“If you loved me,” says she, “you would see things a little more my way.”

“If you loved me,” says he, “you would not act to worry me so.”

Here in the year 1920, the high cost of living is becoming the strain of life.  Capital and Labor are at each other’s throats; men cry “profiteer” at those whom good fortune and callous conscience have allowed to take advantage of the world crisis.  The air is filled with the whispers that a crash is coming, though the theaters are crowded, the automobile manufacturers are burdened with orders, and the shops brazenly display the most gorgeous and extravagant gowns.  That the marital happiness of the country is threatened by this I do not see recorded in any of the discussions on the subject.  Yet this phase of the high cost of living is perhaps its most important result.

The housewife’s money difficulties are not confined to the question of expenditure.  For there is a factor not consciously put forward but evident upon a little probing.

If a woman remains poor, either actually or relatively, she always knows some man with whom she was familiar in her youth who became rich, or she has a woman friend whose husband has become successful.  A subtle sort of regret for her marriage may and does arise in many a woman, a subtle disrespect for her husband because of his failure.  The husband becomes aware of her decreased admiration, and he is hurt in his tenderest place, his pride.  One of the worst cases of neurasthenia I have seen in a housewife arose in such a woman, who struggled between loyalty and contempt until exhausted.  For she came of a successful family, she had married against their counsel and her husband, though good, was an entire failure financially.  Measuring men by their success, she found her lowered position almost unendurable but was too proud to acknowledge her error.  Out of this division in feelings came a complete deenergization.

Whether or not such a housewife deserves any sympathy in her trouble, it is certain she presents a problem to every one connected with her.

While money and expenditure afford a fertile field from which nervousness arises, there are others of importance.

Disagreement and disunion, conflict, arise over the training and care of the children.  Here the different reactions of a man and woman—­e.g. to a boy’s pranks—­causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace of the family.  Usually the American father believes his wife is too fussy about his son’s manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he is quite pleased when his son develops into a “regular” boy,—­tough, mischievous, and aggressive.  But sometimes it is the overstern father who arouses the mother’s concern for the child.  If a frank quarrel results, no definite neurotic symptoms follow.  It is when the woman fears to side against the husband and watches the discipline with vexation and inner agony that she lowers her energy in the way repeatedly described.