Evening journal., 1892-09-13
lE VALUE OF WIVES.
lglish Housewives Contrasted
With Continental Sisters.
GENERAL Wall FOR MORE SOUP.


God Cooking The English wife's In
biIity to Ride an Unsaddlcd Mule Con-
Idered Strong License for Condcmna-
on Pathos Between the Lines.
s he Daily Telegraph has this year
sen for its silly season symposium the
iect of English wives. and hundreds
correspondents have been giving their
. Mons on English, as compared with
eign wives, and upon the marriage
+ ,stion in general. Some of the writer's
clear that the chief reform that is
ded is more soup. French women give
If husbands and families soup for din
. +, while English women neglect the
& au-feu, ana assail their husbands ap
ties with nothing but joints Others are
. ignant because Englishwomen are not
iiciently educated to share their hus.
IDS intellectual pleasures; while some
J tin complain that modern wives think
much about such things, and not
. ugh about matters of the house.
glish women, says one correspondent,
nothing like such good needlewomen
4 their continental sisters; and TO prove
+ he mentions how he saw the wife of
(, Italian friend pluck some hair out of
own head and deity mend her hus-
F. IDS coat which had been torn by some
'ident on the street.
4 mother aggrieved husband is very
\ lch dissatisfied because of the inability
4 played by English wives in the matter
handling shooting irons, or riding
4 "unsaddled mule A third retOrts
It English wives are just as good as
4 ench wives, if not better, and protests
4 ainst the assumption that they cannot
4 llI and mend as well as foreign wives
fourth assumes that practically all
yes are unsatisfactory, because men
f. bitually marry the wrong women. The
m has an ideal, but he seldom finds
q r. owing generally to the fact that she
& longs to a higher social rank than he
IS, and he therefore weds haphazard,
I'm fear of being left alone in his old
e.
Describing a Tartar.
With 80 much by way of premise, this
4 tier makes a very curious and OBJ
\ )usly genuine series Of confessions as
his own marriage; Il do not say" he
& vs., "that my worser half is not a fairly
ectionate woman. / cannot allege, as
s lne of your correspondents do of their
lpmate, that she has either an angelic
demoniacal disposition. She is
iall-minded, as all women are. jealous,
4 all women are sets great store upon
conventionalities, rs most English
f omen do, thinks her husband might be
f great deal better off if he tried to i'm.
+ owe his position-here, again, being in
reement with many of her sex; and
n es through existence with settled
4 nviction that he is a lucky individual
have been blessed with her, and that
q was extremely gOod-natured and
ndescending TO have married him.
1t is this last assumption which chiefly
RACES the writer He considers IL a.
yond dispute that the woman is the
4 rson who benefits by a marriage anC
f lerefore the declaration "fOur times
eek" IF l had listened to mother,
ould never have married, sounds mos
A lfair as well rs most absurd. "Sh
over dreams that l entertain any dOub
to the superior advantages | have en-
. yed from her heroic sacrifice in sharing
4 y home and spending fve-siXths of IN.
. come. From this it will be seen tina
4 lis particular husband has not been abl
. pluck up courage to enlighten hi
4 ife as to who has been the gainer b.
. ieir union, and as TO the fact that hi
| cal was and is very different. Appar
4 atty, however, he recommends the cours
Others Depend upon it, that
. ives more fully appreciated that the
re the favored parties to the contrac
4 stead Of the husbands, they would b
harry of their everlasting sighings an
, nplied regrets that they didn't MARI.
+ ifierently."
The writer signs himself Resigns
ion, and, Of course, asks that hi
ddross shall not be given. Imagine
owever, the unfortunate mans position
:, by one of those unlucky accident
. yhich happen once in fifty years in
rinting office, his name or address Ia
. omehow got printed. and that his vii
ad detected him. He tells us that he
My allowed TO smoke in his garden, as
s. After such an explosion as the acc
ent we refer TO would have created 1
would not have been allowed to smol
ven there Fortunately, however. /
ccident did happen, and Resignation
safe. We wonder that he cared to ri
he risk. One shudders to even think
i he way in which his lamentations abol
lis ideal, and the girl he once me
whom he thought would have futile
t, would have been received
No Mutual Knowledge Of Incomes.
Amusing as have been individual lie
lers in the correspondence, its chief il
crest consists in the picture of q
ordinary middle class English hous
mold that can be drawn from it VIII,
considered in the aggregate. It is clei
that the point in which the middle cla'
marriage most differs from the FrenC
marriage of the same class, is the III
willingness of the English husband
sink any of his own individuality in u
union, and TO make his wife real par
ner. For example, the writer's in u
Daily Telegraph seem TO hold that hu
bands do not and ought not to tell the
wives their incomes. This is. we believ
in accordance with the facts II
middle class English wife knows We
little. often nothing, Of her husband
affairs. and is quite in the dark as
what is the pecuniary position of q
family. She knows that her husband
sometimes willing to spend, sometim
unwilling, that is all.
The French. wife on the other hand,
We are TO believe competent writer's
France, habitually understands her IN
bands pecuniary position, and won