Indoor Life by Mrs. E. A. Sevy

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1902

Indoor Life

By Mrs. E. A. Sevy

MRS. E. A. SEVY

How many sisters have ever stopped to think that “on an average the American woman spends seven eighths of her time indoors”? I am indebted to Dr. Jackson for the statement. To me it was a new, and I may say almost startling, revelation. The more thought and study I gave it, the more convinced I was that it was true. Let us make a little calculation. All night we stay in the house, whether our own or another matters not. So, then, for darkness, ten hours; for meals, one hour each, three hours; for work, visiting, or receiving visitors, eight hours; total in each day, twenty-one hours.

These figures I think will cover all classes, and are not overestimated when the average of a woman’s life is made up. Now that being the case, is it any wonder that not one woman in ten can honestly say that she is perfectly well and strong? No animal nor vegetable organization could withstand deterioration and be thus treated. How quickly we can note the difference between our house plants which have had the sunlight and those which have not. Are we not much more “fearfully and wonderfully made”?

I know the excuses which are given for this perpetual indoor confinement, and have often made them myself. The work which the laboring woman has to do in the home and for her family, is not for one hour, one day, nor one week. It is an unceasing round of toil and duties that will take up our every minute if we let it. The question has often presented itself to me, Is there no remedy? I first tried order,—“a place for everything and everything in its place.” It was a wonderful improvement, yet I still found some duty for every hour of the day. Duty, did I say? Well, duty I then thought it. Imagine the shock I received one day upon being called an idler. It was only human that I should resent it, which I immediately did, but I have since learned what idleness means. As I now understand it, it means any occupation which is trivial, ineffectual, unimportant, and unprofitable; none the less so because those engaged in it work busily, and fancy themselves usefully employed. I am certain that should every sister look into her own life with an honest purpose to sift out all that is useless and unimportant, she would be surprised to see how little there is left.

Simplicity is not only a rare ornament, but a virtue as well; and the nearer we get to it, the more Christian we become. The time spent out of doors in the open sunlight, which we have heretofore idled away, will bring us more real joy, health, and contentment, born of love for the beauty of nature and the great Creator who made it all, and it will give to the home a better wife, a nobler mother, and a far more helpful sister.