Malkiel on the risible wages of a ‘trad wife.’

‘The Lowest Paid Worker’ by Theresa S. Malkiel from St. Louis Labor. Vol. 6 No. 411. December 19, 1908.

In the general exploitation of the wage earner, we now and then hear a voice raised, like a cry from the desert, against some case of flagrant outrage. People have protested against the starving wage of the sales girl, the white goods maker, the necktie worker and more often against the degrading work and wage of the servant girl. But never before has a voice been raised in favor of the lowest paid worker, the average housewife. She works the longest hours and gets the least remuneration. The average toiler’s work is done when the sun is down, but the housewife’s work is never done. The greatest injustice towards her, however, lies in the fact that not only is she not compensated for her work, but, on the contrary, is considered a burden on the shoulders of poor man, who has to support her.

In spite of the fact that she is the real maintainer of the race, our great economists have proclaimed her labor non-productive, just because it never had a market value. They say: “Oh, she is supported by a man.” People claim that the average girl does not bother about improving her lot, because she expects to find a man who will support her. If we would only take the trouble to look deeper into the question, these assertions would refute themselves.

It is true that the man has to bring home enough money to maintain the rest of the family, but this does not mean that he supports the woman, who often does a greater amount of work than he himself, any more than the employer, who gave him the money to bring home, supports him.

The man who is himself nothing but a wage slave, loses sight of this fact, and no sooner does he come home than he becomes monarch of his small domain. He hands out the miserable pittance to his wife, as if he was conferring the greatest favor upon her, very often reminding her how hard he has to slave for her, while she stays at home and receives the ready-earned money. So long and so persistently has he assumed the air of benefactor that she herself has come to consider him in that light.

The best that can be had for the little money in her possession is always reserved for him, while the children come next and she herself last of all, with the result that she often goes without proper food, and still oftener without a necessary addition to her scanty wardrobe.

Should she dare to complain of her bitter lot, she would inevitably hear the rebuke: “Don’t I slave all my life for you?” Does he slave for her?

Two individuals, both as a rule of age, agree to throw their lot together. In order to exist, a person must earn sufficient amount with which to procure food, clothing, a roof over his head, so forth. If he wants to increase the human race he must consequently try to procure enough for those to come. This is equally true of man and woman.

Upon coming together the two realize that in order to make their lot more tolerable they must agree upon a division of labor; that is, as a rule, the man goes out into the mill, factory, business or profession, and procures through his labor a certain amount of cash. Now if he were to take that money and pay for lodging, food for himself and his children and buy ready-made clothing he could hardly make both ends meet. But under their agreement the woman stays at home, buys the raw materials and turns them into eatables for a much smaller sum than the same amount of food can be procured for in a restaurant; washes the clothes and saves the laundry bills; patches, mends and sews, thus saving the expense of buying new things.

Her share of contribution towards the children, who are their common property, is greater than his: He spends his time in earning enough money for their maintenance, while she has the responsibility of bringing them up physically and morally. While the man goes through life conscious of his strength as a breadwinner and master of his family, the woman as a rule plods through this weary world humiliated in the thought that she has to look up to someone for support, and for that reason continually travels the path of self-denial. The saying: “The wages of sin is death,” could with a slight variation be applied to her: “The wages of the house drudge is death.” The man toils six days in the week, on the seventh he dresses up in his best, and goes forth to enjoy his holiday; one by filling” himself with drink, others in different ways and forms.

The woman has toiled the week through even harder than the man. When he only turned over for a final nap, she was already up preparing his breakfast; at night when he was fast asleep, she still sat plying the needle or finishing up the week’s ironing. Now on the seventh day when he enjoys his Sabbath, she has to work harder than ever; there is the Sunday dinner to be prepared, it is the only day the man has his noonday meal at home, and he wants it as elaborate as their small means will allow. The children have to be washed and dressed, so as not to look worse than the neighbors’, the house is to be tidied, that the husband may not be ashamed before his friends. In short, by the time she is through, night sets in and she is glad to lay her weary head to rest, so as to be ready for the next day’s washing.

This is the life the house drudge lives for seven days in the week, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and all the years of her natural life. She never knows what slack or rest means, she never sees anything accomplished; as soon as the meal is ready it is consumed, and she has to go on preparing another; before she gets through cleaning one part of the house the other is ready to be cleaned over again; the finish of one wash means the beginning of another. So she goes on through life without a ray of sunshine, without human sympathy. Her own children come to look upon her as a beast of burden.

You can see her on any morning in the meat markets or grocery. Look at her bent figure, emaciated hands with large, protruding veins; at the look of a hunted animal in her eyes and the tale will tell itself. Her equal is not to be found, she is the lowest on the ladder of exploitation.

A long-running socialist paper begun in 1901 as the Missouri Socialist published by the Labor Publishing Company, this was the paper of the Social Democratic Party of St. Louis and the region’s labor movement. The paper became St. Louis Labor, and the official record of the St. Louis Socialist Party, then simply Labor, running until 1925. The SP in St. Louis was particularly strong, with the socialist and working class radical tradition in the city dating to before the Civil War. The paper holds a wealth of information on the St Louis workers movement, particularly its German working class.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/missouri-socialist/081219-stlouislabor-v06n411.pdf