even for a few hours forget her exacting if charming dependents.

It is equally important not to forget a husband's liberty.

No doubt a great deal of cruelty lies to the charge of husbands who are
out night after night, leaving their wives--already weary after a day's
heavy work--to sit bored and alone, while they enjoy the company of
their male friends, or hunt after their favorite pleasures. It is quite
right that wives should refuse to tolerate such treatment. But the
entire reversal of that policy is apt to work badly also. A husband
should not drop all the masculine interests of his life, nor give up
his old friends, nor resign from all the responsibilities that will
take him sometimes out at nights. And a wise wife will not allow him to
do it. Somewhere between the two extremes I have indicated lies the
wise path in this connection.

Then is it not time that somebody boldly said that husbands ought to do
some of the housework? I have no time to discuss the ethical problem
raised by the households where paid servants do it all. They are a very
small minority of modern households, and in all the rest the wives do a
great deal of the housework--generally all of it. Some of it is heavy
muscular work, such as carrying coals or moving furniture. The rest
makes up an employment which is more constant, needs more brains, and
calls for more administrative capacity than any man can imagine till he
has tried to do it. Of course men say they cannot do such work. Which
is plain rubbish. It only means that they do not like doing it. Neither
do many women. And men can do most of it perfectly well if they will
only take the trouble to learn how it is done. I do not mean that I
propose for men such jobs as matching wools, or making babies' clothes,
or arranging the drawing-room. There are limits to our powers. But I do