SERVICE AND SELF-SACRIFICE

The lessons of domesticity and womanhood were learned firstly at home, thereafter in the schoolroom, and then reaffirmed in the wider community. The daughters of rich and poor alike received lessons in femininity from their mothers, nannies or nurses and then their governesses, nuns or elementary school mistresses.

Girls first learned the lessons of womanhood at their mother’s side. ‘Your daughter, for some time, will be part of yourself’, wrote one Russian mother to her own daughter in 1804 on the occasion of the birth of a granddaughter. ‘Now she drinks your milk, soon she will begin to form herself according to your precepts, ideas and convictions. For a long time you will be her only soul, support, and finally her guide in the world... Your daughter is your property. She is the work of your hands.'²⁴ In northern France, the daughters of the bourgeoisie accompanied their mothers on charitable visits, they engaged in domestic tasks, they attended religious rituals and learned to ‘mother' their younger siblings.²⁵ Within the British upper classes, daughters were often mothered by a host of female staff: wet nurses, nannies, nursery governesses and teachers. The nine Potter sisters (including Beatrice who was to marry Sidney Webb) were evidently close to Martha, the head servant, who was called Dada by the children. She was clearly more important than their mother according to Mary Potter:

Dear, dear old Dada, what a good woman she has been all of her life and what a bless­ing to others! How much we owe her!... we could always depend on her sense and kindness.

As they grew older, English girls were taught a series of elaborate and complex rituals consisting of afternoon calls, at-home days when visitors were received, the organisation of bazaars and charity events, and maybe the visiting of the poor. All of these activities were seen as social duties which women acted out in order both to confirm the social position of the family and the feminine role of the women of the family.²⁷ Early on in their lives, girls learned that the home was a female space. One popular German advice book taught that

Nature creates the maiden for the home and family, all talents of the spirit and the heart point to that; if she is not allowed to be untrue to her vocation she will not fail in her purpose in life... whatever class she may belong to, she must early on learn to be busy about her tasks and to learn basic household management, then her education will be complete.²⁸

It was a mother's obligation to provide her daughters with a good example of dutiful behaviour. Lily Braun (1865—1916), who later became a prominent German socialist and feminist, recalled: ‘Everything that Mama did, when she had a really unhappy look on her face, she explained as the fulfilment of duty'.²⁹ By the end of the nineteenth century, homemaking had become a female role: ‘a man can no more make a home than a drone can make a hive', remarked the English feminist Francis Power Cobbe (1822—1904).³⁰ With the disappearance of the patriarchal father-figure, at least amongst the middle classes, women became the focal point of home life. They were not only housekeepers but homemakers too; they became the symbol of homeliness. ‘Whether she sits in her corner, smiling generally or walks from house to house spreading warmth, she is always at home, radiating cosiness', wrote one Swedish architect.³¹

For working-class daughters domesticity meant physical labour; clean­ing, polishing, washing and looking after younger siblings were all learned at mother's side.

From the moment I was capable of wielding a duster I was given regular weekly jobs to do, such as polishing all the brass door handles throughout the flat with Bluebell Metal Polish, cleaning all the family's boots and shoes... I also had to shop for the groceries, do the washing-up, and peel all the vegetables (and for a family of five that was quite a lot of spud-bashing for one small girl). Worst of all, I was given all the family's mending to do — a most tedious and boring job.³⁴

Anna Meier, recalling her childhood in Austria around 1900, wrote how, when other children were playing outside, ‘I would watch them with envy from the window until my mother would slap me to remind me that I had to work to do.'³⁵ For Anna, school was a welcome respite from work at home. It was common to keep girls out of school more frequently than boys in order that they might help their mothers with laundry day or step in as a substitute when mother was sick. As a result, ‘practical-minded, careworn, vigilant girls' were ubiquitous on the streets of urban centres.³⁶ These ‘little mothers' faced only half-hearted attempts by education officials to enforce their school attendance, in the belief that girls were justifiably needed at home and that school was less useful for those whose future was domestic.

Daughters saw their mothers as paragons of self-denial, ensuring ‘bread­winners' received a good meal at the expense of other family members, main­taining the semblance of a well-run and thrifty household by adopting secretive strategies — using pawnbrokers and money lenders for instance — known only to themselves and revealed only to husbands by accident.³⁷ The unequal distribution of resources in the home was frequently the woman's doing.

In farming communities, children were similarly expected to help with the day-to-day tasks about the house and farm. On Scottish crofts, certain tasks were designated as children's work, such as stacking the peats, planting potatoes or helping in the dairy, jobs which were not especially gendered. However, as girls grew older their work tended to centre more on the house­hold or was largely restricted to ‘female' jobs such as berry-picking.⁴⁰ In the agricultural regions of lowland Scotland, girls were more explicitly confined to what was called ‘inside work' which included housework and jobs in the dairy. Rural French girls soon learned how to manage a household while their brothers were out in the fields wielding heavy tools. Girls understood that certain tasks were defined as women's work, an observation that was brought home to them even more starkly in the urban setting. Although a significant proportion of married women did undertake paid work, a daughter would quickly learn that her mother's role was centred on the home and her duty was to serve her husband's needs. Employment outside the home did not, of course, grant married women the privileges enjoyed by their menfolk — a dinner waiting, leisure time, pocket money; these women bore a double burden of paid work and housework which meant they were continually toiling.