If the married life is satisfactory the daydreaming and introspection may be very pleasurable, as they usually are at the beginning of marriage.  The young bride dreams of love that does not swerve, of understanding that persists, of success, of riches to come, of children that are lovely and marvelous.  And the happy woman also finds her thoughts pleasant ones, and her castles in the air are mere enlargements of her life.

But the dissatisfied woman, the unhappy woman, finds her daydreams pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.  She is constantly coming back to reality; reality constantly obtrudes itself into her dreams.  The daydreaming is rebelled against as foolish, as puerile, as futile.  A struggle takes place in the mind; disloyal and disastrous thoughts creep in which are constantly dismissed but always reappear.  The profoundest disgust and deenergization may appear, and fatigue, aches, pains, and weariness of life often results.

One may compare interest to a tonic.  How often does one see a little group, who for the time being are not interesting to one another, sit sleepy, tired, bored, yawning, restless.  Then a new person enters, a person of importance or of interest.  The fatigue disappears like magic, and all are bright, energetic, sparkling.  The basis of club life is the monotony of the home; man uses the saloon, the clubroom, the pool room, the street corner, the lodge meeting, as an escape from the unstimulating atmosphere of wife and family,—­the hearth.  But for the housewife there is usually no escape, though she needs it more than her husband does.

Furthermore the non-domestic type, the woman with especial ability, the woman who has been courted, petted, and sought for before marriage is the one who reacts most to the monotony of the home.  There are plenty of women who consider the home a refuge from a world they find more strenuous, more fatiguing than they can stand, or who find in housework a consecration to their ordained duty.  Which type is the better woman depends upon the point of view, but it is safe to say that feminism and the industrial world are making it harder and harder for an increasing number of women to settle down to home-keeping.

The housewife is par excellence a sedentary creature.  She goes to work when she gets up in the morning, within doors.  She goes to bed at night, very frequently without having stirred from the home.  A great many women, especially those who have no help and have children, find it next to impossible to get out of doors except for such incidental matters as hanging out the clothes or going to the grocery.

It is true that some women so situated get out each day.  But they are possessed either of greater energy or skill or else own a less urgent conscience.  At least for many women it gets to be a habit to stay in.  If there is a moment of leisure, a chair or a couch, and a book or paper, seem the logical way of resting up.