CHAPTER V.

OTHER CAUSES CONSIDERED.--MASCULINE IDEA OF WOMAN'S WORK.


Another supporting cause, as we may call it, of the existing state of
things is the ignorance of mankind concerning the cost of carrying on
the family,--not the cost to themselves in money, but the cost to
woman in endurance. Of its power to exhaust her vital forces they have
not the remotest idea. Each of its little ten-minute duties seems so
trifling that to call it work appears absurd. They do not reflect that
often a dozen of these ten-minute duties must be crowded into an hour
which holds but just six ten-minutes; that her day is crowded with
these crowded hours; that consequently she can never be free from
hurry, and that constant hurry is a constant strain upon her in every
way. They themselves, they think, could do up the work in half the
time, and not feel it a bit. Scarcely a man of them but thinks the
dishes might be just rinsed off under the faucet, and stood up to dry.
Scarcely a man of them who, if this were tried, would not cast more
than inquiring glances at his trencher; for it is always what is not
done that a man sees. If one chair-round escapes dusting, it is that
chair-round which he particularly notices. In his mind then are two
ideas: one is of the whole long day, the other of that infinitesimal
undone duty. The remark visible on his countenance is this: "The whole
day, and no time to dust a chair-round!"

"The painful warrior famoused for fight,