Victorian Family, People and Relationships/The Managing Housewife

Transcript from original newspaper article: -

“Around her knees domestic virtues meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.”

The man who has the good fortune to select a good prudent managing woman for his wife has great cause to rejoice. Many sore troubles will be warded off by her careful foresight, her excellent judgment. She is better than riches, for she brings happiness with her. She does everything well, and knows exactly what is wanted in her household. She either does her work herself, or looks closely after those to whom she entrusts it. She is an unfailing housekeeper, and is never better pleased than when engaged in some domestic duty. She is not ashamed that people should know she soils her hands in providing for the comfort of her husband and children. But she would be ashamed of idlement and abashed if her family were left to shift for themselves.

She has the faculty of making the best of every thing. If poverty pinches, the managing woman soon finds some contrivance for easing the smart. She conceals the dark part of the cloud, and reveals only the silver lining. Her rooms are so arranged that the patches, and the rents (carefully sewn together and the marks of indigence, shall be hidden from the curious eye. She turns her linen outside in and inside out, until every part of it is worn away. She throws away nothing until all the use and wear have been got out of it that ingenuity can devise. She keeps house so cheaply that even single young men live in a costly manner by comparison. Not all the money in the world, in the hands of a bad manager could make home so happy as a little in the hands of the woman who is sagacious, thrifty, and judicious. She finds time for everything she has to do, and a place for everything in her possession. She is self-reliant, shrewd in observation, discerning in estimating character. She seldom fails in anything she undertakes, simply because she goes about it in the right way.

The managing woman is apt to be a little sharp with dull people, for anything in the nature of stupidity seems unnatural to her. She has no sympathy with it. Her daughters, if she have any are…. good managers like herself. These girls…. a discount in the matrimonial market. They are sought after, and men of judgement know how to prize and value them. Her influence is always acting, even when she is not personally doing. Happiness seems to spring up in her pathway – her example is precious to all who approach her, and the love and reverence with which she is regarded no pen can describe. Her discipline may be strict, but is it salutary, and the children are the better for it. She has learnt the art which few of us know how to practice – the art of guiding rightly, and yet giving pleasure. Even-tempered, methodical; firm, yet pleasant; grave, yet cheerful; busy, yet graceful, of her the wise man truly says “strength and honour are her clothing.”

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