The San Francisco call., 1913-09-03

w hand in marriage the first auea-
| ~ tion that her father puts to him
Is. "Can you support my daughter in
| comfort?"
No kind and thoughtful parent.
| however ever takes the trouble to
ask a prospective bride. Can you
| spend wisely and judiciously my sons
hard earned money!"
| Yet the one thing is just as impor-
| tant as the other, and the happiness
| and success of any marriage depends
| Just as surely on the wife's ability to
get the full purchasing power out OF
dollar as 1t does upon the husbands $
ability to make that dollar. Tho ne'er
| do well OF man docs not more sure
| ly bring a family to want and poverty
than the thriftless and wasteful
| woman does.
| There is a homely old proverb that
says that a woman can throw more
| out OF the back door with a teaspoon
| than a man can put In at the front
| door with a shovel And it's true.
No man, unless he is a financial wiz
| ard. can make any headway against
the extravaganza OF wife. 1t is his
wifes discretion as a spender that
| settles the average mans fate for
| him and determines whether he is to
| sit on bookkeeper's stool or stand
/ behind the counter the balance of his
life, or whether he is going to be well
TO do and prosperous when he is mid
die aged
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 smart hotel afterward.
when you encounter her in the
| butcher shop negligently ordering
sweetbreads and squads, you don't
have to go to any fortune teller to
| forecast the future of her husband
and herself.
| You can do that for yourself. You
can see a stoop shouidered man grow
ing more and more discouraged as
| the years go by, and he has nothing
| to show for his labor except a noun
| tain of receipted bills, and at the end
| of 1t all you se6 a man dead from
| overwork or thrown out of his job
into hopeless poverty into which he
sinks.
| YOU CAN FORECAST
On the other hand, when you see
| the wife of poor young man who
| does her own housework 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 fore
cast the future for her and her hus-
4 band Andyou see diamonds and
i motor cars festooning her horizon
along about the time che Is so.
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-
ganee or made by their wives thrift.
| Every mother and father pray that
their own son will get q 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 woman is wasteful and ex-
| travagant and throws her husbands
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 1t and to expect them to make
| q wise use of 1t an unreasonable as
| to expect a land iuhber to know how
to pilot a ship.
NO EXPERIENCE
The average girl, until she gets
married, has never had the spending
of dollar Her father has paid her
bills and her mother has decided
| what she could buy. A little change
for street car and soda water is about
all the money that has ever jingled In
her purse. She has never had any
fixed allowance for her clothes and
personal expenses, and SO has never
realized that If she paid too much for
hat she would have to do without
dress. and that you can't spend your
money and have 1t, too.
Parents are so afraid that their
daughters will waste their money
that they let the girl learn how to
= A. Il