Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1870 — A Word to Husbands. [ARTICLE]

A Word to Husbands.

It seems to us that nearly every invention proposing to aid women in their labor that has been generally introduced to the public is the offspring of a male brain. The sewing machine, knitters, the principal washing machines, wringers, and churns, are undoubtedly of such origin, so that we can but conclude that men do more reliable thinking in the line of woman’s interests than women do. Thus we have certainly found it in our own experience. Now, my dear sir, to you who, being a married man, and loving your wife, are vitally interested In her happiness, her good health, and length of days, may we suggest a line of thought: When you come in from the field or workshop, and sit in the corner of the kitchen, while your wife cooks the noonor evening meal, do you notice those three stairs up which she must bring every nail of water she uses, and every stick or wood she burns, and down which every slop or bit of waste from the kitchen and house must be carried? Can’t you contrive some means to relieve her of that little burden that by little grows so large? Do you notice that for meal and flour, or the bread- tray, or some other every day necessity she must go up stairs or down cellar, or to an outhouse, when by a little contrivance on your part she might have a pantry large enough to contain everything she needs, and be able to compound her bread, and pies, and pastry, without “ running all over creation ’’ to get things together before she can begin to do anything ? She has grown into the habit of putting up with this little inconvenience, and that and the other, until, perhaps, it does not occur to her that an hour’s ingenuity and planning might improve matters immensely, ana relieve her of the incessant and repeated trips from one point of the premises and back again. What a bleissing to her would be a sink in the kitchen, with a pump leading into it and a waste-pipe leading out of it How convenient would she find a shelf behind or near the stove where she might set her batter cakes when she is frying them, and not run back and forward across the kitchen from the stove to the table and the table to the stove. Perhaps there is a mantel-piece, but that is too high—a broad, strong shelf is what she wants, not much higher than the stove. It’s a good place to set bread when you want it to rise, or babies when you want them to keep warm, and not rise; to iron small pieces on or to sit on yourself when waiting for the shad to broil or the meat to brown.

It is this constant worry and fret oyer little things—the continual dropping that wears a stone—which frets out the youth of woman, and draws away drop by drop her enthusiasm and her life. While steaming over the ironing-table or the cook-stove with one crying child on the floor, another in the cradle, and a third on' the table watching mamma at work, might not almost any woman envy her husband treading the furrow under the open sky, behind the patient oxen, going straight from point to point, without haste; without rest, without interruption and without delay. True, his plow feels heavy at the end of the bout, and a big stone may give him a sudden wrench; it seems a long way from one end to the other of a grassy row of corn ; the hammer swings hard, and the plain pushes slowly toward the end of a languid spring day; but he has less annoyance, less chafe, less wear of temper and nerve, than she who goes through the daily and weekly round of domestic toil and care.— New York Tribune.