"PRISON WITHOUT BARS"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 413, 23 May 1947, Page 14

"PRISON WITHOUT BARS"

»ir,-the selfishness shown in recent letters relating to the article "Prison Without Bars" is disgusting. E.A.S. in the letter in a recent issue says, "Women should have equal opportunity to engage in any undertaking or profession they desire unhampered by the prejudice and ignorance of the past." They do so, and in doing so accept the responsibilities and restrictions of that undertaking or profession. Modern girls do not enter the profession. of marriage without a _ clear

knowledge of what it entails, and it shows deplorable lack of character to moan and talk of "prison" because there are difficulties, and one’s pre-marriage activities are somewhat curtailed. I have three small children, a large old-fashioned house, and a husband in a public position as part of my .profession, and can still find time for outside interests, which are made to fit into my professional duties, not the duties into them, Certainly, I work longer hours, and at times much harder than I did before

marriage, but the satisfaction of running my own home, caring for my own children, and the contented look on my husband’s face far outweigh these considerations. (Are these things, too, too old-fashioned for "One of the Prisoners?’’) I agree with those who contend that expectant mothers, mothers with children under two years, and sick mothers should have adequate help in the house, but I think that if marriage were looked (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) upon as a profession, in which one succeeds or fails according to one’s own efforts, and if married women who speak of "Prison" would think of others besides themselves, there would be less complaining and _ discontent. And despite the number of times we have been told recently, through articles and letters,'and over the air, that marriage, motherhood, and housekeeping are little less than slavery, there are a surprising number of young married women, like myself, who find it quite sa‘isfying and

agreeable. —

CONTENTED HOUSE

WIFE

(New Plymouth).

Sir,-Can it be true that any mother asks to be. "lifted" to the footing of those who work a 40-hour week? Work at what? Typing letters, ironing collars, selling stamps, sewing at a counter? Compare that with the woman who, already linked with her Creator, may be rearing and training a Livingstone, a Lincoln, a Rutherford, an Edith Cavell. I don’t see how rearing a family prevents a woman from reading, going to concerts or having wide sympathies and interests. I wonder how many of these distressed correspondents of yours know how many children had Susannah Wesley, Mrs. General Booth, Mts. Elizabeth Fry, Queen Victoria, Queen Mary, Mrs. Ramsay McDonald, Mrs. Roosevelt, and hundreds of ministers’ wives,. doctors’ wives, schoolmasters’} wives, and others who run a home, help their husbands, rear a large family, and maintain wide sympathies and a semi-official attitude toward the general public? And enjoy life in self-forgetting service into their ’seventies and ‘eighties. I don’t know exactly what "One of the Prisoners" means by saying that "women’s emancipation is still a mere phase." To see crowds of well-dressed women flocking into the shops, crowding into milk-bars and tea-rooms, and then rushing home with a small paper bag for a scratch tea makes me feel that what many women need is a course of training for their conscience. Of course we have to work, but so do our husbands; and after all, no woman has to get married if the prospect is so dreary. In case anyone thinks I am "just talking" I would like to say I have six children, and not very many labour-saving devices in my home. I am not by any means "bored" by the company of toddlers and babies. I am "amusingly old-fashioned" enough to love my home and my job of making it a home. After 20 years of married life I know that if I had to choose again I’d choose the same vocation, for there’s no life as full, as sweet, as satisfying as at of the home-makers. The children up so soon, and they are never small again. The mother who laments her children (more often "child") as a tie and a worry now is the very one who will lament that "children are so’ ungrateful" in 20 years’ time. If we do our job well and honestly now we shall be fully rewarded later.

BARS OF GOLD