Domestic Studies in the Year 2000 A.D.

Introduction

Lawyer and writer Edmund Sidney Pollock Haynes is not known for his fiction, but rather for his essays on democracy, equal pay between sexes, and divorce law. He practiced law at his father’s solicitors’ practice for 48 years after studying at Balliol College at Oxford. He also actively campaigned for the Divorce Law Reform Union, drafting reform bills to expedite the divorce process (Cretney 1). While “Domestic Studies in the Year 2000 AD” may be his only piece of fiction, it falls in line with his ideology.

“This short story appears in the progressive feminist journal The New Freewoman. It’s featured in two consecutive issues: six (September 1, 1913) and seven (September 15, 1913). The New Freewoman appeared as a successor to The Freewoman—both magazines that promoted the advancement of women, taking progressive stances on equality and feminism. While The New Freewoman was less radical than its predecessor, the main bulk of its issues focus on equality. In its first issue, editor Dora Marsden writes the periodical is “not for the advancement of Women, but for the empowering of individual, men and women… Editorially, it will endeavor to lay bare the individual basis of all that is most significant in modern movements including feminism” (Marsden 25).

“Domestic Studies in the Year 2000 AD” adopts a dystopian view toward the future. Looking ahead 87 years, Haynes presents two scenarios depicting average life in the year 2000. Both tackle decidedly controversial topics for the early twentieth century: individual freedom and gender roles. Part one of the story follows the conversation between a son and his father, Mr. Wobble, that has been denied further medical assistance by the government. The conversation is nostalgic as the father laments the anarchy established 100 years prior, which adopted the “Euthanasia Act of 1940” to eliminate criminals, the ill, and the elderly (117). Yet Mr. Wobble accepts his fate—death by euthanasia is ordinary in the year 2000. Haynes critiques the extent of the government’s control over individual’s liberties, imagining a future where elderly men are put to death because they are denied medical care. His critique is appropriate for The New Freewoman because it questions the government’s power over us, a prominent theme throughout the periodical’s issues.

Part two of the short story sheds light on gender roles in 2000. The wife, Eliza, assumes traditionally masculine traits. To the horror of her husband, whom she “had rescued in the days of her first professional success,” she engages in “passionate” affairs with several other men (138). Her husband, Evelyn, likewise reverses gender roles, displaying traditionally feminine traits. He “so loyally looked after [Eliza’s] household and children for upwards of fifteen years.” And when he discovers the affairs, he “sob[s]” and “gurgle[s] the usual exclamations about deception, ingratitude, and infidelity” (138). Haynes’s critique of gender roles illuminates the absurdity of pitting women to households. His commentary on gender pokes fun at society’s ideal that women must be submissive to their dishonest husbands. The New Freewoman includes this piece because it forces readers to identify and question the implications of constructed gender roles.

Placing both of these stories in the future suggests that Haynes believed society needed to change its ideologies concerning individual freedoms and gender equality. “Domestic Studies in the Year 2000 AD,” while perhaps radical in 1913, forces readers to question society’s institutions of gender and freedom, and question what the future will be like if those institutions remain untouched.

 

Transcription

I.

Mr. Sydney Wobble smiled wearily from his sickbed on his son George, who was sitting beside him. “It really seems a pity that the Medical Control Board won't let me live a little longer. Of course there is a good deal of pain for one hour out of the twenty-four, which requires a certain amount of medical attention, but I should not mind paying a little extra for that if the State allowed any doctor or nurse to have a private practice. (However I daresay I should never have been born under the new Inspection of Parents Act.) The point is that I am quite interested in the morning paper and talking to all of you and seeing a friend sometimes . . . and in old days I could have gone on indefinitely.”

“Yes Father,” cried George,” One does sometimes regret the anarchy of 100 years ago but in those days you would never have reached the age of 98, and you might have died of painful and incurable disease without a chance of escape instead of this arteriosclerosis. You yourself have often told me how wildly enthusiastic people were over the Voluntary Euthanasia Act of 1940.”

“They were indeed” replied Mr. Wobble,” but of course it had to become compulsory soon. The principles of my great ancestor and namesake had sunk deeply into the more thinking minds of the community, and everything did become compulsory. Besides that they began killing criminals by anesthetics^[1]The original reads “anæsthetics” in 1930 instead of by hanging, and a great many crimes were committed by persons, who were unlawfully eager to get their revenge and an easy death at the same time. Moreover the expenses of the State medical service have been considerably reduced by the power of the Local Board to decide when a patient is not worth further attention. No doubt, even when I was a young man, many humane doctors accelerated the end of the patient when it could be easily done—and then of course there were the surgical operations, which were fairly well bound to kill many people who preferred to avoid a long period of suffering. However we are far in advance of all the Christianity and Individualism of those days. . . . By the way, did you see the official form? Did it give me a week or a fortnight?”

George picked up some papers from the table. “Oh here it is,” he said and read the form:—

“Sir,—I regret to inform you that my Board have decided to allow you no further medical service after a week from this date, and they are of opinion that you would save yourself and your relations much inconvenience and pain by availing yourself of Section 3 sub section (1) of the Compulsory Euthanasia Act 1980. Everything can be done at your house, if suitable preparations are made, as our Travelling Euthanasia expert will be in London at that date. You are probably aware that in cases like yours the Board will allow a grant of £5 towards the cremation expenses, and will accept a preliminary Probate affidavit from yourself for the purpose of assessing death duties. For your guidance I enclose a special form which you must forward within three days to the Inland Revenue Department.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
CHAS. BROWN,
Asst. Secy.”

“How very odd my father would have thought that letter,” the old man remarked, “I think it would have made him very angry. When I was quite young there were a few wild writers—one of them was called Belloc or some such name—who had no respect for the collective wisdom of the community. They thought that individuals should own land and ought not to be compulsorily insured. However they were all ultimately secluded under the 3rd Mental Deficiency Act, which substituted some more scientific tests for the cruder tests of the first Acts. Well! I suppose I must make my arrangements. The injection is painless, I believe. Don't they give me an appointment? No, I see not. How very careless! I think I should like it about 7 in the evening if they can manage it. Perhaps you will arrange it by telephone? And, after all, I would rather not know the exact time. . . . How curious to remember the crude lack of precision with which people used to die in my young days—days when quite ordinary men sometimes committed physical assaults, swore, drank alcoholic preparations at meals, married without medical permission, and even then couldn't get divorced without some legal fiction of adultery. Why, they owned houses and land in perpetuity, and read books which were excluded from the British Museum Catalogue, and wrote quite scurrilously about the Government. Those were indeed turbulent times. Everything was so casual and unforeseen. . . . However I must make a new will and get the Law Registrar to send someone to help me with that and the Probate affidavit. A week isn't long, perhaps, but still I doubt if anything will ever be very different now, and of course life nowadays is not so exciting as it was. By the way, you can put my ashes in the safe downstairs, and I should like a few ethical words at the Crematorium. There is an ethical lecturer called Jones in the next street who only charges two guineas. He might just make a passing reference to my work in connexion with the ‘Better regulation of female underclothing Act.’ What a splendid achievement it was. We never thought it would pass the House of Female Representatives. Well, well. . . .”
(Left dozing.)

II.

Eliza Fanshawe, K. C., sat back in her chair at her chambers in the Temple in deep abstraction. Mr. Evelyn Fanshawe, whom she had rescued in the days of her first professional success from the sweated labour of a curacy, and who had so loyally looked after her household and children for upwards of fifteen years, had “made a scene” that morning. He had found secreted among various legal documents a passionate effusion from a well-known minor poet, who rented on her guarantee an elegant little flat in the suburbs. And to the eminent K.C. there had at that very moment been forwarded from her club a letter from an obscure don at Oxford threatening instant communication with Evelyn.

To Eliza Fanshawe all this seemed highly unreasonable. Her income of £15,000 a year would amply provide for all the gentlemen if only Mr. Fanshawe continued the admirable system of domestic economy to which she had trained him from youth, and which had given scope, so far, to pay the minor poet’s debts and to take the don for an occasional trip to France. She was tires of the old-fashioned phraseology in which both her lovers asserted crude male claims to exclusive possession fortified by no economic sanction. Her home was comfortable, and she was honestly grateful to Mr. Fanshawe for long years of services rendered. She telephoned wirelessly to Mr. Fanshawe, who in five minutes aeroplaned neatly on to the roof of the building and came down in the lift. Waving him to a chair she explained the situation. “I am sure,” she concluded, “that you will co-operate with me to get rid of these blackmailers. Into my relations with them you need not inquire. You have a charming house, social circle, and family, together with the use of several aeroplanes, waterplanes, and other modern conveniences. You can of course get a divorce but I shall only allow you alimony with the well-known condition ‘Dum castus et solus vixerit^[2]Latin legal term meaning for as long as one remains chaste and alone until the other spouse remarries.,’and you know you won’t like that. You are too passé^[3]French for “past,” slang for “out-of-date” or “unfashionable.” now to pick up anyone else with my earning power or chance of being in the Cabinet with all the opportunities of successful investment which that position confers. You can do what you like. The female committee of the Bar Council would undoubtedly sympathise with me, and most of your men friends would think you a fool. Just think it over, and consider especially how the children would miss you for the large part of the year when they would be under my roof.”

Mr. Fanshawe sobbed for five minutes without stopping. He gurgled the usual exclamations about deception, ingratitude, and infidelity. Eliza let him have his cry out and then tried to soothe him. She reminded him of the temptations incidental to long spells of brainwork unrelieved by leisure or amusement. . . “Better this,” she said, “than that I should ruin your happiness by gambling or drugs in which other brainworkers seek relief when they want diversion.” “Let me go,” Mr. Fanshawe exclaimed, and rose to call his aeroplane. “I will do all I can to forget the past—but you must never see those HORRID men again.” And as he disappeared Eliza fell back into her chair and heaved a sigh of relief, inwardly cursing the antiquated prejudices of the other sex which she had to appease in order to avoid the temporary disorganization of her home.