Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1869 — What Makes a Woman Truly a Helpmeet to her Husband. [ARTICLE]

What Makes a Woman Truly a Helpmeet to her Husband.

From Packard’* Monthly

BY OLIVE LOGAN.

I. In tho first place, love. Without love as tho first plank in tho platform there is no use Whatever in discussing the question. The platform won’t hold together without that plapk, whatever other timber tfiero he'l'n it But love is not enough. It is very sad, but it is true —and as trite as true —that “love won’t boil the potand what is worse, it won’t put that into the pot which makes it Worth the boiling. A boiled pot wouldn’t be very nice eating without “fixin’s.” The beggar who made a delicious soup, just by boiling a stone in his pot, liarj to put in "a little salt to season it, aud a biff of beef to give it a flavor, and a few vegetables to tone it up. So, if even love would “boil the* pot,” love would not be sufficient, unless it would fill the pot, too. Love is the prime requisite to successful endeavor on the woman’s part to be her husband’s true helpmeet, but love alone is very far from being all that is required. There are countte3B thousands of women wholovetheirhusbands truly, and who are no more helpmeets to them than if they were wooden women, whittled our with a jack-knife.

The first and greatest misfortune women to encounter is that, in marrying, most men don’t ask themselves whether the object oj their choice is fitted to be a helpmeet, A man generally marries because he wants somebody to love him and caress him. He also wants his wifo to look pretty, and be bright and cheerful, that other men may envy him lila possession. But that sort of thing won’t last through fhq of a lifetime. When years roll on, and misfortunes coine, and tbe silly little loving wile has become firmly rooted in her dawdling habits, he savagely turns on her and reproaches her lor not being a helpmeet. There is nothing but misery for her, poor creature, after that. Therefore, the other plank in our platform is this: To be a true helpmeet to her husband the woman must have the ability to earn her living independently ot him. Xo woman can earn her own living by baby-tending. I mean,'of course, by tending her own babies. If she adopt tho profession of a nurse, the case may be different. WhefFyou talk witlr intelligent men on the subject of skilled labor, you find that they have but one opinion as to tbe best way of getting work 4pue thoroughly. They tell you that the man who is J aek'-of-all-trades- is master of noire: They tell you that the man who makes a great success in life is the man who masters one field of labor completely—who educates himself up to the highest point of skilllulness ill that field alone. The Best editors in this country are men w£o have been bred to their work in that college of editors —the printing office. The worst editors are those men who have taken up editorship after having givfen trial to mercantile life, or farming, or medicine, and who will most probably drop editorship by-and-by for the law, or perhaps the stage —and do as ill in these again, being thorough in none. It stands to reason that the best baby-tender must be tho woman who educates herself specially lor that pursuit. How many women who become mothers do this '( And of those women who hive bent all their energies to perfect themselves in tho art of baby-tending, how many can qarn their living by it? ‘7 .. 11. v *" I onco lived in a house with a young couple who bad a baby of about ten months old—a great, fine, strapping fellow, an heavy in one’s arms as a load of iron, and yet uuable to walk. The father was * book-keeper ii» a store on llroadway, at a salary pf thirty dollars a week. They paid twenty-two dollars a week for their board, which, the husband said, was as reasonable as he could find for a room as comfortable as the one they occupied—thohgh I considered it far from comfortable. It was asmall back room, dull and cheerjess ( qn the third floor. 1 Three times a day this delicate young girl (the baby’s mother) was obliged to carry that strapping child up and down four pairs of stairs to meals—for tho dining room was in the basement. She never could? get a meal in peace, for she had to hold the baby on her knees while sho was eating, and it would whin* and cry,' and naif the time she had to leave tho tjimng-ropm altogether while her great, Bearty husband wonld sit still, »nd cdtnplaccntly b$U his meal with the greatest cotuposuro, never jlnnkjiig of Iter. The baby \yas teething; and at breakfast she often told ns (that she

had been up and down all nightlong walking the floor to soothe it. Sho was as pale as a ghost, and had black rings around her eyes that were enough to startle one. But they were so newly married, and evidently loved each other so dearly, this couple, that I thought she was as happy a woman as there was to be found in New York. And she was a woman occupying what is facetiously denominated the “true woman’s sphere;” receiving every morsel of food irom her husband, every stitch of clothing, never having a penny she could call her own, and in’‘return nursing her baby every minute lrom tho day it was born, through tbe successive stageß of limpbaokeduqgs uptil now*, when it seenid —except that it could not walk—stronger than its mother. “■4h>” thought I, joyfully, llhere is a refutation of all my arguments. Hore is a woman perlectly happy, and who is living in servitude and baby-tending 1” One day, after I hnid done a bard day’s work at writing, I sat dowii at_ the dinner table opposite'the couple, and said, “Oh, Mrs. X., how fortunate you are to have a good husband, who provides for you, and pays everything lor you, relieving yon of this horrid toil of workiug for breadmoney.” “That’s what I tell her,” said the husband, hastily, and with an unpleasantly triumphant tone—“if she had to go out aud work for her living she’d find out what it is.” “I earn my living now,” said the wife, with quiet dignity, “I do a servant’s work, aud get no pay —only my board. A servaut gets board

The next day sho spoko to me again, with tears in her eyes—“l envy you,” she said to me, who considered myself so hard worked as to be in a very unenviable condition, “I envy your being able to go out into the air, and work like an intelligent being for a livelihood, instead Of being shut up, day alter day, night after'night, nursing a baby. And look how foolish if is tbo,” continued she, unwittingly using my own a'rgtintents, “I am a fine dressmaker, and earned my livjfjig easily by that work before I was married. And so I could now, if my husband wojihj only let me work at my trade." “Why don’t he?” ‘ In the first place, he is too proud; in the second, he says if I were to work I’d have to hire a girl to purse the baby, and that would be an expense.” “How mucli would a girl’s wages be?” “About two dollars a week. I used to earn eighteen at dressmaking in tny native town in Massachusetts. I could earn more in New Y ork. I am a beautiful fitter.” Aud yet this couple grubbed on in mutual satisfaction, at the very outset of their married life, when all should have been brightness —loving contented—she reproaching him for making a servant of her, and he upbraiding her for not being a helpmeet to him. "v 111. If it be necessary, in order that a woman may be a helpmeet to her husband, that she should be able to earn her own living, then she has but one thing to do to qualify herself for that office—namely, to educate herself just as men do in the habits of labor. Skill in mechanism, finances, art, literature, fjr any industrial is nothing more nor less than habits of Übor. When men will consent to do Bridget’s work then I will. Till then, don’t talk to me about housekeeping and baby-tending as woman’s proper employment. It is tbe proper employment of women‘who are iucapablo ot higher work. No fashionable Jady—no wile of a wealthy citizen—a Belmont, a Hoosvelt, a §tcwart —devotes her time to the care of her babies. Site has an experienced servant to doit; just as her husband has an experienced schoolmaster to teach them their lessons.

Why should not women in the humbler walks of life be granted the same immunity, so that they may be left to do better, more remunerative work ? Some of the religious papers have been horrified, I hear, by my views on thiS subject. /« They are horrified, becausp ijiey distort my /jaeaniiig.'* ■ If any one says to mo that it is uecessary to neglect the culture of your children’*,.bo'ads and hearts, in order that you may he a helpmeet to your husband, I reply that *udh an assertion as that is rubbish. Give me your ear, you editor, who earn the bread of your family whife your’ wife .sits at home doing scrvant’b work—do you neglect yopr boy’s mind and heart because you have work to do out in the world? „I don’t, believe you.do. 1 don’tTielicvp, either, that it is necessary' your wife should neglect the real duties of a mother toward lifer children in order to earn Her share of the' yearly income which pay s their auries, their servants And baby-tenders. J ‘ your wist beoomes truly

helpmeet when she can carry on your household alone, were you to be taken sick or die, as well as you could were she to be taken sick or die.