The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-31

withdraw his support from ms par
 asitis family and leave it to shift
 for itself?
 With a woman the question is even more difficult of decision, because fam fly affection is generally stronger in a woman than it is in man, and because family needs tug more at a woman's heartstrings than they do at a mans.
 Yet the money that she gives to her family is money that her hus-
 band earns by toll and sweat, and she robs him, when she helps them. Take the case of woman who is marreid to a man who loves her, who is generous to her, and who cannot en- dure to see her troubled and worried about anything he can help. The hus- band is hard-working and thrifty, one of the men who would pile up tidy little fortune that would make him com fortable and carefree in his old age if he could invest his savings. But there are no savings because his wife spends it all on her fam lily.
 Father is always in debt and borrow | ing money that he never pays back. Mother is forever having to have new winter suit or a new set of teeth. A wild young brother gets into trouble and has to be paid out. Sally has to have commercial course to enable her to make living. There's an operation for this one. A trousseau for another. Baby clothes. A thousand things that call for money.
 Many a man spends the balance
 of his life after he marries tOiling
 to support his wife's family, just as
 many a woman is sold into slavery to her husbands people on her we'd
 ding day. And it isn't fair. It
 isn't right. It isn't giving the poor
 victim a square deal.
 | It is beside the question for a man to say, How can I support my wife in luxury when my family needs so many things? When Johnny needs to have his teeth strengthened, and Susie's voice needs training, and Tom is wor- ried to death over business and needs some help so badly?
 Or for a woman to say, How can live in plenty and see my family want! How can buy a new dress for myself, when, if Lilly had some prettH clothes, she could make a good match! How can Fl put money in the savings bank when Tom needs to have his tonslls taken out, and a summer at the seasnore would restore Jenny to health!
 It is also beside the question that man and woman are willing to sacrifice themselves on the family altar. They have no right to offer up also their hus- bands and wives who have no desire whatever to be sacrificial goats for their | in-laws, and who bleat most earnestly against it.
 When people marry they take
 upon themselves new responslDl1-
 ties that take precedence over the
 old ones. They form new ties that
 are more binding than the old ones.
 They assume duties that are para
 mount to every other duty in the
 world, and their first obligation IS
 to this new allegiance. A mans
 wife and children should come be-
 fore all else to him. He should
 look out for their welfare first,
 just as a woman's duty to her hus-
 band and her new home comes De-
 fore all else.
 And no man has a right to deny his wife the things that are rightfully hers for the sake of giving to his family just as no woman has right to Keep her husband poor by making him sup port her family.
 The very thing that it may De
 generous and unselfish for man
 and woman to do before marriage
 Often becomes, after marriage, a
 crueI and bitter injustice to those
 Cvbo have A paramount claim upon
 them. DOH|OAA l -&S------
 nnrc,e, rnncG GIVES