The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-03-22
SYSTEM OF HOUSEKEEPING.
Domestic Finance Has Come to BE
Conducted on Il ScIen-
tific Basis.

woman the housekeeper was obliged to
go to her husband and ask for money
to defray the domestic expenses piece
by piece. If he was very decent sort
of a man she received the amount, and
perhaps a little bit more When she
wanted spending money for herself she
asked him for that, and if he was a dis
agreeable person, he would say: where
is that rs cents L gave you over week
ago."
But, whether he was generous or I'M
generous, he held the purse by a gen
eral if unwritten law, and he thought
it was all right, while it made no sort
of difference what she thought. He
suffered himself in a way without know
ing it. No woman was going to tease
her husband for money to buy him de-
lightfully surprising presents, even at
Christmas time, and so it happened that
he was at fault for the bargain-counter
gifts that, so it is said, he used to re-
ceiye.
However, the business woman who
marries has revolutioBized matters and
has thought out solutions that are far
ahead of even the allowance plan. In
one household it is down to fine sys-
tenn. In this case it happens that the
wife has small but sure income of
her own. while the man has sure and
comfortably large salary. AS things
used to be managed, the woman's in
come would have been her spending
money, but this is the way they have
done. The total income is pooled and
then divided into two equal parts, so
that they may share and share alike.
Then, the next step, family purse has
been established, for which both are
equally taxed. When the funds in the
family purse begin to run low each
member of the firm puts in five OF ten
dollars more and then uses the rest of
the divided fund for personal bills till
the time of the next taxation.
When it is necessary to give united
present to anyone, out of the family
purse comes the money to buy it. If
the family wishes to go to the theater,
the family purse has TO pay that bill.
Everything is systematized as only the
new woman knows how to sympathize
it. and in manner to which no one but
the new woman and the new woman's
husband would ever submit. Perhaps
he at times chafes under the infeXible
and unbending rule and longs for
little less mathematical precision, and
perhaps he would even breathe sigh
of relief if he were allowed to go to 9th
er extremes from the rule of the past
and be put on an allowance himself.
The method adopted in another
household is not so original and is more
oppressive, because it necessitates a
rigid keeping of accounts, and because
there is no private purse at all. Every
thing goes into the general purse. From
this common fund each of the family
borrows and then at the end of the
week offers an itemized statement of
how much has been spent and of the
manner in which it has been spent.
That weekly rendering of accounts
tends to discourage reckless extrava-
gance and is on the whole depressing.
1t goes quite without saying that
these families are of rather limited
membership. What would happen to
the carefully arranged systems in ihe
case OF larger numbers to provide with
food and clothes and toys might show
survival of the tried and true methods
of managing the family finance.
No two of the up-to-date families
employ exactly the same methods. The
woman in each case prefers to originate
ideas and lay down her own rules for
regulating the family purse and get
ting on fair money basis. But there
is one thing upon which the house
keepers of limited income agree, and
that is a hatred for bills, and therefore
the envelope system is popular. The
idea is to have a series of envelopes,
one for the butcher, another for the
grocer, another for the coal dealer,
and so on, with one for each of the per-
sons who may be expected to present
claims.
Of course, a small amount going into
each of these envelopes every day
doesn't seem so great in the long run
as the total sum paid out in one lump
But there are drawbacks. 1t takes a
woman of superior mold not to bor-
row from the millman or the gasman
or the baker. or from their envelopes.
rather, which amounts to the same
thing. The difficulty is increased in
one household by the propensity
which the man of the family has de-
veloped of taking his turn at borrowing,
too, and the result is that even the
envelopes have to borrow from one an
other.
The most decided reaction from the
condemned old-time method shows it
self in the real live methods that rule
in some households, in which the wom-
an manages the purse and doles out the
spending money TO her husband. 1t
is the best all-aronnd plan. The man
in the case is spared all financial worry,
except that of earning the money, while
the woman is more ecopomical than
she would be if she received certain
sum just TO spend. OF course, there are
eases where it does not work well, as in
the instance of the woman who gave
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