THE FAMILY EXCHEQUER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3577, 17 July 1912, Page 8

THE FAMILY EXCHEQUER.

THE POCKET-MONEY QUESTION

THE STINGY SEX

(By Mrs John I.ane, author of “The Champagne Standard,’ “According to .Maria,’’ etc.) Although men are loosening then; purse strings as never before in history, still it must be confessed that as a sex women ..have hitherto suffered woefully from empty pockets. Men may be generous to their women, but they find it infinitely more difficult to be just- They are ready to give their lives for them, but they find it much harder to give them an allowance ! So in resepect to the empty feminine pockets, a good many women are still no better off than their benighted sisters of the harem. Only women with means of their own, or these who earn know the rapture of independence, while the tank and file of the women of the great middle-class—-the only 0110 who count as statistics " HIR harder than servants, without " ages or even a. day off. EXAGGERATED RESPECT FOR PENCE. Now, one asks, why shouldn’t a

harassed wife re eive wages, crude arm uncivil though the term sounds? But whatever called, it bestows a dignity and independence that so many women lack. "Women are what men have made them by dint of keeping them short, and that is, the stingy sex. They have been taught an exaggerated respect for pennies. So, trained in the ways of a severe economy, a woman rarely errs on the side of giving too much, as, for instance, waiters and the Sunday contribution plate can equally testify. Sons are born with a divine right to cash, and even extravagance is condoned. But daughters have no such right, and tho only extravagance permitted /them is that of economy. A tender hut niggardly father doles out a few shillings to his daughter, so she learns at one and the same time a wholesome respect for shillings as well as that extravagant economy characteristic of women. No wonder we have become the stingy sex! PARADISE UP-TO-DATE. It is the women of the great middleclass with no money hut their husbands’ who swell the ranks of the stingy majority, for they don’t know how to spend. They stand between the higher classes who spend too much, and the lowest whose women at the end of the week guard what remains of wages after the public-house, tobacco and picture palaces have taken their toll. It’s the middle-class women who bring into the world either tlie men destined to do the world’s great and hard work for good wages, or the girls who some day take their mothers’ place, always without wages, until they are in turn rescued from the parental roof to do some other men’s housework, also without wages. Some of the daughters who are left over may join the endless procession surging through Oxford street, and the rest, on their arms the latest latest thing in bags, that contain sadly empty purses, while they gaze longingly through dazzling plate-glass windows at paradise brought up-to-date. LUXURIES OR NECESSARIES. The joy to belong to a sex with a right to loose cash and accountable to no one! How much a hsuband may spend on himself without even a grumble! In the course of time no has learnt to look upon luxuries in the light of necessaries. The poorest husband requires to smoke, and to onnk something that isn’t water. It is ail the result of carrying their money loose in their trousers pockets. What woman would, even if she had that kind of pocket? Her own meagre share cf the greatest power on earth slie keeps carefully in her purse, and counts it at end of day. But wliav man, as a last sacred rite, counts over the pile of coins he dumps on the table at night? WHY SOME MARRIAGES ARE FAILURES’ Further, it’s a man’s obstinate conviction that his wife dees nothing all day long. Keeping house isn't work : it’s only another pleasant form of idleness. He could do it better in half tlie time and at half the cost. Her housekeeping money he puts under tlie general head of extravagance, and never ceases to wonder what she does with it all. A sordid domestic drama often enough begins just after the honeymoon, when a timid, penniless, wife dares not venture to ask her brand-new husband tfpr money. I heard this talk between two men, one obviously just married: “Well, how are things going? Pretty smooth? How's the wife getting on?” ‘Oil, she’s all right, hut she's everlastingly asking me for money. It is money first thing in the morning and last thing at ight. Money, money, money, till I’m sick of it.” “But what does she do with it all?’’ “Oh, I haven’t given her any yet.'’ A WOMAN’S. RIGHT. It is curious that of all the rights lot which women now contend this one, which should lie theirs inalienably. is the only one they quite overlook. And yet does net the middleclass woman in her way earn as much as the man? Why, then, should she not have her, film re, however small, of his earnings? Then I say —Grant it, you men, and it will confer on you both a new contentment, and on her that kindly independence which will remove the inevitable friction thatcomes from a constant, fretful appeal for money. After all, the mothers of a country are as important as the fathers, and,, perhaps, even more than they, they hold the nation's happiness in their keeping. So let them have for their veiy own whatever you can afford to give them, for which they shall be accountable to no one. And this not as a gift, hut, in the name of justice, as a right.