Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-08-17
A woman. Allowance.

Ienas Dane In Good Housekeeping
A wear or two before was married
boarded one winter with very excellent
family in Western village The husband
and father was a good man, but he had what
his wife called his "touchy points" aud.
good and honest man though he was, some
of these " touchy points were lifelong
source of actual sorrow to his wife, who was
good and faithful wife aud mother, tidy,
thrifty and ever wstchful of the common in
terests of the family. She was economical
TO the last degree and most industrious. She
seemed to me II be model wife. Her hus-
band thought so, too and would have an
grily resented any imputation to the con.
trsry. He taught his children TO honor and
love their mother, although falling, as IL
seemed to me, in manitesting love and honor
for her himself at all times but these times
were only when his " TOUGHEST point - had
been pressed upon.
one day | accidentally heard the wife say
to her eldest daughter, i" No, dear : cannot
ask your father for money for you new hat
You know how very touchy he i on that
point | sometimes lie awake halt the night
trying TO devise some method of scrmpiug
or saving So that l need not say the word
money TO your father. Nothing hurts him
so much ss to be asked for little money. l
dread to think of asking him tor money for
anything"
was engaged TO Mrs. Dane at that time,
and l made solemn vow that she should
have purse of her own and that it should
never go empty IL | had anything TO put IN
it We have now been married six years,
and have faithfully adhered to that resolu-
ton. And there is no fixed sum- about 1t.
Household expenses vary at different sea-
sons of the year and under various Circum-
stances Ten dollars will, perhaps, cover all
the expenses one week, and the next may be
" canning" or a company week and
several extra dollars will be required. In any
case, | resent the idea that my wife ls
a mere pensioner of my bounty l reject
the imputstion that she has not common
sense enough to know the value Of money
and dare not I've trusted with it l am not a
sense of the term, but l thank the
Lord that | am man enough to
recognize the fact that my wife and the
mother of my children, has rights, money
spending rights, that have no business to
interfere with. Every good wife should have
this right as royal marriage prerOgstive. l
regard Mrs Dane as an equal co.
partner in the contract under which
we have become firm for life
We share profits and losses alike. There
il no money drawer to which we both have
free access | have not the inclination nor
the right to limit my wife in her daily
expenditures 10 long as those expendi-
ures are within reason. Most wiz es
and mothers honestly earn all they spend.
A woman who does her duty as wife and
mother earns more than money can pay for.
1t must be very humiliating to a woman 10
have to humbly and trembllngly ask her
husband for the money she must have Tor
her actual daily expenses Any sensitive
womanly woman must feel ii something of a
degradation TO have TO thus ask or even coax,
| for money given grudgingly and complain
| ipgly at last
| | knew of a woman who said once that the
| only way she could get money from her hus.
band for other than her actual household eN-
penses, was by watching her chance and
| slyly extracting bills from his purse when he
| was asleep or his coat was OIL. Imagine a
| wife forced into such degrading act as that
| Women are often compelled to practice
| mean, niggardly, cruel economy in order TO
| make their expenses come within the limit
| fixed by inexorable husbands, who would
| furiously resent any interference with their
| own expenditures.
! believe that this simple question of the
| vife's allowance has wrecked the happiness
| of many household. Men are so often blind
| and unfeeling and unreasonable in this mat
ter. And OF course there are women who
must have tight rein kept upon them be-
cause of their tendency TO wiltul aud woful
extravaganza. There is, / fear, little chance
Tor happiness in a home having such mis-
tress over ii. But the majority of women
can be safely trusted. Let the husbands OF
wives thus worthy trust them and this trust
will not often be abused.
My own personal experience has been that
money Is safer with women than with men.
Most women can beat man "all to pieces
making bargain, and the market man and
grocers seldom get ahead OF them, whereas
most men are careless purchasers