(family life of the future, be it understood). They
prefer isolated apartments, Anglo-Saxons even going as far as to prefer
houses of from six to eight rooms, in which the family, or an
agglomeration of friends, can live apart. Sometimes a phalanstery is a
necessity, but it would be hateful, were it the general rule. Isolation,
alternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human
nature. This is why one of the greatest tortures in prison is the
impossibility of isolation, much as solitary confinement becomes torture
in its turn, when not alternated with hours of social life.

As to considerations of economy, which are sometimes laid stress on in
favour of phalansteries, they are those of a petty tradesman. The most
important economy, the only reasonable one, is to make life pleasant for
all, because the man who is satisfied with his life produces infinitely
more than the man who curses his surroundings.[8]

Other Socialists reject the phalanstery. But when you ask them how
domestic work can be organized, they answer: "Each can do 'his own
work.' My wife manages the house; the wives of bourgeois will do as
much." And if it is a bourgeois playing at Socialism who speaks, he will
add, with a gracious smile to his wife: "Is it not true, darling, that
you would do without a servant in the Socialist society? You would work
like the wife of our good comrade Paul or the wife of John the
carpenter?"

Servant or wife, man always reckons on woman to do the house-work.

But woman, too, at last claims her share in the emancipation of
humanity. She no longer wants to be the beast of burden of the house.
She considers it sufficient work to give many years of her life to the
rearing of her children. She no longer wants to be the cook, the mender,
the sweeper of the house! And, owing to American women taking the lead
in obtaining their claims, there is a general complaint of the dearth of
women who will condescend to domestic work in the United States. My lady
prefers art, politics, literature, or the gaming tables; as to the
work-girls, they are few, those who consent to submit to apron-slavery,
and servants are only found with difficulty in the States. Consequently,
the solution, a very simple one, is pointed out by life itself.
Machinery undertakes three-quarters of the household cares.

You black your boots, and you know how ridiculous this work is. What can
be more stupid than rubbing a boot twenty or thirty ti