Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1879 — Why Farmers’ Wives Become Insane. [ARTICLE]

Why Farmers’ Wives Become Insane.

One winter I met a farmer’s daughter who had just returned from a visit to. some relative in another State. She was the farmer’s main stay, for his wife was dead, and all the other daughters married and gone. The family was not large, yet they kept half a dozen cows and made butter for the market, and kept farm hands enough to work their place. In fine, there was no lack of housework for two able-bodied women, and only one to do it. When I saw her in the winter she was rosy and plump and strong as any of her neighbors. I met her casually during the spring and early summer without noticing any change. But, toward the close of summer, I met her face to face, and was shocked at the tired, worn look she exhibited. I inquired if she were well, to which she replied, “Why—yes, I But it was very evident to me,that she was far from well. I knew ’’she had broken down before, and had gone away from home to recuperate. I knew she had had a cough which she assured ipe, voluntarily, “ was not the consumption,” thus betraying her fears that it was the consumption; and she had gone away for her health,, and had returned with rosy cheeks, ahd frosh, clastic manners. I compared the vigorous girl of eight months ago with the nerveless, tired girl before me, and involuntarily asked myself—because I feared being misunderstood if 1 asked anybody else —“ Why will they not see that they are killing that girl with work and worry?” And there the question rests unanswered.

' I* one of the late jmporls. on Insane Asylums, the statement is made that the largest proportion of female inmates is from farmers’ wives anil daughters. > Vvc have been so accustomed to think of ‘farmers, their wives and families, as the healthiest and sturdiest inhabitants of a country, that the statement astonished me. But I began to open my eyes and look around, and one of tbejirst things I saw was a buxom, fresh lass, full of life and vigor, transformed by farm-house work into a tired, nervous, pale, weak girl, in a few months. Are farmers’ wives cheerful? With ;the question in mind make an investigation. Some of them are cheerful. Those* are who have farms successfully carried on by careful husbands, who only demand of their wives supervision of the “help,” of which plenty is furnished. Bpt go through the country, observe thefarm-wife carefully, and you will see generally tired women—tired women with Careworn faces and mechanical actions, going about their daily routine of hard duties. I Is there any connection between this tiresome and unvarying drudgery and the meaningless jabber of an Insane Asylum? Perhaps there is a closer connection than farmers are aware of. Perhaps there is a predisposing cause of insanity in the Constant pressure of anxiety and the vexatious care of on unvarying round of drudge-likejduties which hurries farmers’ wives to the Asylum. <► Men may sneer at the idea of wornaniq wark- being so burdensome wjjen theV reniember their own laborious tasks. But sneeriMgdocsttot bring back the lost wits of the wives to whom kitchen, pantry, milk-room,;- ditfing- | room, suggest drudgery.

Tbs man has a constant change of ■cone with all the excitement incident thereto. He goes from breakfast to the plow, the harrow, and the constant lyvarying duties of the farm. He comes in to dinner—if it isn’t on the table at the hour, he growls or looks sour—and to supper prepared for him, and after supper goes out to the barn or the neighbor’s dooryard to smoko a comfortable pipe and chat with the neighbor about the crops. The wife rises to kindle the fire, dress the children, cook breakfast, wash the dishes, send the children to school, got dinner, wash the dishes—and if there is* a moment to spare between dinner and supper, to spend it in sewing—get supper, was the dishos, put the children to bed—and if a moment more offers, to sew, beside taking care of the morning and evening milk, gathering eggs, churning and working butter, and a hundred things that must be done every day,.in exactly the same way and order—and then, perhaps, meet tho sour or disappointed looks of tho lord of the manor if anything is amiss in all this endless detail of drudgery. She does not attend any lodge or society meeting; she visits a neighbor but very seldom, “ she’s so busy, she does not walk out after toa to meet a friend, to drive away care by social converse; her duties vex her till bedtime, when, anxious and careworn, it’s long ere she can sleep, or if she can, the teething baby or the sick child demands her care; and she may spend half the night in quieting it, to be roused from a troubled sleep all too soon, to get breakfast, etc., etc. I have known farmers to sneer at the idea of indoor work being laborious and hard, and even be boorish enough to jeer tho - hard-working wife for “ making a mountain of a molehill.” But in point of exaction and wear upon thebody and mind, the farmer’s work, though laborious, is asily borne by the constant shifting of the burden and change of duty and neighborly chitchat in comparison with the wearisome sameness and petty drudgery of the farmer’s wife.

Farm life ought to be the healthiest and the happiest of all lives—and in tho story-books it is so. The books tell of arduous, tiresome work interspersed with recreation. A faithful portraiture of one year’s weary routine on the farm as it actually iff in New England or the Middle States, where the wife does all the housework and dairy-work and the man does all the farm-work, would hardly be a profitable book tp the publisher. But where Janet the maid does the dairy-work ,in a scrupulously-neat dairy, and the housewife superintends all matters connected with the house; where there are “harvest-homes” and excursions and visiting; where the dull routine of irksome duties is broken-lip and enlivened by recreation—there is a charming and attractive picture. And why should not this charming picture be a reality? The farmer who loves his wife and cares for her welfare sees with anxiety her cheeks losing their freshness and her spirits their elasticity. He consults the doctor, who recommends iron or quinine, or some drug; and the tonic seems for a while to be the very thing needed, but it soon loses its power, and he begins to think she is going into a decline, and she feels it. Happier and better advice than any prescription of iron or bitters for the overtaxed woman would be: “ Hitch up the bay mare to the wagon and take your wife for a drive, not once, nor twice, but often. Make recreation for the tired woman. Take her with you when you go to buy a new horse or mowing machine. Take her to the town. Break up the monotony of her life indoors. Relieve the constant pressure, and you will see the bloom return to her cheeks and the freshness to her spirits.” Endless monotony will wear the fiber of any mind and cause aberration, or else react on the body and create disease. Recreation for the farmers’ wives would not remove every cause of disease or insanity; but if farmers would plan recreation for their wives and families, they would remove one cause of despondency, gloom and sickness from their houses. They, would do much to avert the calamity of aberration of mind and prostration of bodily vitality. They would do very much also for their own happiness and the recommendation of the farmer’s life to their sons and daughters. —W. B. Cary, in N. Y. Observer.