The Savannah morning news., 1902-08-03
A WIFE'S POCKET MONEY.
WOman's Right to "A Private Purse.
The Dark Ages When Wives Were
Forced TO DishOnesty-Traini in
Business Necessary for Women.
BY Harriet P. Spofford.

Business Necessary for Women.
By Harriet P. spofford
So much has been said about the al
>lowance that the wife should have that
it is idle to speak of it further, since
there are now few men with any as
piration towards social decency who do
not afford the wife seperate sum, in
accordance with their acknowledged
means, which she shall be at liberty TO
spend unquestioned.
OF course, if it is not a fiction, and
the husband was not uttering a false
hood at the altar when he said, with
all my worldly goods 1 thee endow,"
the allowance is onl va portion of her
due; and even if marriage were moth
ing but a civil contract her rights I'M
der that contract as an equal partner
would entitle her to all she is likely to
receive.
How much better is this fashion
than the old one, in which the wife
was obliged to humble herself and ask
for every penny she ever had to spend,
had to exhibit the condition of her
shoes, tell of the lack in her wardrobe,
often go without her new bonnet rath-
er than say another word about it, Of
ten forget her own needs, altogether
in order that Johnny and Janey might
have what their little souls had longed
fora fashion under whose sway her
heart beat and her nerves trembled
for days before she could summon her
courage to ask for what she could do
without no longer; and if then her
husband gave her some Unexpectedly
large amount, she more often than
not burst into tears of surprised glad
ness that ought to have filled his soul
x.-i% Oh hat or
so.
There was in the day of that cruel
custom of giving no fixed sum for the
private and personal use of the wife,
but of waiting to see what was indls-
pensable and then skimping on that,
many a man who willing to give and
to give generously, yet preferred to
have the spending of the money him.
self This man had the theory that
women do not know how to spend
money, and if there were any spending
to do preferred to do it, so that If his
wife asked for the pennies to buy d
spool of cotton, he went and bought it
himself, bought perhaps two spools of
cotton, whether as just mentioned, he
had the theory that women are I'M
skilled in spending, or because he fear
ed the change" might be lost to him.
or that he felt it took the bloom eff
womankind to go shopping, while
vaguely forefeeling that new woman
who not only goes shopping, but keeps
shop, and does large wholesale
business and mingles freely with the
world of men, and keeps her bloom
and asks no man for money
1t was in those old days that more
than one woman felt she committed
her soul to sin, and doubtless did,
,xr1,a OF 7frrIt hi
slept she filched a dime or a quarter
or couple of coppers from his pocket
in order to pay a char-woman for la
Dor she herself was unequal to, to lay
by and add penny to penny till she
could buy Johnny'S shoes, or some tiny
treasure he longed for, or possibly in
order to have a bit of money in her
purse that other women might not
see her worse off than
a beggar. When that man by his
parsimony or his vanity carried to ex-
tremes made his wife a thief, is it not
wonder that he never thought he was
making a thief of the mother of his
children, and that sons inherit from
their mother
The suffrage itself, if it ever be
granted, will not be such feature in
the independence of women as the gen.
erous allowance is. The woman who
has it cultivates at once her taste and
her Judgment; her sense of RESPONSE
bility is developed, her knowledge of
materials and markets and men, and
she learns how to make both ends
meet, if not to make two and two
make five. At first all but intoxicated
by what seems wealth, she may law
lsh it in gratifying her desires, but
presently she becomes a rigid econo-
mist, and exercises such a care over
expenditure that, if her husband knew
of it, would cause him to think the
allowance a positive saving of money
to the family. And as she moves about
with the dignity and freedom and care
for others given her by this purse of
her own. she looks not with more pity
on the woman who has no allowance
than she does with contempt on that
woman's husband