The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-08-08
Our Women are not Thrifty.

It is so thoroughly questionable
throughout this country to be econom-
ical that the American woman doesn't
eeem to realize that she has become
spendthrift.
Not only are the mass of girls of
manageable age quite innocent Of any
knowledge of household economics or
frugality in personal expenditures, but
the advanced woman and the fin de
steele production who may be will
ing to wed have any number of ex-
penses that the Womer never used to
have.
Alphonse Karr wrote: ''The prodi-
gality of woman has reached such pro-
portions that one must be wealthy to
have one for himself y
Few young men ere to be blamed if,
after study Of possible wives, they
decide matrimony is too expensive for
their incomes. It is said that so well
established is the spendthrift trait in
our women that no matter in what
part of the world they appear, the ma
tives look on the average American
woman as princess of prodigality, and
the extortionatc prices foreign shop
keepers name to our compatriots are
well known.
Rich young women have the instinct
of money-spenders naturally, because
they never know she value Of dollar
hv earning it.. So generally accented
is this fact that when matrimony was
suggested as young Jacob Astor's in
tention, it was insisted that his moth
er would never approve of any
engagement until he had chosen
6ancee of financial prudence. When
his engagement to Miss Willing,
of Philadelphia, was announced it
was then agreed that just such
woman had been found. No one
could blame Mrs. Astor for her salts
faction.
If Mrs. Astor, with her position as
leader in New York society, can af-
ford to be known as an exponent of
thrift and prudence, and Mrs. j. j.
Astor can practice the same doctrine,
certainly the great masses Of marriage
able young women can afford to
adopt similar ideas. Yet not even
the Astors can make thrift fashiona-
BILE.
To be sure, among the most opulent
circles there is tendency to encour-
age young ladies to learn the value Of
money. The cashier of the bank Of
New York's 400, where very young
girls of millionaire families follow the
fashion and keep an account, says that
some of these girls are developing un-
usual prudence and thrift in handling
their allowances. But this small grain
of leayen has not spread any into the
lump.
/ The edict in general society is: "Go
abroad and economize. Come back to
the United States and cut wide
swath." Fashionable women are
willing to be known as following
those laws, but economize at home
never
| Next to fashion, mothers are the
mischiefmakers. In our great prosper
ing middle class, as soon as a girl is
born her mother begins The struggle to
/ dress her better than the other baby
in the block.
The strife goes on as she grows up
and there is no class distinction here
to frown on the impulse to rise higher
in fashion or teach the mother the
good sense of cutting her aspirations
for the girl to fit the family income.
The girl grows up with her desires
foolishly granted. She spends money
without looking at it twice. Instead
of saying, "Ill save so much money,
when she has her own little allow
ances, she tries to get more than the
money will pay for. By the time she
is ready to marry she is ground
ed in spendthrift ways and intends
to give up nothing, but to gain by
marriage.
When young man would like to
endow her with his name and fair
share of his salary, ightning calcula-'
tions decide him that she is too expen-
sive and hasn't any characteristics
that are likely to develop his income
and make it big enough for two. So
he cuts off his courtship with the love-
| ly spendthrift, whose parents are not
too rich, nor yet too poor, but in just
that state denominated middle, but
aspiring. -
I don't see how a young man can
he blamed in these cases. It's the
girls own parents. ~,
If prudence could be made clash,
ionable" it would certainly have good
effect in families whose heads have
incomes ranging from 81, 800 to s., 1000
per year. It is in this grade Of So
ciety that young men must plead that
they can't afford matrimony. Girls
in these families are not taught those
mysteries of the household econo-
mics or general frugality that are
daily diet in German and French
households.
Many of them live and die without
ever realizing the heights and depths
of the purchasing value of 100 cents.
How women of this Kind can bring
up their daughters endowed with
more thrift than their mothers is
problem.
The advanced woman, or she who is
truly fin de steele, is one of the most
costly wives ever known. The man who
takes one to himself must make allow
anccs for many expenses no woman
used to have.
This advanced woman who tries to
keep up to the age has as many club
dues as most men, and great many
more than the average one. She out
does him on his old exclusive terri
tory. She has to pay for club and So
ciety suppers to distinguished women,
and now and then to man.
She subscribes to all sorts OF enter
tainments, courses and classes that
her feminine predecessors never
dreamed of and are quite as expensive
as anything men do in the same line.
She is continually taking up new
charities of whose invention her
grandmother never dreamed, and most
of them come high. Radical move
Il. 1.o g., tbo liorof1oO