The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-29
WIVES AS UNCERTAINTIES

Some weeks ago the newspapers dis cussed somewhat profusely the ques- tion whether a Chicago bank clerk ought to marry on less than a thous- and dollars year. It was not difficult to see that the main question was how much work the bank clerks bride would be willing to do or be capable of doing. A kindred question has been discussed more recently by Prof. Simon N. Patten of the University of Pennsylvania, who argues that the social problem of thousands of married couples would be solved were the wife
 to continue wage-earner during the
 early period of marriage When two
 young people who are earning ten or
 twelve dollars week apiece marry, Dr.
 Patten would have both. of them con-
 tinue to be wage-earners until the hus-
 bands income is increased to twenty
 dollars a week. Then, he thinks it is
 better that the wife should give her.
 self up to the home, and that both
 should live on the husbands income.
 It is desirable, thinks Dr. Patten, that persons of small wage-earning capacity
 should be married. provided both con- tinue wage-earners. Dr. Giddings of Columbia University seems to have
 kindred leanings, for though he feels it to be desirable that after marriage the wife be relieved as far as possible from a money-eerning occupation, and have plenty of time to maintain the home, he points out that the middle-class Frenchman's wife is usually a shop keeper or manages a restaurant, and that there is no better family life any, where in the midle classes in France. In this country he finds that the wife Iof a foreigner is nearly always a breadwinner, but that American wom- en have no tendency to become wage earners independent of their husbands. As an abstract consideration he thinks that women, whether married or single, should have absolute freedom and op- portunity to earn money. He would take away all legal and conventional barriers, and let women take their chances in the industrial world with the men.
 The American prejudice against wage earning by married women ap- pears in the effort occasionally made tO iiAonC Lilcs ClAi ip1Oy OL tCdCuCl6 III the public schools terminate with mar lriage. But thousands of American married women do earn wages, thous- ands more would gladly do so if they could, and other thousands would be happier and better off if they did. The prejudice against 1t seems disadvanta- geous. American men as a rule, pre- fer to support their wives if they can
 If an American married woman works
 for pay, it is either because 1t gives
 her pleasure or because her husbands s
 income Is insufficient. She does not do
 it as a matter of course How long
 she can keep it up depends upon what
 the work is, and upon other circum-
 stances. If she has children, that of
 course, interiors with her wage earn
 ing if 1t does not stop it altogether, and
 general acceptance of custom which
 would restrict or discourage child bear
 ing is not to the public advantage.
 Marriage tends, and fhould tend, to
 withdraw women from wage earning,
 but 1t need not stop it perse and ab- ruptly To make marriage bare to future wage-earning by woman oper- ates in restriction of marriage, and that is at least as much against public policy as restriction of child bearing. It will always depend upon circum- stances whether young wage-earning woman who marries had better go on with her work, but pr. Patten seems to be right in holding that it is often best that she should do SO and that it is often better that she should marry and still earn wages thansnot marry. Prejudice should not determine con- duct in these matters. There should be a freer choice.-EIarper' Weekly.