New Homes for Old Part 3

And there is the new and difficult task of planning the use of the family income, which takes on a new and unfamiliar form.

In spite of all that has been taken out of the home the duties of the housewife remain manifold and various. She is responsible for the care of the house, for the selection and preparation of food, for spending the part of the income devoted to present needs, and for planning and sharing in the sacrifices thought necessary to provide against future needs. She must both bear and rear her children. The responsibilities and satisfactions of her relations.h.i.+p with her husband are too often last in the list of her daily preoccupations, but by no means least in importance, if one of the essentials of a home is to be maintained.

The enumeration of the tasks of any wife and mother throws into relief the difficulties of the foreign-born mother. The all too frequent cases where homes are deprived of her presence emphasize how indispensable she is. All case-work agencies have had to grapple with the problem of families suffering this deprivation. It is these motherless families that make us realize how many tasks and responsibilities fall to the lot of the mother.

There was a motherless Russian family, consisting of the father and six children, the oldest a girl of thirteen and the youngest a five-month-old boy. For a time the family tried to get along without asking advice of an outside agency. The baby was placed with friends, and the thirteen-year-old girl stopped school to care for the five-room flat and the other four children. In a short time the family with whom the baby was placed wanted to adopt him, and refused to keep him longer on any other condition. At this time the Immigrant's Protective League was appealed to for help in placing the baby where he would not have to be given for adoption. They found the father making a pathetic attempt to keep the home and children clean, and the oldest girl, Marya, trying hard to take her mother's place. The best plan they were able to work out for the family was inst.i.tutional care for the youngest two children, nursery care outside of school hours for the next two, and the two oldest left to take care of themselves, although given lunch at the school. Marya, of course, was sent back to school, and she and her father share the housekeeping.

PATERNAL AUTHORITY Pa.s.sING

A third change should be taken into account. There is a marked difference between the general position of women and children in relation to the authority of the husband and father in this country and that in the old country. It is indicated in both general opinion and express statutory amendment in this country, although not in the so-called common law. The latter, in common with practice in the native lands of immigrants, provided that marriage gave the husband the right to determine where the domicile should be, the right "reasonably to discipline" wife and children, the right to claim her services and to appropriate her earnings and those of the children, the right to take any personal property (except "_paraphernalia_" and "_pin money_") she might have in full owners.h.i.+p, the right to manage any land she might become ent.i.tled to, and the right to enjoy the custody of the children, regardless of the maintenance of his conjugal fidelity, in the absence of such obscene and drunken conduct on his part as would be obviously demoralizing to the young child.

There existed no adequate provision for enforcing the father's performance of either conjugal or parental obligations, and the result has been the development of two bodies of legislative change. One of these has granted to the wife certain rights as against the husband, on the theory that the wife retains her separate existence after marriage and should retain rights of individual action. The other body of statutes imposes on the man the duty of support, making abandonment or refusal to support punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both.

The theory of this legislation is that the support of wife and children is to be a legally enforceable duty, which may rightly be laid upon the man because of his special interest and special ability.

Moreover, through the establishment of the juvenile court, the community has undertaken, not only to say that support must be given, but to set a standard of "proper parental care" below which family groups are not to be allowed to sink and still remain independent and intact. By creating the juvenile probation staff, an official a.s.sistant parent is provided. In the same way, by authorizing commitment of children to inst.i.tutions, the dissolution of the home that falls persistently to too low a standard is made possible.

The common law, as accepted in the various states, was not entirely uniform, but it was substantially the universal family law; now the states differ widely in the body of statutory enactments developed in this field. All have some laws recognizing the claims of children to have their home conditions scrutinized--though they may have no express juvenile-court law, all recognize to some extent the separate existence of the married women--though only twenty-one have given the mother substantial rights as against the father over their children, and they all recognize the parent's duty to secure the child's attendance at school, and have imposed some limitation on the parent's right to set his young child to work. In other words, in all the states the idea of the separate existence of the wife and of the interest of the community in the kind of care given the child has been embodied in legislation.

These statutes have been enacted by legislatures composed largely, if not exclusively, of men, and register the general change in the community att.i.tude toward the family group. An unlimited autocracy is gradually becoming what might now be termed a const.i.tutional democracy. But the law of the jurisdictions from which most of the immigrant groups come, undoubtedly represents a theory of family relations.h.i.+p not widely different from that underlying the common law.

The South Italian group, in which the right of the father to discipline wife and daughter is pa.s.sed on to the son, may represent an extreme survival of the patriarchal idea; but almost all the foreign-born groups hold to the dominion of man over woman, and of parents over children.

Immigrant groups evidence their realization of the changed conditions in different ways. Among the Ukrainians in Chicago, for example, it is said that, whereas in the old country the men kept complete control of the little money that came in, here they very generally turn it all over to their wives. Some of them have laughed, and said that America was the "women's country." Among other groups, notably the Jugo-Slav and the Italian, there is said to be a general attempt to keep the women repressed and in much the same position they held in the old country. Sometimes the woman perceives the difference in the situation more quickly than her husband. Then if he attempts to retain the old authorities in form and in spirit, she may submit or else she may gradually lead him to an understanding. But she may not understand and yet may rebel and carry her difficulty to the case-work agency.

One of the settlements in Chicago is said to have become very unpopular with the men in its neighborhood, as it has the reputation of breaking up families, because women who have been ill treated by their husbands have gone to the settlement to complain, and have there been given help in taking their complaints to court.

The Immigrant's Protective League in Chicago receives many complaints from women who have learned that their husbands have not the right to beat them or their children. One Lithuanian woman, who had been in this country six years, came to the league with the statement that her husband often threw her and their eight-year-old son out of the house in the middle of the night. Another Lithuanian woman living in one of the suburbs took her three children and came to Chicago to her sisters, because her husband abused her, called her vile names, and beat her. When the husband was interviewed he agreed not to do so again, and his family returned to him.

Of course, the theory underlying even the feminist "married woman's property laws" included not only her enjoyment of rights, but her exercise of legal responsibility; but the restrained exercise of newly acquired freedom is evidence of high social and personal development.

And the women in the foreign-born groups come from the country, the village, the small town. They have had little education, their days have been filled with work, so that there has been little time for reflection, they come from a simple situation in which there was little temptation to do wrong. They find here, on the other hand, a situation which is complex in the extreme, and in which there are elements that tend to make matters especially difficult for women.

Attention has already been called to the confusion created by the lodger in the home and the special temptation to the woman to desert her husband for the lodger. The relative scarcity of women in the group, the presence of large numbers of men who cannot enter a legal marriage relations.h.i.+p because they have wives in the old country, the spiritual separation that often results from physical separation caused by the man's coming ahead to prepare a place--all these are undoubtedly factors that enter in to make difficult the wise use of her freedom. Native endowment, moral as well as physical and mental, varies among these women as among other women. Confronted with this confused and difficult situation, the change from the old sanctions, the old safeguards, even the old legal obligations, is difficult.

It is inevitable that a few will find themselves unequal to the task of readjusting their lives. The father of one family came to the Immigrant's Protective League in Chicago, asking help because his wife had turned him out of his home. He said that she drank and was immoral. Instead of caring for the home and the two-year-old child, she spent her time behind the bar in her brother's saloon, having "a good time" with the customers. She had deserted six weeks before, but he had found her and had had her in the Court of Domestic Relations, where he had been persuaded to take her back. He said she was still drinking and still neglecting the child. Shortly after asking the help of the league, the father ran away, taking with him the child whom the mother left alone in the house while she went to the "movies."

The women who a.s.sert themselves in their new rights are in a small minority. A young Polish woman complains that the women of her group are too submissive even in this country, and "bear beatings just as their mothers did in the old country." In the great majority of foreign-born families, as in all families, the question of the legal rights of the woman is never raised. The habits and att.i.tudes formed under the old system of law and customs are carried over into the life in the new country, and are changed so gradually and imperceptibly that no apparent friction is caused in the family group. Moreover, in many cases where the woman perceives her changed position she is able to make her husband see it too, and she herself is able to work her way through to a new understanding. It is interesting to note that the women of the foreign-born groups who have worked their way through are now bending their energies toward helping the women who have not yet started.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Thomas and Znaniecki, _The Polish Peasant_, vol. ii, pp. 298-455.

[2] See _Report of U. S. Immigration Commission_, vol. viii, pp.

662-664. Also _Report of Ma.s.sachusetts Immigration Commission_, 1914, pp. 64-69. Also "Studies in Chicago Housing Conditions," _American Journal of Sociology_, vol. xvi, no. 2 (September, 1910), pp. 145-170.

[3] United States Department of Labor, _Report of United States Housing Corporation_, vol. ii, p. 507.

[4] See Annual Reports of the Immigrants' Protective League, 1909-18; Ma.s.sachusetts Immigration Commission, 1914, pp. 58-64; Abbott, Grace, _The Immigrant and the Community_, pp. 55, 56, and 68 fol.

[5] _Report of the United States Housing Corporation_, vol. ii, p.

508.

[6] See John Daniels, _America via the Neighborhood_, chap. iii.

[7] See among other studies Chapin, _The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York City_ (Russell Sage Foundation Publication, 1909), p. 234; Byington, _Homestead, the Households of a Mill Town_ (Russell Sage Foundation Publication, 1910), p. 105; Kennedy and others, _Wages and Family Budgets in the Chicago Stock Yards District_ (University of Chicago Settlement, 1914), pp. 78-79; _Eighteenth Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor_; U. S.

Bureau of Labor, _Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States_, vol. xvi, "Family Budgets of Typical Cotton-mill Workers," pp. 142, 250; _Report of the U. S. Immigration Commission_, vol. xix, p. 223.

[8] _United States Bureau of Labor Monthly Review_, July, 1919, p. 48.

[9] _Ibid._, March, 1919, p. 119.

[10] "Infant Mortality, Results of a Field Study in Johnstown, Pennsylvania," U. S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 9.

[11] "Infant Mortality, A Study of Infant Mortality in a Suburban Community," U. S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 11.

[12] "Infant Mortality, Results of a Field Study in Manchester, New Hamps.h.i.+re," U. S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 20.

III

THE CARE OF THE HOUSE

The work that the housewife must do in the care of the house is the maintenance of such standards of cleanliness and order as are to prevail. It includes the daily routine tasks of bedmaking, cooking, sweeping, dusting, dishwas.h.i.+ng, disposing of waste, and the heavier work of was.h.i.+ng, ironing, and periodic cleanings.

NEW HOUSEKEEPING CONDITIONS

The foreign-born housewife finds this work particularly difficult for many reasons. In the first place, housekeeping in the country from which she came was done under such different conditions that it here becomes almost a new problem in which her experience in the old country may prove of little use. The extent to which this is true varies from group to group. To understand the problems of any particular group, careful study should be made of the living conditions and housekeeping practices in the country from which it came.

Some of the women with whom we have conferred have described housekeeping as they knew it in the old country. These descriptions are suggestive of the character of the change and the difficulties involved. Mrs. P., a Polish woman from Posen, for example, said that:

Houses in the village in which she lived were made of clay, with thatched roofs, clay floors, and about ten feet high.

They were made in rows, for four families or two families, with one outer door opening from a hall into which the doors from all the dwellings opened. Each dwelling had one small window, and a fireplace. Water was out of doors. In the four-family house there were two chimneys. The outside door did not open into the road.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOOR PLAN OF HOUSES IN POLAND]

The floors were covered with sand, and new sand was put on when the room was cleaned. The fireplace had a hook from which hung the kettle, and in one corner was the oven, a little place set off by a board covered with clay. Walls were whitewashed. Mrs. P. said that the housework is much more difficult in this country, with the cleaning of woodwork, was.h.i.+ng windows, care of curtains, carpets, and dishes, and more elaborate cooking. In the old country the family was.h.i.+ng was done only once a month, except in cases where there were small children. Then it was done weekly; and if the family lacked sufficient clothing, the was.h.i.+ng had to be done oftener. There the meal was one dish, from which the entire family ate; here there is a variety of food and each person has his own plate and eating utensils, so that even the dishwas.h.i.+ng is a greater task. In coming to this country many women do not see that the windows need was.h.i.+ng or that the woodwork should be cleaned, etc.

The beds were made of boards covered with straw, not as a straw mattress. Sheets were laid over the straw to make it softer. Each person had two pillows, very large and full, so that they sleep in a "half sitting" position. Feather beds are used for warmth, and no quilts or blankets were known in the old country.

Lithuanian women, likewise, have pointed out that at home most of the women worked in the fields, and that what housekeeping was done was of the simplest kind. The peasant house consisted of two rooms, one of which was used only on state occasions, a visit from the priest, a wedding, christening, or a funeral. In summer no one sleeps in the house, but all sleep out of doors in the hay; in winter, women with small children sleep inside, but the others sleep in the granary.

Feather beds are, in these circ.u.mstances, a real necessity. Thus the bed that is found in this country is unknown in Lithuania, and the women naturally do not know how to care for one. They not only do not realize the need of airing it, turning the mattress, and changing the bedding, but do not even know how to make it up properly.

Other processes of housekeeping--dishwas.h.i.+ng, scrubbing, and was.h.i.+ng--prove equally difficult, and it is said that most of the women do things in the hardest possible way, chiefly because the processes are different here and they lack the technique to do their work in the easier way. Naturally, too, when work in the fields has occupied most of their time, they lack also habits of order and routine in their household tasks.

The Italian women, especially those from southern Italy and Sicily, have also spoken of their difficulties in housekeeping under new conditions. In Italy the houses, even of the relatively well-to-do peasants, were two-room affairs with earthen floors and little furniture. The women had little time to give to the care of the house, and its comfort and order were not considered important.