The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-01-04
Mrs. Gait Talks of Gotham'S
Married Women as Earn
ers of Wages.
$4,000 ARE IN THE LIST
INCREASED COST OF LIVING IS
SAID TO BE ONE OF THE PRINcI-
PAL REASONS FOR THIS NEW
CONDITION.


rie Chapman Gait gave jolt to the
public the other day by stating that
$4,000 women in New York were sup
porting their husbands she did not
speak rashly, but was combining her
self to figures culled from the last
census, ten years ago.
Now" says Mrs. Gait, the times
have been SO hard and conditions
have changed so much that the num-
Der is probably doubled which would
mean that $4,000 husbands are living
in innocuous desuretude while the
feminine half of the firm thrusts her
hatpins firmly through her headgear
and starts down town to hustle the
living.
The number of women who are
helping to support their families by
working in way that does not reach
the public-doing fancy work on the
side or making articles for wOmen's
exchanges-can never be known. In
city with a population of approx
mately five million. it is a conserva-
tive estimate to say that several hun
dred thousand women are part shar-
ers in the money-making end of the
household"
Why They Are Wage Farmers.
why do women do it," she was
asked.
1T usually starts from necessity"
she replied. 1.-The man gets out of
work, can find no new job, rent day
and the grocer loom ominously. The
woman starts out to see what she can
do, and is simply luckier than the
man in finding employment.
Il had stenographer in my en-
ploy whom l had known before she
was married. Her husband was a
highly educated man. a teacher in d
boys school, but considerably older
than she. He was thrown out OF a
position, and it seemed impossible for
him to get one again. Then he tried
doing anything he could get. He took
jobs as night Waterman, and work
of that kind. which to a man of his
equipment was distinct comedown,
and for which he was badly equipped
physically. The little he made was
insufficient to keep his wife and fam
lily, so she took couple of boarders,
and they really kept the family for
whole winter. Then the wife went
back to her business, and as the man
was making so little. and some one
had to look after the children, the
husband quit his job and stayed at
home to do So"
Public Opinion Has Changed.
do you think it right for a woman
to earn money after marriage except
as an absolute necessity"
IF she hasn't any children and not
enough home duties to occupy her.
do. I think the woman who sits idly
in a boarding house or furnished
room is an indolent creature and a
parasite.
when there are children some one
must look after them and nature has
made woman the natural person to
do it. When she does that she is
working for herself, her husband and
her children. and is absolved from
nearest duty.
Public opinion in regard to a mar
ried woman being wage Garner has
changed wonderfully in the last ten
years. Once it was thought a disgrace
to a man If his wife contributed to
the family income, but it is not so
now. And when a woman is unusual
1y talented and has started on a ca
reer before she marries it is wrong
for her to abandon it after marriage.
There are several simple reasons
for this change of opinion. In the first
place, a woman doesn't have one-third
of the work to do about the house she
had formally. In the second place,
the cost of living has increased so
frightfully that more money has to be
brought into the family to keep it 60
ing. In the third place. the charact-
er Of American women has changed
astonishingly with the last genera
ton"