FREEDOM DOES NOT MAKE HAPPINESS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 74, 1 September 1947, Page 8

FREEDOM DOES NOT MAKE HAPPINESS

THE AMERICAN WOMAN RIVALS OF MEN RATHER THAN THEIR PARTNERS In spite of social and civic freedom, and labour-saving devices, American women are the unhappiest in the world, says Dr. Marynia Farnham, a New York phychologist, Dr. Farnham believes that American women gained less than they expected from “equality” because they forgot that though they are as good as men, they are different from men.

The function of child-bearing makes women different from men, and there is nothing to be gained by denying it, Dr. Farnham. said. Child-bearing is a natural emotional outlet for women, and motherhood is their best means of self-expres-sion. Women as a group suffer when they voluntarily avoid motherhood.

American women are resentful because in grasping what appeared to be an opportunity to live fuller, more interesting lives, they have become the bitter rivals of men rather than their partners. Prestige Not So High

The successful American housewife of today does not enjoy the same prestige as did women of earlier generations, Dr. Farnham said.. Before' gadgets made housekeeping easier and more impersonal, the housewife was manager of a large and vital business. She often advised her husband when he was designing and building their future home. She helped tend the garden from the planting of the first seedbed. She decorated much of the interior of the house, and chose the furniture. She processed the family’s food from the raw state to the table. She made most of the family’s clothes. She bore her babies in the house, taught them their alphabet, and read the Bible to them. She taught her daughters all they ever knew about sewing and cooking. Certainly, the housewife of yesterday had importance and prestige in her home. Impersonal Gadgets However, Dr. Farnham appears to have forgotten that this busy round occupied the old-style housewife about 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Deaths in childbirth and infant deaths were more,'frequent 50 years ago, and the female expectation of life was some years less than it is today. It is easier to be happy if you don’t know what you’re missing.

By comparison with her grandmother, said Dr Farnham, the modern housewife, however capable, has little opportunity to outshine other iwomen. The gadgets of her foolproof home are efficient, but they operate in an impersonal manner, one vacuum cleaner doing much the same job as the next. ’

The modern housewife’s shelves are not loaded with home-made jam, the envy of the local show, and the pride of her husband. Her children go to nursery school as soon as they are old enough, and, as they grow older, they spend as much time as possible away from home. The mother has. little to do with the building of her children’s character.

How can the modern housewife be satisfied when she is not much more than the supervisor of a machine room? Dr. Farnham asked.

Careers And Children

Careers have not brought American wives much happiness, according to Dr. Farnham. She said that most married career women come from the middle class, and are usually women who feel that they must work so their family can afford the car, maid, and summer shack which are the hallmarks of that class. When they take up a career they convince themselves that they cannot possibly leave work to have children. If they do have children, they resent them, consciously or unconsciously, as a threat to the family position. This tension between mothers and their children is a growing evil in America, Dr. Farnham said. Believing herself restricted by her children, the mother wants to have as little to do with them as possible. In her eagerness to cut what she thinks are the “fetters” of motherhood she has caused breast-feeding to become tremendously out of fashion in less than two generations. She has gratefully accepted the suggestion'that children suffer all kinds of mental ills if their parents restrictthem. This has increased her freedom, but it has not increased her contentment. It has produced much unhappiness and bewildering among women. The Business Girl ‘ The uhrrrerffKui -e'areer 'girl is not as happy as. she believes she should

be, either. She has never won the complete confidence of men in the business world. If she is efficient, she is a freak; if she is inefficient, she is useless anyhow.

Dr. Farnham’s statement that American women are the world’s unhappiest obviously excludes the women of depresed peoples. No doubt the women of liberated Europe would accept a few American neuroses as the price of a shipload or two of electronic ovens. It seems, too, that her observations apply mainly to women in the large cities of America. The American wife in the rural areas can still express herself adequately in her home and her children. “But the trend to discontent exists even there,” Dr. Farnham insists. Cultural Revolution Needed

Like other specialists in mental maladjustment, Dr. Farnham realises the need for a far-reaching rearrangement. Perhaps something like a cultural revolution among women may be necesary, she says. vv'omen should think of the community as a place where men and women can co-operate for a common gpod, not as an arena where men and women struggle , in circumstances which must favour the men. “Perhaps American women will some day realise that they can get most from the world by exploiting their femininity,” Dr. Farnham concluded. “They can’t go far in competition with men by assuming masculinity.”