Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-03-09
DOROTHY DIX'S TALKS
The Wife and Her Money
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Highest Paid Woman Writer in the World

- HOULD a woman who has
property of her own turn it
~ over to her husband when she
gets married?
Ninety husbands out of a hundred
will answer this question in the al
firmative. No idea is more thor
oughly fixed in the average mascu-
line consciousness than the bellef
that when there is any money In
family it belongs by devine right IN
the breaches pocket instead OF the
handbag. 1t seems an almost I'M
pious thing to most men for a wom-
an to have financial independence
and especially does it seem an i'm
pious thing to a husband for his
wife to have money that she can
spend as she pleases without giving
an account to him.
Men found out long ago that the
hand that holds the pocketbook is
the hand that rules, and that there
Is no slavery more complete than
that which is comprised in one hu-
man being depending upon another
for food, and clothes, and shelter
The wife who must look to her hus-
band for every mouthful she eats
and every rag on her back, and the
shelter over her head, is in a very
different relation to him than she
would be if she had her own bank ac-
count.
That Is one phase of the matter
Another is that practically every man
can use a little more money in his
business, still another phase is that
every man is perfectly certain that
he knows more about handling money
than woman does, and can invest
it to better advantage. Still another
phase of the matter is that he rea-
sons that the money is all in the
family, anyhow, so why shouldn't he
have the prestige of using it, and
signing the checks. and having the
property all In his name?
Wherefore he reaches out and
grabs wife's roll unless her father
has held different views concern
ing the rights of husband to his
wife's property, and has tied the
money up in trust so that hubby
cannot get his hands upon it. What
husbands think about their rights to
their wives property is abundant
ly proven by the fact that it has
taken years and years of bitter strug-
gle to get laws passed giving women
any property rights at all.
Of course, there have been, and
are, many men who want their wives
to keep their own. Nor is every man
who feels that his wife should turn
over her property to a CRATER, and
a scoundrel who means to cheat her
out of her money. 1t is mostly a
survival OF the old theory that a
wife is Shattel who belongs to a
man and that what she has is his
but no matter what the mans mo-
tives in taking his wife's money from
her, the effect on her Is the same.
She loses out. She is left de-
pendent on his bounty and must ask
of him as favor the money that
belongs to her by rights. She has
given away her birth right, and while
one may admire her generosity one
can but deplore her judgment.
If the husband is all that he
should be-generous, kind, and faith
full, it may make no difference to
the wife who holds the purse strings
But suppose the reverse of this is
true, and the husband is niggard-
ly, and withholds even her OWL
money from the wife, or worse still
he is gay philando1er and the wits
sees him spending her money on 9TH
er women? Could any drop in the
cup of jealousy be bitterer than that
for a wife to drink?
Nor need a man be guilty of any
crime to dissipate his wife's for
tune. Many of the best men in the
world, many of the most lovable
many of the men who are the most
devoted husbands are poor business
men. They have no financial acu-
men. The very gentleless, the very
sunny optimism that make them SO
delightful to live with unfit them
for stern, hard, practical, unsent1-
mental graphing with commercial
problems.