The Emancipation of Domesticity

"There must be in every center of humanity one human being...who does not 'give her best' but gives her all."

In What's Wrong with the World, Chesterton expands on his view of the role of woman in society. He argues that the modern view which says women were kept at home in order to oppress them and keep them narrow is ridiculous. "On the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad." Woman must be a cook....a schoolmistress....a house-decorator....a dressmaker....but not a competitive cook, schoolmistress, house-decorator, or dressmaker.

He argues that the woman's presence in the home is essential because, "[she] is generally shut up in a house with a human being [her child] at the time when he asks all the questions that are. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world."

He admits the drudgery and difficulty of the job, but maintains that it is certainly NOT "colorless or of small import to the soul," and those who believe it to be so are not even worth arguing with! "To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labor and holidays; to be Whitely [the owner of the first general goods store in London] within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

More to come. I love this guy.