Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific
creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse
all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the
youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a
headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and fret until he lost
his patience and dashed madly out to the Cave Man's Refuge?

We cannot tell; we only know that all humor aside, and without reference
to the past, the Nervous Housewife is surely a phenomenon of the
present-day American home. In greater or less degree she is in every
man's home; nor is she alone the rich Housewife with too little to do,
for though riches do not protect, poverty predisposes, and the poor
Housewife is far more frequently the victim of this disease of
occupation. Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her
a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair. She goes
from specialist to specialist,--orthopedic surgeon, gynecologist, X-ray
man, neurologist. By the time she has completed a course of treatment
she has tasted all the drugs in the pharmacopeia, wears plates on her
feet, spectacles on her nose, has had her teeth tinkered with, and her
insides straightened; has had a course in hydrotherapeutics,
electrotherapeutics, osteopathy, and Christian Science!

Such is an extreme case; the minor cases pass through life burdened with
pains and aches of the body and soul. And one of the commonest and
saddest of transformations is the change of the gay, laughing young
girl, radiant with love and all aglow at the thought of union with her
man, into the housewife of a decade,--complaining, fatigued, and
disillusioned. Bound to her husband by the ties the years and the
children have brought, there is a wall of misunderstanding between them.