Private Families

Private Families

Their children, however, who are American born and enjoy better educational advantages, do not follow in their footsteps when the time comes for them to earn their living. They become stenographers, typewriters, dressmakers, milliners, shirt waist makers, cash-girls, saleswomen, etc.; in fact any occupation where work is limited to a fixed number of hours a day and confined to six days a week, is considered more desirable than housework. The result is that the housewife is compelled to take for her employees only those who are rejected by every other employer; the capable, independent, intelligent American woman is hardly ever seen in domestic service.

In Washington, D.C., a law (the La Follette Eight Hour Law for Women in the District of Columbia) was recently passed limiting to eight hours a day and six days a week practically all work in which women are industrially employed; "hotel servants" are included under the provisions of this law, but "domestic servants in private homes" are expressly excluded.

If this new law be considered a just and humane measure for women who are business employees, and if business houses be compelled to observe it, one naturally wonders why it should not prove to be an equally just and humane law for women who work in private families, and why should not the home be compelled to observe it too? Instead of being a barrier to progress, the home ought to cooeperate with the state in the enforcement of laws for the amelioration of the condition of working women. The home, being presided over by a woman, presumably of some education and intelligence, should be a most fitting place in which to apply a law designed to protect women against excessive hours of labor.

Why should housework in private homes be an exception to all other work? Is it because some housewives say, in self justification and frequently without an accurate knowledge of what it is to do housework week after week without one day's release, that housework is easier than other work? Is it easier? Is it not sometimes harder? However, it is not a question of housework being harder or easier than other work, but of the desirability of having it limited to eight hours a day and six days a week. Why should the housewife be allowed to remain in such a state of apathy in regard to the physical welfare of her household employees?

"Six days shalt thou labor" has all the sanction of scripture, of morals, and of common experience. It is only fair that women who work in private families should have one day out of seven as a day of rest, even as their more fortunate sisters in the business world. If by adopting such a law in the home the housewife found that her work was performed far more efficiently and willingly than at present, would it not be as much to her advantage as to the advantage of those she employs to limit the hours of household labor to six days a week? Many housewives may object to this proposition inasmuch as the work in a home can not be suspended even for a day. But when two or more employees work in a private home, it is very easy to plan the housework so that each employee may have a different day of the week as a "day of rest," without the comfort of the family being disturbed by the temporary absence of one of the employees. It is only in families where one employee is kept that it may make a very serious difference to the housewife when her "maid-of-all-work" is away for one entire day each week. Nevertheless the comfort of an employer ought not to outweigh justice to an employee.