has most power in this direction; but in ninety-nine cases in a hundred he has taken his place and his work outside. In the one hundredth case, where some artist, author, or clergyman has to do his work at home – what is his opinion then of the privacy of that sacred place?
The artist flees to a studio apart, if possible; the author builds him a "den" in his garden, if he can afford it; the clergyman strives mightily to keep "the study" to himself, but even so the family, used to herding, finds it hard to respect anybody's privacy, and resents it.
The mother – poor invaded soul – finds even the bathroom door no bar to hammering little hands. From parlour to kitchen, from cellar to garret, she is at the mercy of children, servants, tradesmen, and callers. So chased and trodden is she that the very idea of privacy is lost to her mind; she never had any, she doesn't know what it is, and she cannot understand why her husband should wish to have any "reserves," any place or time, any thought or feeling, with which she may not make free.
The children, if possible, have less even than the mother. Under the close, hot focus of loving eyes, every act magnified out of all natural proportion by the close range, the child soul begins to grow. Noticed, studied, commented on, and incessantly interfered with; forced into miserable self-consciousness by this unremitting glare; our little ones grow up permanently injured in character by this lack of one of humanity's most precious rights – privacy.
The usual result, and perhaps the healthiest, is that bickering which is so distinctive a feature of family life. The effect varies. Sore from too much rubbing, there is a state of chronic irritability in the more sensitive; callous from too much rubbing there is a state of chronic indifference in the more hardy; and indignities are possible, yes, common, in family life which would shock and break the bonds of friendship or of love, and which would be simply inconceivable among polite acquaintances.
Another result, pleasanter to look at, but deeply injurious to the soul, is the affectionate dominance of the strongest member of the family; the more or less complete subservience of the others. Here is peace at least; but here lives are warped and stunted forever by the too constant pressure, close and heavy, surrounding them from infancy.
The home, as we know it, does not furnish privacy to the individual, rich or poor. With the poor there is such crowding as renders it impossible; and with the rich there is another factor so absolutely prohibitive of privacy that the phrase becomes a laughing-stock.
Private? – a place private where we admit to the most intimate personal association an absolute stranger; or more than one? Strangers by birth, by class, by race, by education – as utterly alien as it is possible to conceive – these we introduce in our homes – in our very bedchambers; in knowledge of all the daily habits of our lives – and then we talk of privacy! Moreover, these persons can talk. As they are not encouraged to talk to us, they talk the more among themselves; talk fluently, freely, in reaction from the enforced repression of "their place," and, with perhaps a tinge of natural bitterness, revenging small slights by large comment. With servants living in our homes by day and night, confronted with our strange customs and new ideas, having our family affairs always before them, and having nothing else in their occupation to offset this interest, we find in this arrangement of life a condition as far removed from privacy as could be imagined.
Consider it further: The average servant is an ignorant young woman. Ignorant young women are proverbially curious, or old ones. This is not because of their being women, but because of their being ignorant. A well-cultivated mind has matter of its own to contemplate, and mental processes of absorbing interest. An uncultivated mind is comparatively empty and prone to unguarded gossip; its processes are crude and weak, the main faculty being an absorbing appetite for events – the raw material for the thoughts it cannot think. Hence the fondness of the servant class for "penny dreadfuls" – its preferred food is highly seasoned incident of a wholly personal nature. This is the kind of mind to which we offer the close and constant inspection of our family life. This is the kind of tongue which pours forth description and comment in a subdomiciliary stream. This is the always-open avenue of information for lover and enemy, spy and priest, as all history and literature exhibit; and to-day for the reporter – worse than all four.
In simple communities the women of the household, but little above the grade of servant in mind, freely gossip with their maids. In those more sophisticated we see less of this free current of exchange, but it is there none the less, between maid and maid, illimitable. Does not this prove that our ideas of privacy are somewhat crude – and that they are kept crude – must remain crude so long as the home is thus vulgarly invaded by low-class strangers? May we not hope for some development of home life by which we may outgrow forever these coarse old customs, and learn a true refinement which keeps inviolate the privacy of both soul and body in the home?
One other, yes, two other avenues of publicity are open upon this supposed seclusion. We have seen that the privacy of the mother is at the mercy of four sets of invaders: children, servants, tradesmen, and callers. The tradesmen, in a city flat, are kept at a pleasing distance by the dumb-waiter and speaking tube; and, among rich households everywhere, the telephone is a defence. But, even at such long range, the stillness and peace of the home, the chance to do quiet continued work of any sort, are at the mercy of jarring electric bell or piercing whistle. One of the joys of the country vacation is the escape from just these things; the constant calls on time and attention, the interruption of whatever one seeks to do, by these mercantile demands against which the home offers no protection.
In less favoured situations, in the great majority of comfortable homes, the invader gets far closer. "The lady of the house" is demanded, and must come forth. The front door opens, the back door yawns, the maid pursues her with the calls of tradesmen, regular and irregular; from the daily butcher to the unescapable agent with a visiting card. Of course we resist this as best we may with a bulwark of trained servants. That is one of the main uses of servants – to offer some protection to the inmates of this so private place, the home!
Then comes the fourth class – callers. A whole series of revelations as to privacy comes here; a list so long and deep as to tempt a whole new chapter on that one theme. Here it can be but touched on, just a mention of the most salient points.
First there is the bulwark aforesaid, the servant, trained to protect a place called private from the entrance of a class of persons privileged to come in. To hold up the hands of the servant comes the lie; the common social lie, so palpable that it has no moral value to most of us – "Not at home!"
The home is private. Therefore, to be in private, you must claim to be out of it!
Back of this comes a whole series of intrenchments – the reception room, to delay the attack while the occupant hastily assumes defensive armour; the parlour or drawing room, wherein we may hold the enemy in play, cover the retreat of non-combatants, and keep some inner chambers still reserved; the armour above mentioned – costume and manner, not for the home and its inmates, but meant to keep the observer from forming an opinion as to the real home life; and then all the weapons crudely described in rural regions as "company manners," our whole system of defence and attack; by which we strive, and strive ever in vain, to maintain our filmy fiction of the privacy of the home.
The sanctity of the home is another dominant domestic myth. That we should revere the processes of nature as being the laws of God is good; a healthy attitude of mind. But why revere some more than others, and the lower more than the higher?
The home, as our oldest institution, is necessarily our lowest, it came first, before we were equal to any higher manifestation. The home processes are those which maintain the individual in health and comfort, or are intended to; and those which reproduce the individual. These are vital processes, healthy, natural, indispensable, but why sacred? To eat, to sleep, to breathe, to dress, to rest and amuse one's self – these are good and useful deeds; but are they more hallowed than others?
Then the shocked home-worshipper protests that it is not these physical and personal functions which he holds in reverence, but "the sacred duties of maternity," and "all those precious emotions which centre in the home."
Let us examine this view; but, first let us examine the sense of sanctity itself – see what part it holds in our psychology. In the first dawn of these emotions of reverence and sanctity,