White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1912-06-30

GILBERT HUBBARD, IN THE NEW
YORK AMERICAN, TELLS WHY
LIFE INSURANCE COMPANIES
REFUSE HOUSEWIVES.


whose actuaries have more than a
national reputation for soundness of
reasoning, has recently given IT'S
agents some instruction on insuring
the lives of women / quote:
Whereas, this company has not
heretofore thought best to insure the
lives of women, it is now acceptable
for you to secure applications for
policies from women as follows:
Il. Accept applications only from
women in business or from wage
earning women who have people de-
pendent on them.
y. Do not accept women with an
income that is not derived from their
own property"
From this | assume that these
hard-headed actuaries, who elimi-
nate g%allantry, poetry and sentiment
from their calculations, regard mar
ried women and women who have
things provided for them as uncer-
tain propositions to insure.
Wage-earning women are reason
ably happy. Steady, systematic
work means health. The competent
man or woman is a good moral and
financial risk.
marriad unman may no com
petent or she may not. She may be
happy or she may not. 1t is quite
unnecessary to question her-she
will not tell the truth about herself,
and it is exactly the same with a wo-
man who lives on the bounty provid-
ed by either a live man or a dead one.
Four-fifths of all the surgical cases
in public hospitals are performed on
women. But of the wa%ge-earning,
wealth-producing women, no more
go to hospitals proportionally than
do men. 1t is men who take the phys
ical risks of the world-it is men
who operate railroads, tunnel noun
tains, sail ships, mine ores, and build
buildings that scrape the sky.
Yet in spite of these racts, the in
surance actuaries much prefer to in
sure men who are abroad in the
world doing things than to accept
risks on women who abide in the
safety of the home and are protected
and shielded on every side. From
this there is only one conclusion, and
that is, that to be married and keep
house, and to have an income and do
nothing, are hazardous undertakings.
1t is not the dangers of childbirth
that make women a bad risk-it is
the paucity of their lives. If it were
the danger of motherhood, the insur-
anee companies would not refuse
women i've fifty, but married wo-
men, and those unmarried, who are
provided for. are placed in the same
category.
The real fact is, few women,
comparatively, are admitted into the
work of the world. Woman is the
slave of her housekeeping-the slave
of a man. When she gets married
she throws up her job. And in New
York, If she is a school teacher, her
marriage is equal to a resignation.
Hence the misery hat leads to the
ether-eone, the ligature and the
scalpel.
And that is the reason why life in
surance companies, as a rule, will not
insure the lives of married women.
The average married women has no
high purpose in life-no output for
her ambition, no rock upon which
she can strike her intellect and
cause the yelling waters of life to
flow.
She has tasted of life and found it
alkaline-all there is for her now is
submission. She is a passive party.
So the insurance actuary, viewing the
average married woman with his
cold, calculating, financial eye, de-
clares her a hazardous risk, and
passes her up.