Mom Taylor (in blue on left),surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-
grandchildren immediately following her husband, Ken’s, funeral almost one year ago.
Note from Tim Bayly: Today is the ninetieth birthday of my dear mother-in-law, Margaret Louise Taylor. It would be hard to overstate the blessing she has been in my life, not only indirectly through her influence on the development of the character of my dear wife, Mary Lee (and through Mary Lee, our daughters, Heather, Michal, and Hannah); but also directly as I’ve been a part of her extended family for thirty-seven years, now, and have received only good, and never evil, from her hands. A few years ago, thinking about Mom Taylor and my own mother, Mary Louise Bayly, I wrote this article as a tribute to them both. Now I reproduce it here, as a ninetieth birthday tribute to Mom, but also as a reminder to our readers of the true nature of biblical femininity, womanhood, motherhood. * * * Mom Taylor studied for her degree in Home Economics during the late ’30s and early ’40s, graduating summa cum laude from Oregon State University. After marrying her childhood sweetheart, she gave birth to 10 children in 14 years. Her husband, engaged for most of the years when the family was young as editorial director of a religious publishing house, brought home low wages, so frugality was a necessity and the degree served this young mother and her family well. Food preservation, hygiene, cooking, sewing, and home budgeting were part of the Home Economics curriculum and, along with the liberal arts training which came with every bachelor’s degree at the time, these young women graduated with specialized training for their profession of choice — motherhood. Other women took similarly helpful majors in Elementary Education, Bible, Christian Education (my own mother’s major), and Nursing. Then came the frontal assault on housewifery and motherhood carried out largely by a new and powerful aristocracy, the "Information Class." (Footnote 1) During the late ’60s and early ’70s this assault reached fever pitch and the academy was ground zero. College and university students were assigned propagandistic tracts such as Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House, and joined the ranks of those determined to liberate the "Noras" of the world. (Footnote 2) Oxford historian Paul Johnson provides interesting historical details on A Doll’s House, noting that both Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, Eleanor, and George Bernard Shaw took part in its first private reading in London, Eleanor playing the title role of Nora. Johnson writes, the "clear message" of A Doll’s House was that "marriage is not sacrosanct, the husband’s authority is open to challenge, [and] self-discovery matters more than anything else." Johnson concludes, "[Ibsen] really started the women’s movement." (Footnote 3) The discipline of Home Economics (also known as "household arts") was an early casualty. Traditionally, Home Economics had enjoyed a comfortably apolitical niche in the world of higher education, and the guardians of this discipline had every reason to trust their academic peers would continue to be favorably disposed toward a curriculum so integrally tied to domestic tranquility. It was taken for granted that a dignified and competent wife and mother, devoted to her family, was a desirable constant in American culture. To the feminists, Home Economics was anything but apolitical, so they attacked…
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