The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1900-02-03
WOMEN WAGE FARMERS.
The Question Considered ON Boil,
Sides.


Sides.
For generations the accepted condi-
ton, among people of good breeding
and refinement, was that the wage.
earning should be done by the hus-
banc, and the administration Of the
domestic exchequer be left in the hands
of the wife.
Among comfortably placed and, to
some extent. luxuriously living, Amer
leans, there is remarkable change
from former opinions on this subject
of the Wifes bread-winning Especial
ly among artists, authors, journalists,
and people who live by the exertion
Of the intellect rather than by mere
manual labor, it is common to find both
Wife and husband practicing their
speciality, wherever it IS, and putting
their earnings into more or less CO.
operative purse. The wife has gift
for illustration, and her clever fingers
exc out her good mans salary, SO that
luxuries are possible which the. 1.-TWO
must else forego. She writes bright
quips and jests, or charming short
stories, and the crisp checks which
come floating to her in the morning
mail provide her own dress, or pay the
school bills of Laddie, who is growing
stout and sturdy and needs more
money spent on him every year. I
have heard of an ardent lover, who,
preferring his suit to a gifted woman
ventured to call her attention to the
fact that their combined salaries would
enable them to maintain a very at
tractive home, quite overlooking the
possibility that as wife the lady of
his choice might prefer not directly to
contribute to her own support.
The truth is, that in many cases the
Wifes ability to supplement the hus-
bands earnings relieves her OF assort
of work which she may have no pecu-
liar aptitude or, which she perhaps
finds distasteful. An extra maid may
be afforded to do various things about
the housekeeping, to wait upon the
children, to attend to the endless
mending of small garments and the
sewing on Of buttons-in short, to car
ry part of the burden of the everlast-
ing little, which weighs heavily on the
housemistress, provided the wife can
earn enough to provide for the added
convenience. When the period arrives
in which growing children take pre-
cedence in parental calculations of
every other necessity, when there are
dancing lessons, and music lessons,
and opportunities for culture in end
less variety for which continual pro-
vision must be made. the wife's share
no 80 III
slight one. If she earn only her PIN
money, she may thus acquire and re-
tain pleasing sense Of independence
and have an advantage over her oppo-
site neighbor, to whom pin-money is
an ever-vanishing mirage on the ho-
rizon.
The difficulty about the matter is
tWofold. In their youth, married peo-
pie presumably anticipate the coming
of children. For the sake of unborn
children, it is usually better that a
physically by the relentless and imper-
ious requirements Of wage earning
vocation. Even if she carry on her
writing. or her painting, or her ex-
quisite needlcraft exclusively at home,
the demands it must make upon her
will not tell favorably, as rule. on
her offspring. In the second place; a
husband is in peril Of reversing the
position he ought to assume as the
protector of and provider for his wife,
and of leaning on her, of suffering her
to undertake tasks beyond her
strength, and of accepting from her
sacrifices which she should never be
allowed to make. S..
This. like many another problem,
cannot be Arbitrarily leglslated upon
by outsiders. Each family must res
solve upon it's own course Of action.
Most Of us could get on very comfor-
tabley with a simpler style OF living,
and would be better off in the end If
we acknowledge fewer wants. Civil
zation creates many artificial values.
The life Of towns presents occasions
for spending on every side, and in
cessantly hedges with thorns the path
of the frugal, who are anxious to
save. If married people are to get on,
to get ahead, they must economic in
the beginning. Whether or not the
joint savings are larger where both
earn the income is an unsettled ques-
W. no II