What Women Should Know/Chapter 14

Anecdote of Lola Montez.—I once read an anecdote of Lola Montez, for the authenticity of which, however, I will not vouch. True or untrue, it serves my purpose as an illustration.

That somewhat eccentric lady, to say nothing harsher of her, was riding in a railroad car, when, notwithstanding notices placarded in the car, "No smoking allowed here," she took out a cigarette, and was puffing at it very composedly when the conductor came along. He looked at her in astonishment, and finally, with some hesitation, addressed her.

"You can't smoke here, madame," said he.

"But you see I can," was the imperturbable reply, the cigarette removed just long enough to say the words, and then replaced, while Lola went on with her smoking the same as before. The conductor, taken aback at the coolness of the reply, hesitated a moment, and then passed on, leaving the fair smoker to the enjoyment of her cigarette.

Self-Constituted Conductors of the Affairs of the World.—Scarcely a week passes that I am not reminded of this story. Now one and then ​another masculine self-constituted conductor of this world's affairs—now it is a clergyman, then an editor, again, seeming to consider himself vested with double authority, a physician—steps up to the feminine half of the world when he sees it attempting to violate what he considers the proprieties, and says gravely, severely and with a tone of authority certain words the substance of which is, "Madame, you can't smoke here."

The actual speech of these conductors generally runs after this wise: "You are a woman—a female, in plain words. The main function of your sex is the reproduction of the human species. In performing this function in a proper and satisfactory manner, it is utterly impossible that you should occupy any public position, or enter public life in any manner whatever. You may be about to become a mother, or you may be already a nursing mother; or, if neither, your sex renders you liable to those disabilities, and your manifest duty calls upon you to assume them. Therefore your own health, the safety and well-being of your children—in brief, the whole welfare of the human race, and the proprieties generally,—demand that pulpits, desks, judges' benches, doctors', lawyers', editors' and other business offices should be vacated by you at once and for ever. Mercantile pursuits are also quite out of your line, though if you choose to engage in them in a humble, small way—turning your front parlor into a little shop, and living, eating and sleeping in the rear—you may be permitted to do so, as ​you will not interfere seriously with the business pursuits of the other sex. Be warned in time, madame, and put aside your mad ambitions; desist from your ruinous courses. If you do not, the next generation will be a race of invalids and idiots. In brief, madame, you cannot smoke here."

The more timid of us immediately hustle out of sight our forbidden cigarettes and return with a sigh to stocking mending. We dare not open our mouths in reply, even if we would; for let a man talk as plainly as he will regarding the duties and functions of the feminine sex, as soon as a woman begins to utter a word in defence, the cry is: "What shameless immodesty, to discuss so unreservedly such delicate matters!"

If, however, she who is thus addressed is a wise woman, and not easily frightened, she will quietly pursue her course, stopping only long enough to say, "But you see I can, sir."

Feminine Capacity Unfairly Decided.—This matter—and it is a weighty one, affecting directly the interests, the health and the happiness of one-half the human race, and indirectly the other half—has been decided too long by the theories, and the false conclusions drawn from false premises, of the sex least interested in the matter.

Women should Themselves Decide as to their Capabilities.—It is time women themselves spoke, and gave evidence, gathered from actual experience, concerning what they can and cannot do. There ​are plenty of women of action, but these are not always women of words; and while they have been quietly doing, they have been too much overlooked.

Capabilities of Mothers.—I am not now going over the ground of the possibilities which women may accomplish who are not bound by domestic ties, or who have reached an age when in the course of nature. these bonds loosen of themselves, and who consequently can be considered in the same category with the other sex. I am going to pin myself down to the one point of what a pregnant and nursing woman may and can do, and what effect that doing will have upon. her health and that of her child. Do not misunderstand me. When I refer to special vocations, I am not laying down a rule as to what all women must and should do, in spite of conflicting duties, lack of capacity or inclination; only what women may and can do with perfect impunity if they so choose.

Must Pregnant Women Be Strict Homekeepers?—And to begin with, I would make the assertion that there is little, except severe physical labors, among which I would include the heavier branches of housekeeping—which latter, however, woman are generally expected to perform at such times—that a woman in ordinary health can do, that cannot be done equally well by a pregnant or nursing woman. I will make one exception: a woman under these circumstances cannot and must not be subject to confinement. A woman in ordinary health may, with comparative impunity, keep herself closely to a round ​of domestic duties, with no widening of her physical or mental horizon, without any immediately visible effect; though this course will tell in the long run by a physical and mental deterioration. But the woman who is living a double life must not be made a prisoner of in any sense of the word, though the belief is almost universal that at such times she should be strictly a homkeeper.

Violation of Nature's Laws.—Nature is so imperative in her demands for a wider, more active life at such times that she visits with the severest and most immediate penalties any transgression of these laws. For an enumeration of these penalties the reader has only to turn back to previous chapters, wherein the ordinary sufferings of pregnancy are enumerated. The woman who keeps herself closely confined is punished by sickness, debility and a hundred other ills; and nature, as if in a sort of poetic revenge upon her refusal to take proper exercise abroad, at last makes her so bulky that she can scarcely sustain her own weight, when, consequently, she cannot go out if she would.

Bad Effects of Close Confinement during Pregnancy.—The mental effects are even worse than the physical. The woman whose horizon is bounded at such times by home duties and home trials, and who abstains from all severe or protracted mental effort, from the belief that such effort will be injurious in her present state of health, soon suffers the penalty of her folly in uncontrollable fretfulness and irritableness, low spirits and a complication of nervous disor​ders, all of which are set down as the natural accompaniments of pregnancy, while they are only diseases. resulting from avoidable causes. And as in the case of the physical health, nature deals out the same poetic justice by soon rendering the woman mentally incapable of occupying her mind the little even that she would. Read in a previous chapter the description of hysteria and its various symptoms.

Parable of the Ten Talents.—It is the old parable, with a new reading, of the servants to whom were entrusted the talents. The one who wrapped his in a napkin and laid it away for fear of losing it was, when the reckoning came, deprived of the little even that he had.

Pregnancy not a State of Disability.—It is doing a great injustice to the Creator to believe that He would render the state in which women are ordained to pass a large portion of their lives one of such positive suffering and disability; that He would implant in their breasts hopes which must be disappointed, capabilities which are never to be used, ambitions which must systematically be smothered. It is worse than injustice, it is absolute blasphemy, to accuse Him of the evils which we have brought upon ourselves by our own ignorance or folly.

Can Pregnant Women endure Prolonged Mental Labor?—"But women cannot at such times engage in prolonged mental labor," says the physician, armed with the double authority of his masculine wisdom and his medical diploma.

​I beg your pardon, sir; but as in the case of the smoking, you see we can.

A woman's mind is at such times more easily "demoralized,"—that is, as I have already said, a "will not" soon resolves itself into a "cannot." But at such times it is more active, more capable of constant, severe and varied labor, than at any other period. It almost seems that at such times it possesses a double vitality and is capable of double activity. And this mental labor can be indulged in with the most beneficial effects upon her health. All that she requires for a counterbalance is an equally thorough rest and recreation, the latter in the open air if possible.

A Business Life Peculiarly suited to A Pregnant Woman.—There is no life so exactly suited to the pregnant woman as one of business. Remember, I am not discussing this subject as a "reformer" or a theorist, but from a hygienic point of view, and my arguments are all based upon facts. Indeed, it was the facts which suggested the arguments. Woman like, I began at the conclusion and reasoned backwards. The hurried, stirring walk or ride in the morning to her "office;" the constant change of faces and impressions; the steady application to business duties; the health-giving exercise on her return home at night; the pleasure which she experiences on this return in meeting the circle of welcoming faces, and narrating and listening to the experiences of the day; the zest instead of weariness which she feels in resuming her household tasks,—all render this the life best ​fitted in every respect for her in her present condition. She is fresh, active, cheerful and even-tempered; and forgets her bad feelings so constantly and systematically that shortly they disappear altogether. She rests quietly at night, and awakes refreshed in the morning.

The Home-Keeping Woman.—Her neighbor in the same condition, yet in a different state of health, looks on half in envy and half in astonishment, and exclaims:

"What a wonderful woman you are to do so much! I am sure it would kill me. As it is, I can hardly drag myself about the house."

And no wonder, poor woman! The monotony of her housework wearies her; trifles irritate her; her husband, a tolerably patient man, yet not quite a saint, sometimes gets out of patience with her fretfulness and whims, and wonders why a woman should make herself so miserable in a state which is only in fulfillment of the requirements of nature; her irritableness irritates everybody else; and she lives in a world of perpetual discomfort. She is so sick and so miserable! Besides, she is getting so heavy on her feet that she can hardly drag herself about. No wonder she watches her more fortunate neighbor, who does not seem to mind her condition at all, and who is as cheerful and as active as ever. But her eyes are not opened to the real cause of the better health of her neighbor. She believes it is a case of constitutional or organic difference between the two.

​Activity of Mind and Body Essential to a Healthy Pregnancy.—The active life that I have described, even though it may be indulged in but once or twice a week, so that its duties overlap the week and give variety of occupation and food for thought, will be found of exceeding benefit. In such a case there could be no charge of a woman neglecting her family; for surely she might take that much time for the benefit of her health without any one raising an objection. If she were a fashionable woman, or a woman devoted to society, no one would question her right to amuse herself for that space. And if she were a working woman, chained to a round of household duties, she would be compelled to neglect her children daily in a hundred ways, which would amount to more in the aggregate than the one or two days a week of brief absence from home which I set down as absolutely necessary for a woman's health and comfort.

When shall a Pregnant Woman seek Retirement?—"But," I hear being asked on every side by those to whom the whole notion is altogether new, "at what period would you recommend her to give up her public life, and retire to the quiet and seclusion of home?"

On that day, my dear sirs and madams, that she sends for her nurse, I should consider it advisable that she should remain at home, especially if she have any dread of a public hospital—not one day sooner!

"But the impropriety of the thing!"

​Propriety vs. Possibility.—I beg your pardon, I was not discussing the proprieties. If I were in Turkey, I should expect to hear the same objection urged if, on the score of health, I recommended women to go out and breathe the fresh air unveiled. The question of propriety was not referred to in the smoking case—only of possibility; and I insist upon it that we can smoke.

Where the absolute requirements of health and the established ideas of propriety seem to come in collision, each one must, I suppose, judge for himself or herself; but to my mind there ought to be but one decision. Our ideas of propriety depend greatly upon custom, after all. And any man or woman who sees anything improper or deserving of ridicule in the appearance of a woman who is performing the natural functions of her sex—functions God ordained, and of the highest and most sacred character—must have a mind groveling in the very depths of pruriency.

Women must and do occasionally appear in public in such a condition, inasmuch as we have emerged somewhat from Oriental semi-civilization. And if it is proper for one woman to make a single appearance before the public gaze on an errand of business or pleasure, it is equally proper and allowable for all women to come and go with perfect freedom at the dictates of pleasure or business. A single swallow may not make a summer, but the single swallow heralds the approach of summer all the same. When the first Turkish woman has the courage to appear in the ​streets unveiled, and passes unmolested, there is nothing to prevent the whole Turkish sisterhood from following her example with impunity, if they only have the courage to do so.

Facts cited in Proof.—I shall not be surprised if my declarations, so utterly at variance with professional utterance and accepted belief, are challenged. But I am ready with my proofs. Women have done these things—have done them without detriment to their own health or that of their offspring: have done them with positively beneficial results.

I can point to a lady physician, a professor in a medical college, who attended her patients faithfully to the last of her period of pregnancy. In the evening she delivered her regular weekly or semi-weekly lecture to the young lady medical students, and before morning was the happy mother of a fine, healthy, promising boy, whose subsequent years seem in no way to belie the promises of his infancy, and who displayed, when last I saw him, no tendency to the threatened "idiocy or invalidism" which is to be the normal condition of the children of so-called "strong-minded women."

Jennie June (Mrs. Croly) is her husband's most valuable and reliable assistant in the editorial management of a leading New York paper, and the fashion editress and correspondent of half a dozen more newspapers and periodicals. She asserts that for years she has always been regular in the fulfillment of her duties, and punctually at her place in the editorial ​office; and though she is the still young mother of a large family, has never on any occasion been absent from her post more than three or four weeks at a time. Though she does not coincide with me in all my views, I think her conservatism is the result more of a want of faith in the capacity and adaptability of women in general than from any conscious remissness in domestic duties on her own part. I think I might safely trust her to give testimony that her health has never suffered from this tax upon her energies, or that her children are less intelligent, less well behaved or less healthful for it. And we all know her to be a woman of superior intellect, enlarged ideas and earnest thought—in brief, a woman in every respect a credit to her sex; such a woman as never becomes developed in the confined home life in which it is the lot of the majority to live.

There is Marian Harland (Mrs. Terhune), the novelist, too, a woman of more than ordinary intelligence and cultivation, an indefatigable worker with her pen, the happy, proud and willing mother of a bright and interesting family, and the author of a cook-book which shows that she has found time, in the midst of a multiplicity of literary duties, to give attention to domestic matters in a way to profit not only herself but others also.

Accumulation of Evidence Unnecessary.—I might go on multiplying instances of women whose lives contradict the theory that seclusion and comparative idleness are the natural and best states for a woman ​through her child-bearing period. But I will not, for I believe my case is sufficiently strong. I would pause here, without giving my own evidence in conclusion, did I not believe, as I have already said, that the experience of a single woman is worth volumes of abstract theories.

Personal Experience.—A few years since I became actively engaged in literary life. By "actively," I mean that I was obliged, by the nature of my engagement, to be present in the editorial office, and take more or less active charge of affairs, two or three days in a week. Not long after I began this life, I found that I was in a condition from which I then feared—schooled as I was in all the old ideas in regard to the matter, and with an active memory concerning my extreme physical and mental disability on all former occasions—that I would have to cancel my engagement. I regretted this deeply, as the employment was so entirely to my taste.

However, I resolved to retain my position for a few months at least, as long as my health permitted. I went to the office, eight miles distant from home, by carriage, boat, and on foot through the city, punctually, three times a week; getting up in the morning, getting breakfast, and putting things to rights before I started at eight o'clock. Returned at four P. M., after which I had the six-o'clock dinner to get. On the alternate days at home I wrote, translated, read and corrected manuscript, answered letters, examined books, and gave personal and close attention to a large ex​change list—all this in addition to being housekeeper, seamstress and teacher to a family of young children.

In the course of the summer the editor-in-chief took a six weeks' holiday, and during that time I had entire editorial and partial business management of two monthly publications, while I performed my allotted duties on two others with which I was connected. I read proof, attended to the whole correspondence and advertising business, saw printers and engravers, and callers of every character; performing all these duties, as I trust, thoroughly and satisfactorily.

Time wore on, and I waited patiently for my health to fail me, but, strange to say, it refused to fail. This was probably the busiest season of my life, physically and mentally; but I persisted in feeling better and stronger, more energetic and more ambitious to work, from first to last. Every week I expected would be the last one that I would be able to attend to my duties; but I felt so much better all the time, and especially on my business days, that the time was constantly delayed after which I was to go no more.

The time came at last. It was Tuesday, and before the next day came round for my regular visit to the city I lay in bed with a babe beside me.

I had walked, I had ridden, I had carried heavy baskets and packages of books and papers. In no way did I try to spare myself either physical or mental exertion. Contrary to the prophecies of those over-wise people, my confinement, which on previous occasions had always been exceptionally severe, ​was easy in comparison, and my illness of short duration.

It was but little more than a week before I was sitting up in an easy-chair writing and arranging the monthly record of fashions. And on the tenth day, instead of being just allowed to rise from my bed, only to go back again exhausted and the worse for the exertion, as had been my best experience on previous occasions, I walked from my bed-room to the carriage, took a short ride, paid a visit to a sick acquaintance, and returned home all the better for my exertion.

Exactly four weeks from the day of my last visit I was back in my place in the office. The day was a stormy one, and surprise and remonstrance at my apparent recklessness preceded congratulation from every one I met. But I knew perfectly well what I was equal to, and the venture did me—not harm, but—positive, evident, undeniable good, and the little strength I still lacked seemed to come back with renewed impulse.

"But your poor babe!"

My "poor babe" was the best, the quietest, the healthiest babe ever borne into the world. As a little child she is now bright and active beyond her years (though displaying no particular precocity, I am happy to say), a perfect little woman in behavior, depending on her own resources for amusement, always busy, yet singularly free from any propensity toward mischief. She flits about the premises in and out of doors all day long, talking to the birds, chickens and insects, never ​cross or fretful without reason, and without a suspicion in her little soul that she is proving a large class of people the falsest of prophets, in not being dwarfed or warped intellectually and physically, as a punishment to her mother in violating all old-established rules before she was born.

Does the reader wonder that I am a convert to the theories this book propounds? Under the old régime there was no misery of a pregnant woman that I did not suffer to the utmost. Under the new, of my own establishing, such a condition is robbed of its greatest terrors. At such times I feel as well, as happy, as cheerful and as hopeful as ever; I keep as busy, and my mind is more than ever active.

Can any better experience be required? If the change were not so marked, it would not be so significant. But it is radical and entire, and the results are not one of them as predicted, but all in every respect satisfactory.

The Neglected Babies.—There is one oft-repeated cry which I have not yet referred to: "Who will rock the cradle while the mother is thus absent from home?"

Babies born under the new régime do not need to have their cradles rocked.

As for the babies (bless them!) ever being neglected, there is no more danger of that than there is that women, as a whole, or even a small proportion of them large enough to form a class, will forswear ruffles and ribbons and bows, become indifferent to the fashions, ​or neglect to look in the glass whenever they put on their bonnets.

Intellectual Retrogression after Marriage.—I knew a certain woman who married a man with whom she was at least intellectually equal, if she was not his superior. The years passed on and family duties were pressing upon her, when she said despondingly, "I can see that my husband is making intellectual and moral progress every day, while I—I am not even standing still; I can feel that I am constantly losing ground."

Retrogression Inexcusable.—There are many, many women who could make the same bitter lament. But the fault lies somewhere, usually with themselves, though of course they are not conscious of this. They are Marthas, neglecting the better part, while they are fretting their lives away over little things. No woman is just to herself, to her husband, or to her children, who allows herself passively to drift backward intellectually.

Does Marriage Contract a Woman's Sphere?—There is an almost universal belief that marriage and the cares of a family necessarily contract a woman's sphere, narrow her outlook and bring down the horizon of her life to the bounds of domestic duties alone. One of the greatest objections urged against women entering public vocations is that of a necessity they deteriorate mentally in the capacity of wife and mother, and cannot keep pace with their less hampered male companions and rivals. Marriage, if the ​opportunities it offers are rightly improved, never does this. It gives a woman broader views of life and more valuable experiences. It is the college to which all her previous life is but the preparatory school. It gives her the capacity for deeper thought, richer affections and more extended influence. In it there is no need for retrogression, no excuse even for a pause in mental and moral progress. And all this, instead of unfitting a woman for maternal duties, will render her more deeply sensible of the obligations resting upon her and more capable of fulfilling them.

The Afternoon of Life.—The woman who has attained the full stature of womanhood looks forward to advanced life, not as to a period when, all her work done, she can sit down quietly in the chimney corner, and in the respected capacity of grandmother employ her hands with knitting and her mind and tongue with trivial gossip. She looks forward to it as a period when, her mind in the full tide of its vigor, her affections ripened and chastened, and her experiences complete, she will be ready to . resume her life-work with renewed energy. She gathers in declining years the rich harvest of life—not a harvest to be garnered in idleness, but with active, earnest labor which will only cease at the command of the great reaper, Death.

She may never reach all this. Health may fail. Death may intervene. But this is what the conclusion of a woman's life should be—what it can be.