing, and mending to be done day after day, frequently for a large family (for the cradle is seldom empty) she has to be master of a dozen occupations.
Her husband toils at his one task to bring home the ofttimes scanty wage for his growing family. But she has to see to the spending of it, it out to the best advantage. It is her business to keep the hungry mouths satisfied. How to make a halfpenny go as far as a penny is the problem which is causing the furrows on her brow to deepen week by week, and shadows to appear under her strained, anxious eyes.
She may be able to read and be fond of a good book; but there is no time for reading. The baby wants feeding; or there is the husband's tea to prepare; or the little garments need mending. She must wait till the children are grown up. That will be her time. Then she will read and go to meetings and lectures, and, in such ways, try to educate herself. But the children come so fast, and there are so many, the time is long in coming. And when it does come, she has no strength, no inclination. Her chance is gone. And she goes, too, far sooner than she need.
The tendency, observable even now, in domestic as in other arts, is all towards co-operation. If they have plenty of means housewives to-day are not compelled to wash their own clothes. The public laundry has been an institution for a considerable time. So much is its use recognised that many houses are actually built without the necessary accommodation for the washing of household linen and clothing. For a small sum of money the pain and trouble of stooping, wringing, scrubbing, starching, and ironing are saved to some unfortunate woman, and the clothes are collected, taken through all the processes mainly by machinery, and delivered in snowy piles to their respective owners. Window-cleaning is now done on the same principle in many towns and districts. One window-cleaner will, for a few coppers from each householder, clean the windows of an entire street. This is a tremendous blessing to the domestic person, who sometimes falls out of the window, seriously injuring or killing herself, or she hurts herself internally with the stretching and straining involved in the discharge of this particular duty.
Developments in this direction have, doubtless, been precipitated by what, in common parlance, is spoken of as "the servant problem." The difficulty of getting capable and suitable servants has long been felt. The conversation of the average middle-class or aristocratic lady reveals the fact that her life is being made miserable through her inability to surmount it. Co-operative cleaning has been the inevitable outcome, and it is more than probable that housekeeping on these lines will develop with extraordinary rapidity.
It is a common practice in many parts to take meals at the neighbouring restaurant instead of at home. Guests are entertained there, and are not insulted at an apparent want of hospitality.
Public nurseries for the children of parents who are engaged in some occupation which takes them both away from home have become quite numerous, and are an excellent and delightful discovery.
But if all these practices and institutions were to be spoken of as Socialism in operation in those particular forms, what consternation would be expressed by those good people who do not understand Socialism, and who would as soon think of doing the dirty work which they leave for others to do as try to understand it. Yet they are developments on Socialist lines; the only difference being, that the State, or the Municipality, shall in the future control these departments of domestic service as it will be responsible for the higher branches of public work.
And surely this arrangement is the only sensible one. Instead of a hundred kitchens and fires and cooks, we shall have one. Instead of a hundred meals to prepare, we shall have one. Instead of a hundred journeys to the shops for a hundred different things, in a hundred different quantities, to be carried to a hundred houses by a hundred messengers, this will all be done on a large scale at one effort. Instead of a hundred homes being made to reek of unsavoury dishes, or the detestable odour of bad cooking, the offensive effluvia will be confined to one building. And ninety-nine women will be able to appear at the table with their children, smiling and unruffled, without the hot face and the harassed appearance of the mother of a hungry family.
Under Socialism domestic duties will be reduced to a minimum. There will be municipal or communal servants separated for some special work, which for a short number of hours they shall be willing to do in the houses of the citizens. No indignity will attach to this work. The person who exhibits contempt, or acts disparagingly towards the community's servants, shall be punished by being compelled to do all her own work for a time.
In addition the State will provide, to a greater extent than at present, inspectors or officials to instruct the people in habits of health. The use of fresh air will be insisted upon. Its value at present, amongst the working-classes in particular, is far too little realised. The stuffy little room with its tiny window has had no fresh air allowed into it for weeks, and when you ask why, the answer is that to open the window would soil the curtains. There is some sympathy to be felt with this when it is realised that one pair of hands must do all the work; but when co-operative washing has become universal, the windows must be opened, that God's air and sunlight may be let in.
The Socialist home will not be spoilt with gaudy and ungraceful ornaments such as are seen now in many a home. Nor will it be filled with badly made and inartistic furniture. Knowledge of the arts and crafts will be given to all the children, so that a man and woman may take joy in making their own furniture and designing their own ornaments. Everything will be considered from the point of view of beauty, utility, comfort, and solidity. To be beautiful, it must be simple, reflecting nature as nearly as possible, in perfect harmony with its surroundings and its purpose and designed to suggest lovely thoughts and graceful images. Of superfluous, dust-catching, microbe-haunted draperies there will be none. Of vulgar ostentation there will be none; nothing but artistic loveliness conducing to fair thoughts and fine ambitions and the peace which is born of happiness in the home.
And the dress of a Socialist woman will be in harmony with her home. What ages of masculine hatred, callousness, and cruelty does the dress of a modern woman reveal. It was specially designed to be a clog upon her movements, that she might not, in her misery, run away from her lord and master. It is said that the high-born girl-babies of China have their feet distorted by reason of an order from one of the Emperors whose wife actually did try to run away from him.
To please men, whom they feel themselves bound to please, the most odious outrages upon nature are perpetrated by women. The body is crushed in the tight waistband, the feet are cramped into small boots, the hair is dyed, the face is powdered and painted. To excite the passions of men they expose their arms and shoulders in the hot ballroom with a shamelessness which would disgrace a courtesan. They load themselves with jewels. Dead birds and the skins of tortured animals cling about their persons, whose blood, spilt for their adornment, cries out to them from the ground.
The woman Socialist will alter all this. She will not seek to attract her mate with jewels, which will have lost their value when they cease to be a mark of caste and privilege, but will do so by the beauty and simplicity of her manners and her attire. Her dress will be modest, graceful, of ample folds, yet not hindering her movements, nor straining and crushing her body. It will be rich in colouring and in texture, but not gaudy. She will not need to powder her hair nor paint her face. Nature's bright tints shall suffice. Nor will the social spirit within her permit the torture of innocent birds and animals for her comfort and the satisfaction of her pride, for the decorations of a savage will not commend a woman to the hearts and minds of men and women who have bound themselves and each other in the bonds of a common love.