Our Androcentric Culture | Page 9

remain with the husband though a
drunkard, or diseased; regardless of the sin against the child involved in

such a relation. Public feeling on these matters is indeed changing; but
as a whole the ideals of the man-made family still obtain.
The effect of this on the woman has been inevitably to weaken and
overshadow her sense of the real purpose of the family; of the relentless
responsibilities of her duty as a mother. She is first taught duty to her
parents, with heavy religious sanction; and then duty to her husband,
similarly buttressed; but her duty to her children has been left to
instinct. She is not taught in girlhood as to her preeminent power and
duty as a mother; her young ideals are all of devotion to the lover and
husband: with only the vaguest sense of results.
The young girl is reared in what we call "innocence;" poetically
described as "bloom;" and this condition is held one of her chief
"charms." The requisite is wholly androcentric. This "innocence" does
not enable her to choose a husband wisely; she does not even know the
dangers that possibly confront her. We vaguely imagine that her father
or brother, who do know, will protect her. Unfortunately the father and
brother, under our current "double standard" of morality do not judge
the applicants as she would if she knew the nature of their offenses.
Furthermore, if her heart is set on one of them, no amount of general
advice and opposition serves to prevent her marrying him. "I love
him!" she says, sublimely. "I do not care what he has done. I will
forgive him. I will save him!"
This state of mind serves to forward the interests of the lover, but is of
no advantage to the children. We have magnified the duties of the wife,
and minified the duties of the mother; and this is inevitable in a family
relation every law and custom of which is arranged from the masculine
viewpoint.
From this same viewpoint, equally essential to the proprietary family,
comes the requirement that the woman shall serve the man. Her service
is not that of the associate and equal, as when she joins him in his
business. It is not that of a beneficial combination, as when she
practices another business and they share the profits; it is not even that
of the specialist, as the service of a tailor or barber; it is personal
service--the work of a servant.
In large generalization, the women of the world cook and wash, sweep
and dust, sew and mend, for the men.
We are so accustomed to this relation; have held it for so long to be the

"natural" relation, that it is difficult indeed to show that it is distinctly
unnatural and injurious. The father expects to be served by the daughter,
a service quite different from what he expects of the son. This shows at
once that such service is no integral part of motherhood, or even of
marriage; but is supposed to be the proper industrial position of women,
as such.
Why is this so? Why, on the face of it, given a daughter and a son,
should a form of service be expected of the one, which would be
considered ignominious by the other?
The underlying reason is this. Industry, at its base, is a feminine
function. The surplus energy of the mother does not manifest itself in
noise, or combat, or display, but in productive industry. Because of her
mother-power she became the first inventor and laborer; being in truth
the mother of all industry as well as all people.
Man's entrance upon industry is late and reluctant; as will be shown
later in treating his effect on economics. In this field of family life, his
effect was as follows:
Establishing the proprietary family at an age when the industry was
primitive and domestic; and thereafter confining the woman solely to
the domestic area, he thereby confined her to primitive industry. The
domestic industries, in the hands of women, constitute a survival of our
remotest past. Such work was "woman's work" as was all the work then
known; such work is still considered woman's work because they have
been prevented from doing any other.
The term "domestic industry" does not define a certain kind of labor,
but a certain grade of labor. Architecture was a domestic industry
once--when every savage mother set up her own tepee. To be confined
to domestic industry is no proper distinction of womanhood; it is an
historic distinction, an economic distinction, it sets a date and limit to
woman's industrial progress.
In this respect the man-made family has resulted in arresting the
development of half the field. We have a world wherein men,
industrially, live in the twentieth century; and