Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-01-19
MONEY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
The Trying Position of the Woman
Who Has No Allowance.

From the Philadelphia Times
Many good men who are prompt in busi-
ness and liberal in public bonefactions
subject their families TO this rasping ordeal
out of a perverse belief that woman s
sphere is a little matter. and ought to run
at small expense. Without doubt this one
thing is more fruitful of domestic infelicity
than all other causes combined. But it is
organic with man to love to hear all the
spare cash rattle in his own pocket; and,
therefore, the readjUstment of things Is
beyond the bounds of hope Ihose VINO
practice other tactics may usually nave
their pe,uliarity traced back to some more
or less remote maternal ancestor who was
Ey continued worry in her huances egeeu
en- to aggres sive warfare over ways ana
means Many women try to equailZe mat
ters by making wage earning a side issue
with their established duties as homekeep-
ers but 1t most often results IN the rfiai
cost of health, and is, therefore, ana LOT
the added reason that they consume oppor-
tunlties which should fall to women to
whom no other refuge is open. never to be
commended save where the real bread Win
ner is unable to earn all the "needful tnat
their joint demands require.
Much of the difficulty of her position re-
sulting from the uncertainty of her income
NAV be obviated If the wage Garner makes
the homekeeper a regular and Suhlcient al
lowance for the eXpe Uses of her dominion.
1t is chiefly the fault of womed that the
allowance plan is not more generally prac-
ticed for it is their own lack of system in
most cases which fails to insure it's success
and brings about dissatisfaction. Then, at
beginning, women are apt to put their eS-
innate too low and to get in the habit of
poscponing one obligation or another to be
"eYened up at some future flush time. No
one would expect siX-foot-two man to
sleep under a five-foct blanket and keep
both his heels and his shoulders warm Yet
there are plenty of people who will lay out
a two-thirds allowance of money to run a
four-thirds establishment. When economy
must be praCticed it Is interesting to note
the difference in the way men and women
go about it. Women almost invariably be-
gin retrenching in the matter of service
either by lowering wages or by dispensing
with servants and overtaxing their own
stl ength, ignoring all the while very palpa-
BILE leaks in other departments 1t Is due
in part to the fact that her own work has
a proprietary interest for her when she
does vt herself that the housekeeper I'M
derrates hired service it is impossible for
servant to feel sufficiently interested in
her employers financial status to work up
on insufficient pay. 1t is not always the
pinched purse which makes a pinching
paymaster, however. While it is so COM
mon as to be almost rule that women
who themselves work for salaries are the
most prompt and liberal patrons of the
lower class of dependents, it is not unusual
to find women Of large means who are Gull
patly careless in the same line. Their
hearts have never felt the frost of adver-
sity and so forth-that is the sentimental
view of 1t. The simple truth is there are
Doors among women as well as men. The
woman who can and will not pay for a
service what it is worth, or who. seeing
competition crowd some poor peedy crea-
ture to the verge of misery. will set a
starvation price upon work she deigns not
brought down to bitter dependence as a
punishment.