New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-10-20
4 Woman's Allowance.

| AWoman's Allowance.
Zenas Dane in Good Housekeeping.
A year or two before was married
boarded one winter with very ex-
cellent family in a western. village.
The husband and father was good
man, but he had what his wife called
his "touchy points," and "touchy
points" were a lifelong source on actual
sorrow to his wife, who was a good
and faithful wife and mother, tidy,
thrifty and ever watchful of the com
mon interests of the family. She was
economical to the last degree and
most Industrious. She. seemed to me
to be model wife Her husband
thought SO, too, and would have angri-
| ly resented any imputation to the
contrary. He taught his children to
honor and love their mother although
failing, as it seemed to me, in mani
Testing 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, mo,
dear; I cannot ask your father for
money for you new hat. You know
how very touchy he is on that point.
l sometimes lie awake half the night
trying to devise some method Of
scrimping and saving so that need
not say the word money to your
father. Nothing hurts him SO much
as to be asked for little money. l
dread to think of asking him for mon
ey for any thing"
was engaged to Mrs. Dane at that
time, and | made a solemn vow that
she should have a purse of her own
and that it should never 60 empty if
had anything to put in it. We have
now been married SIX years, and l
have faithfully adhered to that reso-
luton. And there is no "fxed sum"
about it. Household expenses vary
at different seasons of the year and
under various circumstances. Ten
dollars will, perhaps, cover all of
the expenses of one week, and the
next may be canning" or "conl-
pany' week, and several extra dol
lars will be required. In any case, I
resent the idea that my wife is mere
pensioner on my bounty; reject the
imputation that she has not common
sense enough to know the value OF
money and dare not be trusted with
it. am not a ''woman's Fighter"
in the popular sense of the term, but
I thank the Lord that I am man
enough to recognize the fact that my
wife, as my wife and the mother Of
my children, has rights, money spend
ing rights, that have no business in
terfering with. Every good wife should
have this right as a royal marriage
prerogative. l regard Mrs Dane as
an equal partner in the contract un-
der which we have become a firm for
life. We share profits and losses
alike. There is.One money-drawer, to
which we both have free access. |
have not the inclination nor the
right to limit my wife in her daily
expenditures, SO long as those ex-
wives and mothers honestly earn
all they spend. A woman who does
her duty as wife and mother earns
more than money can pay for. It
must be very humiliating; to woman
to have to humbly and, tremblingly
ask her husband for the money she
must have for her actual daily ex-
penses. Any sensitive, womanly
woman must feel it something of a
degradation to have to, thus ask, OR
even coax, for money given grudgipgly
and complainingly at last
knew OF g. woman who said once
that the only way she could get money
from her husband for other than her
actual household expenses was by
watching her chance and slyly ex-
tracing bills from his purse when be
was asleep or his coat was Off Inae.
inc a wife forced into such a degrading
act as that Women are often com.
PEELED to practice mean, niggaraly,
cruel economy in order to make their
expenses come within the limit fixed
by inexoFable husbands, who would
fariously resent any interference with
their own expenditures.
believe that this simple question
( of the wife allowance has wrecked the
fhapplness of many a household. Me1
are so often blind and unfeeling ani
unreaso7a able in this matter. And o
course there are women who mus
have tight rein kept upon them be
cause of their tendency TO wilful ani
woful extravagance There is, l fear
i, little chance for happiness in hom
having such mistress over it. Blu
the majority Of women can be trusted
| Let the husbands, of wives thus worthy
trust them. and this trust will no
often be abused.
Ny own personal experience has bee,