The Savannah morning news., 1901-10-06

WORLD.

nave Sdlu many a Ilille anu OF ludA
my ideal of a perfect marriage was an
unlimited partnership. do not believe,
on principle, in autocracies, and take
no stock in the head -the-house the
DRY. No happy family was ever run by
a dictatorial husband or a bossy wife.
We want an equal privilege govern
ment in the home as we'll as the state,
says Dorothy Dix in the New Orleans
Picayune.
If were a girl. and two suitors came
wooing me, one of whom said: Come.
be my angel, my inspiration. my ideal -
and the other said: Come and go into
life partnership with me-" it wouldn't
take me two minutes to pass up the an
gel proposition, and close with the bus
mess deal. And I'd never regret it. A
man who is broad enough and liberal
enough to make his wife an equal shar-
er in his business, his hopes. his sor
rows. has got the right idea of life, and
if existence isn't one long, sweet dream
with him, it will at least always have
something in it that is a mighty good
substitute.
am quite aware that very few men
take to the partnership idea of mar
rage. There are two reasons for this
one is that if a man is a good man,
and loves his wife, he wants TO protect
her from many of the hardships that he
has to bear. The other reason is that
If he is a mean man he doesn't want
TO share the perquisites with her, In
one case il gives us the doll wife, and
in the other the slave wife, and so far
as the women themselves are concern
ed, IL is hard to say which has been
done the greater wrong.
Almost all of women's helplessness
and incompetency comes in right here.
Not one wife in a hundred is her hus-
bands business partner. or knows what
he makes. She has never been taught
the simplest business forms, and so if
the time ever comes when she is left
without the protecting arm on which
she has leaned, she is utterly incapable
of taking care of herself or her money
and is the victim of the first thief who
comes her way.
Every bit of this could be avoided if
women were their husbands business
partners-not active always-but trust
ec and taught. AS a matter of fact
there are just as many women with
good business heads as there are men
if they only had the chance to develop
them.
/ once heard our brilliant Miss Kate
Gordon-who is now sitting high in the
councils of the National Woman's Suf-
frage ssociation-discussing the ques-
ton of woman's wider opportunities
with a man.
"Pooh!" he cried. scornfully. "Wom-
en- are fit for nothing but the home.
They don't know anything about bus
mess. Why half of EN- don't know
how to fill out a check"
Can you work out a perforated pa
per pattern at sight?" wittily retorted
Miss Gordon, and it seemed to me no
amount of argument could have bet
ter answered the objection. We know
the things we have been taught, and
the men, who have kept us in swad-
ding clothes long after we ought to
have been able to mend for ourselves,
have a big slice of misery of the
world to answer for.
If a girl hasn't enough honor and
honesty to be trusted with half a man
makes; if she hasn't enough discretion
not to run and blab business secrets;
If she hasn't enough sense to under
stand mans occupation and profess
sion, she is certainly no fit person for
him to marry.
Don't marry any girl you wouldn't
be willing to go into business with,
boys. And right here / want to say
that / have never known any man
who made his wife his business part
ner who was ever entirely crushed by
financial losses. 1t is the women
who spend in the dark who bankrupt
their husbands. Many a level-headed
wife is the ballast that keeps her too
sanguine and speculative husband
from backing wildcat schemes, and il
and losses and hard times
do come, the man who knows that his
wife-his partner-is going to say, "Oh,
well, don't worry. We have pulled
many hard place before, and
we can again. Brace up, and let's get
TO work." is never the one who com
mits suicide. He has that at home
which puts fresh courage in his heart
and gives him strength to begin the
fight all over again.
OF the wife's right to an equal share
In the family pocketbook l need not
speak, because no man would dream
OF denying that to his partner No
man would expect another man to in
vest his all in the business, to give
10 1t his entire thought and labor and
10 receive as his share of the profits
cniy his board and clothes and a little
doled out car fare, yet that is what
many women get as the sole reward
iOT lnelT SdCTlHGc anu service.
The woman's side of the partnership
/ hold to be just as binding as the
mans. No firm can really prosper
when one member is a drone who has
to be carried, and who makes reck-
less drains on the firms capital. The
enterprises are where both
partners bring their varied talents and
united talents to the support OF the
firm.
A woman's end of the bargain may
be described as the Office end. Bad
firm; little leaks In the office bank
rupts many good business. A waste
full woman can throw more out of the
kitchen door with teaspoon than her
husband can throw in at the
front door with a scoop. Every young
couple starting out in life settle with
In the first two years whether they are
always going to poor or are going
TO achieve prosperity, and ninety nine
times out of a hundred the woman set
ties it. The man who marries a thrifty
wife goes up into the firm or starts
a store of his own. The man who mar
ries a trifiing one lives and dies on the
same clerks stool.
! honestly believe that the crime
that calls for reforming more than
drink or gambling or anything else is
the way girls are raised, and the total
ignorance of everything a woman
ought to know with which they are
rushed into matrimony.
1t may not be poetical or romantic,
but It is the solid truth that domestic
happiness rests on good cooking ana
good housekeeping. The man whose
meals are never on time cannot hold
his own in the business world; the man
who acquires dyspepsia through mean