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WEST-END HOUSEKEEPERS. 251
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
• The Lively Discussion Excited By A Cer...
however , that it is complaisance when applied in this general manner .
I _ani sorry to say that the dictionaries appear to nie to be quite ruthless , critically stern , and uncompromising . I am neither
highborn , nor married to a highborn lord , nor eminent , nor illustrious ; and as da I y seem light to that have culture no chance and breeding of the coveted even supposing title , to which 1 that I t is ossess clear
themafford no claim in the lexicon . , Let us now turn to the p letters which , have appeared in answer to the " West-end Housekeeper . "
The first , signed " a North Country Matron / ' draws a slight distinctionwhich we consider untenablebetween a lady and a ge ?
itle-, , _woman _, but goes on to treat merely of _tlie practical difficulty of getting servants . The secondletter , signed '' S . A ., " expresses vivid indignation
at the language used—such as " let them starve" and " unfit to live " —and insists on the fallacy of the argument that " artists and other
workers for money , high or low , " are all equal . " S . A . " continues , " The definitions of a ' real lady' given by your correspondent
differs from that generally acknowledged in this enlightened age , and widely from mine . When a woman has received a good
education in heart as well as head , is respectably connected , and is obliged to perform no menial woik , she is , in my opinion , a lady , and she
still retains this character , even though she suddenly loses her position and "be brought to poverty . "
Remark that the not being obliged to perform menial wor / c is here regarded as the test of a definition intended to be extremely liberal
and Christian ; and it is one in which a vast majority of educated women would agree , almost without thought . So completely has the
habit of household handicraft been lost in the middle and upper classes of Englandthat it is quite unconsciously called " menial . "
To the letters of , which " S . A . " is the strongest example , we must _= add plenty of private conversation , of which , however , the bearing
has simply been to accuse the " West-end Housekeeper" of being " outrageous , " without any close definition of in what the _oiitrage
consisted ; and it has shown us how many tender susceptibilities cluster round the word " lady" and the public and private
estimation of woman ' s work , and how necessary it is to find some definite ground of self-respect upon which the worker may stand .
Let us , then , begin by honestly recognising that the words " lady " and " gentlewoman" in their original derivationand habitual use
throughout Europe , , ( every language possessing , its equivalents , ) were assuredly conventional terms—terms agreed upon by common
consent as expressing a fixed rank ;—the lord and his retainers , — the lady and her serving women;—the gentlewoman and her
maid;such are composite sentences found at every turn of medieval history and romance . To the one belonged the privilege of going
mad in white satin ; the other was obliged to be content with white linen as a drapery for excited nerves . In these days it was not
exactly " menial labor " which drew the line . Lucrece spun amidst
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West-End Housekeepers. 251
WEST-END HOUSEKEEPERS . 251
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1861, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121861/page/35/
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