I take the principle of domesticity: the ideal house, the happy family, the holy family of history. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that it is like the church and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfill it. Numberless modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory because they have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor are driven to the workhouse without ever having known the house. Generally speaking, the cultured class is shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as the working class is shouting to be let into it. Thus says G.K. Chesterton in What’s wrong with the world: On the Madness of Modern Ideals
What an excellent quote! Why are women fleeing the home? Why, why, why??
Well, quite simply, we have been programmed to. As I discussed here, women have been indoctrinated from the cradle with the ‘necessity’ of getting a job and making something of themselves. According to this article at Forbes, more women are now working than men. This situation is nothing more than deplorable.
Women were indeed made to ‘make something’, but not so much of or for themselves. We have an innate desire to cultivate and engender goodness, beauty and truth in others. It is our special power given to us by God and written in the very fiber of our beings. One of the best and easiest ways to do this is through our home. The home is the safe refuge for our family.
We all want a home. But are we creating a home to come to?
A home isn’t just a dwelling with four walls and a roof that we stagger back to after a long day at the office rat races. It is a place that forms us and gives us our identity. It is a place that provides us with culture and heritage. It is a place that gives us peace and draws us back to its safe embrace even when we are a world away. This is not an atmosphere that can be created by merely living in a house. A house needs to become a home. This is done not only by the family living within its walls, but by their prayer life. Even by the cleanliness of the home and its décor.
The most vital part needed in the transfiguration from house to home is the woman, wife and mother. She is the heart and lifeblood of the home and the family. It is she who encourages her husband in his day to day struggle with the drudgeries of work and the toil of providing for the family. It is she who nurtures and teaches the children. It is she who decides what theme and feel the house should have with the colors of the paint on the walls and the types of furniture and décor held within its sanctuary. It is she who is careful to provide beauty in her bearing, in her teaching, in her spirituality, her comfort and in the ambience of the home.
A woman cannot give her full attention to this august and paramount endeavor if she is constantly dragged outside the castle of her home. As women, we owe it to ourselves and to our families to cut the bonds the modern world has placed upon our minds and bodies and devote ourselves to creating a true home.
If you are looking for tips on how to achieve this, these two books could be very beneficial for you: Theology of Home Finding the Eternal in the Everyday and Theology of Home II the Spiritual Art of Homemaking by Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering. Great works and much needed in our time. There is a theology to homemaking and we modern women would do well to wake and realize the truth of this and endeavor to learn how to live this theology for our families.
Sanity and Sanctity 