El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-08-09
Spending Husbands Money
Girls Are Not Given the Right Sort
of Education in Money Nat
tiers These Days.

= By Dorothy Dil

" HEN a young man asks girls
w hand in marriage the first
question that her father puts
to him is, can you support my daugh-
ter in comfOrt2'
No kind of thoughtful parent. how
ever, takes the trouble to ask a pros
pective bride. Can you spend wisely
and iudiciously my sons hard earned
money!"
Yet the one thing is just as i'm
portant as the other.
When you see the young wife of a
man on a moderate salary always
dressed up in the very latest cut IN
fashion, when you meet her at mat
ineeS every week and watch her haV-
ing tea at a smart hotel afterWards
when you encounter her in the butcher
shop negligently ordering sweetbreads
and squads, you don't have to so to
any fortune teller to forecast the fu-
ture of her husband and herself
YOu Can Forecast.
On the other hand. when you see
the wife of a poor young man who
does her own homework and makes
her own frOcks and who buys the
cheap cuts of meat at the butcher shop
and is particular about having the
bones and the trimmings sent home, You
are equally able to forecast the future
for her and her husband. And you see
diamonds and motor cars festoOning
her horizon along about the time she is
There is nothing new in these state
mentS. Everybody has seen hundreds
Of such cases. Everybody can recite
to you dozens of instances in their
personal knowledge of men who have
been ruined by their wives eXtrava-
gance or made by their wives thrift.
Every mother and father pray that
their own, son will get a wife who
has the saving bank habit instead OF
the bargain counter mania, yet no
body raises a finger to prevent a ca
tastrophe that threatens every man
who gets married and every family
that is started.
When a woman is wasteful and ex-
travagant, and throws her husband s
good money away. We blame her, and
say all the hard things about her
that we can think of. It's a cruel in
justice. It isn't her fault. It's the
fault of the idiotic way in which we
bring girls up.
We don't teach them the value of
money We don't teach them how to
spend It. and to expect them TO make
wise use of it is as unreasonable as to
pilot ship.
It isn't the girls fault that she
doesn't know how to spend her hus-
bands money wisely. It's the fault of
her parents who have not taught her
one Of the most important lessons in
life. That this is true is abundantly
proved bv the fact that women who
have earned their own living before
they were married, and who have
thus learned how to handle money,
are almost invariably economical and
thrifty managers and helps to their
husbands
There is no greater injustice in the
world than the way women are treated
about money A woman without
money is the most fOrlOrn and piteOus
creature on earth
BOYS are given money Of their own
when they are little fellows in order
that they may learn TO handle il. but
the little girl is left to find out this
important piece of knowledge the best
way she can. \ boy is fitted for some
occupation whereby he may support
himself in comfort A girls living is
left to chance. She isn't taught any
way by which she can keep herself out
of the poor house if she doesn't marry,
or If her husband should die and leave
her penniless.
A rich man leaves his daughter
fortune but he has not taught her one
thing about how to take care of 1t,
and she is left to the mercy of eX-
ecutors and lawyers and she doesn't
even know enough to keep herself
from being swindled.
Perhaps some day men VIII realize
that the only way to protect them
selves is to teach women how to
handle money by giving them a defin-
ite sum for their own, instead of max
ing them do the mendicant act for
every cent they get. Then we shall
hear less about eXtravagant wives. It's
ignorance, not viciOusness that makes
women waste money.