The Nervous Housewife | Page 5

so that divorce has
become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability to
give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the
declining birth rate is still further evidence of her individualization and
is in a sense her denial of mere femaleness and an affirmation of

freedom.
CHAPTER II
THE NATURE OF "NERVOUSNESS"
Preliminary to our discussion of the nervousness of the housewife we
must take up without great regard to details the subject of nervousness
in general.
Nervousness, like many another word of common speech, has no place
whatever in medicine. Indeed, no term indicating an abnormal
condition is so loosely used as this one.
People say a man is nervous when they mean he is subject to attacks of
anger, an emotional state. Likewise he is nervous when he is a victim
of fear, a state literally the opposite of the first. Or, if he is restless, is
given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting his nails, he is
nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the ground of his
nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who branded his
baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A "nervous
breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of the sinister
faces of insanity itself.
It should be made clear that what we are dealing with in the nervous
housewife is not a special form of nervous disorder. It conforms to the
general types found in single women and also in men. It differs in the
intensity of symptoms, in the way they group themselves, and in the
causes.
Physicians use the term psychoneuroses to include a group of nervous
disorders of so-called functional nature. That is to say, there is no
alteration that can be found in the brain, the spinal cord, or any part of
the nervous system. In this, these conditions differ from such diseases
as locomotor ataxia, tumor of the brain, cerebral hemorrhage, etc.,
because there are marked changes in the structure in the latter troubles.
One might compare the psychoneuroses to a watch which needed oiling
or cleaning, or merely a winding up,--as against one in which a vital

part was broken.
The most important of the psychoneuroses, in so far as the housewife is
concerned, is the condition called neurasthenia, although two other
diseases, psychasthenia and hysteria, are of importance.
It is interesting that neurasthenia is considered by many physicians as a
disease of modern times. Indeed, it was first described in 1869 by the
eminent neurologist Beard, who thought it was entirely caused by the
stress and strain of American life. That not only America, but every
part of the whole civilized world has its neurasthenia is now an
accepted fact. Knowing what we do of its causes we infer that it is
probably as old as mankind; but there exists no reasonable doubt that
modern life, with its hurry, its tensions, its widespread and ever present
excitement, has increased the proportion of people involved.
Particularly the increase in the size and number of the cities, as
compared with the country, is a great factor in the spread of
neurasthenia. Then, too, the introduction of so-called time-saving,
_i.e._ distance-annihilating instruments, such as the telephone,
telegraph, railroad, etc., have acted not so much to save time as to
increase the number of things done, seen, and heard. The busy man
with his telephone close at hand may be saving time on each
transaction, but by enormously increasing the number of his
transactions he is not saving himself.
The keynote of neurasthenia is increased liability to fatigue. The tired
feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising
than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should
remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his day
to get going; and at night, when he should have the delicious
drowsiness of bedtime, he is wide-awake and disinclined to go to bed
or sleep. This fatigue enters into all functions of the mind and body.
Fatigue of mind brings about lack of concentration, an inattention; and
this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words
as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a
listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more distressing
because the victim is often enough an idealist with over-lofty purposes.

Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild kind, a liability to
worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for the things formerly
held dearest. And finally the fatigue is often marked by a lack of
control over the emotional expression, so that anger blazes forth more
easily over trifles, and the tears come upon even a slight vexation. _To
be