Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1913 — Notes and Comment [ARTICLE]

Notes and Comment

Of Interest to Women Readers

BHALL WEDDED WOMEN WOR <. 4 ' * / 1 . ' • Eminent Authorities Discuss the Question off “The Woman’s Invasion.” “Shall women work after marriage? , That is so large a question that it will , be merely suggested and then laid on the table for future discussion,” says William Hard. , Only three incidental remarks will be here made about it First: It is a question that may settle Itself without much help. Many Btudents thiak so; among them thePresident of Bryn Mawr College, who said not long ago that “everything seems to indicate that women will not only make their way into all except s few trades and professions, but that they ,wil! be. compelled by economic causes to stay in them after marriage.” Second: Work after marriage, aside from its economic aspects, has seemed to many persons who have given it much thought to have possibly an intellectual and moral value. In his authoritative book on “Sex and Society,” Professor W. I. Thomas seems to adopt this view. “The remedy,” he says, “for the irregularity, pettiness, ill health, and unserviceableness of modern woman seems to lie, therefore, along educational lines; not, in a general and Cultural education alone, but in a special and occupational interest and practice for women, married and unmarried. This should be preferably gainful, though not onerous nor incessant.” Third: Virtually every mother who can afford It has a nurse-maid who relieves her of the children, and the children of her, for part of each day End night This is thought proper. Also, it is thought proper for a family to live at a fashionable hotel and have Its meals sent up to it from the case. In this way the family avoids having a food-factory in its suite of living-rooms. Now if at some time in the remote future, when society is somewhat better adapted to social needs there should be co-operative nurseries and co-operative kitchens which would leave women free for four hours a day to do work which, as Professor Thomas discriminatingly says, should be gainful but not onerous nor incessant, would society then be any more shattered at its foundations than !t now is at its top?