hardships. Its hardships?
Yes, it _is_ its hardships that account for its peculiar unpopularity.
For there are hardships connected with domestic service in small
households that do not apply to other forms of much harder labour.

Everyone who is familiar with the small lower middle-class household
knows how often the life of the little "general" resembles that of an
animal rather than a human being. All day long she drudges in a
muddling, inefficient way, continually scolded for her inefficiency
yet never really taught how to do anything properly. Her work is never
done, for she is always at the beck and call of her employers; yet
she lives apart in social isolation, is referred to contemptuously as
the "slavey," and even her food is dispensed to her grudgingly and
minus the special dainties bought for Sundays and holidays. This is
domestic service at its worst, of course, but the prevalence of such
"places" in actual fact is undoubtedly at the root of the young girl's
objection to it. How can she help gleaning the impression that such
work is "menial," when her employers more or less openly despise her?
Being human, how can she but envy those of her old friends who have
their evenings to themselves? What contentment can she find in a life
of drudgery unenlightened by intelligent interest in learning how to
do something well? What wonder that all her hopes and ambitions become
centred in the possession of a "young man," and that reason--stunted
from its birth for lack of room to grow--being entirely absent from
her choice, she marries badly and too young, and becomes the mother of
a numerous progeny as helpless, hopeless, stunted and inefficient as
herself?

Some conscientious women try to remedy this state of things by
treating the girls they take into their homes as "one of the family."
This _may_ answer well sometimes, but it has its drawbacks, both for
the girl and the "family." Husband and wife, brother and sister,
inevitably find the constant presence of a stranger with whom they
have little in common very irksome. While the girl herself is equally
conscious of restraint when forced to spend her leisure time with her
employers. She would usually infinitely prefer the solitude of the
kitchen, if combined with a good fire, a comfortable chair and a story
book.

Among the girls I have spoken to on the subject I have not found
"socialist" households popular. One girl I met refused to stay in such
a place for longe