The Washington herald., 1920-03-29
THE wAGE-EARNING wIFE.


; A fine young man and woman Of
my acquaintance are very much in
love with each other. The young
man Is a clever, intelligent. ener-
getic fellow who earns a salary that
in our fathers tune would have been
considered ample to justify matrl .
mony. and in our grandparents time
would have made him a catch in the
eyes of managing mothers. but thot
in our days. with the high cost of
living, is too slender a shoest 'ing
| upon which to risk the great aIven-
ture.
This young man will undoubtedly
eventually be prosperous, and about
the time he is Is or SO years old. ard
has gotten set in his bachelor ways,
and his heart has dried into dust, he
will be making enough money upon
whick to support a wife. But % is
a long ways from so, and you can't
dehydrate loves young dreams and
have it come out of the can fresh
after quarter OF o century, and the
young couple want to marry now
while the bloom is on their romance
and their hearts throb and Juivor,
and life Is still a banquet on their
lips instead OF being dead sea fruit.
But they can't marry unless the
girl, who is also earning a good SAL
| ary. keeps on with her work, and
they have asked my advice about
what they shall do.
l say to them to get married
| while they are still young and still
can love, not to wait until life has
pressed all of the sentiment and ro-
nance out Of them. Let the girl go
| on with her work. She will only be
doing what every true wife wants
to do, helping her husband, and it
| matters not how. or where, that is
| done, whether in an office, or a store
or kitchen.
or course for a woman to work
| out of her home after she is mar
| ried is in defiance of ancient tradi-
! tion, but these are the times when
all hoary traditions are being
| scrapped. Other times. other man
ners. AS Mr.. Cleveland would say,
! 1t Is a condition and not a theory
that confrontS US.
Therefore. We had as we'll face
the fact that the average young
man nowadays does not make
enough money to enable him to
support family alone and unaid-
| ed, and unelss the wife also be-
| comes a money maker who adds to
the family income. there will soon
be no more marriages, and no more
babies except among the rich and
| the elderly
And that will be bad thing for
the race, and for the country.
The alternative is for the young
to marry and the girl to add her
pay envelope to the mans pay en-
| velope. since it requires both to
support a home. This may not ap-
peal to the girl who thinks that
matrimony is graft. and who
looks forward TO acquiring a hus-
band as a meal ticket, but to the
woman who truly loves a man the
prospect of being his business
partner is not without it's charms.
In reality the objections agains,
a woman continuing on with her
1 work after marriage are mostly
founded on pride and prejudice. A
| man thinks it reflects upon him not
to be able to support his wife in
supposed idleness. The girl fears
that people will think that she has
not bettered herself by marrying il
she holds on to her job. and so for
! the sake of appearance couple
drags out rve-wearing and
heart-breakinE interminable en-.
| gagement. or else they rashly
| marry and starNe when they could
! be married and comfortable and
| happy If only they had the indie
pendence to meet the situation
| frankly, and for the wife to con-
tinue her gainful occupation.
Most women who have been in
! business regret giving up their
work. They are accustomed to the
| pleasant routine of store. or office
with its gossip, its comraderie. its
excitement of big deals. and they
are bored and lonesome when they
change it for the solitary toll OF
their own little homes. Moreover
! they are trained to sell goods. OIL
| do office work, and they are bun
CLING and incompetent cooks and
! washerwomen. and they infinitely
prefer performing on a typewriter
| to performing on a gas range.
For the poor man. when he takes
| his wife out of her place of EN-.
| ployment, does not sit her down or
cushion of ease. She has tc
work about ten times as hard as
| she ever did before, with no pay