seriously mean that setting fires, cleaning grates, carrying coals,
making beds, washing dishes, cooking, scrubbing floors, cleaning brass
and silver, etc., etc. are things which the average man can do quite as
well as the average woman. Why then should they all be piled upon the
weary back of the woman? Because, you probably say, the man must hurry
off to business in the morning, and comes home too tired at night. Yes!
most of us really believed all that before the war, and then we began
to make discoveries. One was that there can be a lot of time before a
man goes off to business, and another was that the man is not more
tired by 6.30 p.m. than the woman, and can do a lot of useful things
if he has the will. And I urge this point not only because it is in the
clearest sense only fair, but because until a man does in this way take
his share of the home burden he cannot understand his wife's life, and
cannot give her intelligent sympathy.

The instinctive male attitude to household details is often expressed
in the phrase that they are "bally nonsense," or something else equally
picturesque. But when a little experience has taught a man how _very_
uncomfortable he would be if the details were not right, he is
forthwith able to be a much more intelligent friend to his wife. I do
not think fathers ever really know their little children till they have
helped in looking after them at bedtime, in the early morning, and at
meals. And I am sure that no man ever knows what a crowded and terrific
thing life can be till he has been left at home alone for a whole
evening to look after two or three. When he has undergone that
searching experience he will forthwith respect his wife with a new
sincerity.

It is extraordinary too what a jolly business housework can be when two
people go at it together and get all the possible fun out of it. On the