Was It Not Better So? by Hannah Homebody

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 30.

Was It Not Better So?

By Hannah Homebody

How is this for a case of domestic tyranny? A lady recently told me that one evening, shortly after her marriage, she was engaged with her fancy-work, and her husband was reading Shakespeare to her—subject to occasional interruptions, first from the servant girl, who asked to go out, then from a sudden recollection that the codfish for breakfast had not been put soaking, then from the necessity of winding a new skein of worsted—when her husband laid down his book and seriously addressed her in this wise: “My dear, I am going to make a rule, and I hope you will be good enough to take it kindly. I am going to decree that you shall do nothing whatever about the household or about anything else from six o’clock every evening till after breakfast the next day; I want you to give the evenings to me and to our mutual recreation. When I look up from my reading I want to see your face answering me, and not scowling over a dropped stitch. I hope you will never touch another piece of work after tea.”

“Not fancy-work?” gasped the young wife. “No, not fancy work. When I propose a little music, or a game of chess or backgammon, I don’t choose to wait till you have knit out a needle; and when I bring my friends in for an evening, I wish to see my wife free to talk with them, or ready for any recreation that may be proposed. The servants must come to you for their orders before six o’clock—they will soon learn to do so—and if you forget anything, you are not to order it in the evening; we will go without it. I am not going to have you thinking of these matters in the evening. Your mind is to be free for at least twelve hours of the twenty-four, and mine too.”

My friend told me she felt the regulation a very hard one, and, what was worse, she was inclined to question its wisdom. She had been brought up to believe that a woman’s hands should never be idle, however it might be with her brain and her tongue, and she remembered that the candle of Solomon’s virtuous woman went not out by night. But she knew her husband well enough to know that he would not make a rule unless he meant to have it kept, and, being a conscientious wife, she set about keeping this in letter and in spirit. There were times, she said, after the babies came, when it was absolutely necessary to do some work in the evenings, but at such times she always went to her husband, if he were at home, and asked his permission. It was granted, but always so reluctantly that she felt more unwilling than ever to disregard the edict, and now, after twenty years of married life, it is still in force.

How has it worked? Well—even the victim confesses that on the whole it has been a success. She has not so many crazy-quilts and afghans as some women, but she has some things worth having. She has hosts of friends, among them a number of young men who will stay away from the minstrels any time for an evening of music and games at her house; she has five sons and two daughters, who think that mamma is the best company in the world; she has a husband who is as proud of her as he was when she was a bride. And I declare, if you were to see this man at home some evening, laughing and talking with his wife and children, or reading to them, you would never suspect him of being a tyrant.—Hannah Homebody.