Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-17
Living Standards Change

| so much idealistic as practical and
economic at its base, despite the more
human and Understanding campaign
ideas in which it was dressed.
+ Women Are Practical.
Women are enormously practical, and
neither political notions of freedom nor
personal ambitions to have careers are
probably as powerful as the plain desire
to have larger family income, such as
Is provided by two-earner standard.
To women such an adequate two-earner
| family standard Of living spells more
education for their children, more COM
forts, better clothes and better homes,
at an age early enough to enjoy them
| and enhance the pleasure of living.
1t is one Of the bitterest of American
| tragedies, from the point of view of
women, that the wife who shaved and
saved" in the earlier years of marriage.
without means or leisure to look well,
| cultivate her mind and take care of her
self personally. reaches middle life and
sometimes riches despoiled to capacity
to enjoy them. and only too often also
| despoiled of her husbands emotional
| interest. She is a crippled veteran Of
the one-earner system, from the mod
ern woman's point of view.
An equal amount of Shaving" as an
economic Garner would have produced
enough income in early years to pro-
vide comfort, even luxury, and would
have kept up her personal standards
and would have stimulated her inter-
ests. 1t appears to be the truth that
the competent woman economic Garner
keeps up high personal standards.
Escape Early Difficulties.
Ian .,fa1 t.ar~ ,sS-4,~S
| career on well adjusted basis of mu-
+, tual consideration and operate a two
Garner standard find themselves skip
ping many of the difficulties of early
| married life. In the first place, their
matrimonial venture is adequately
financed, which is perhaps the greatest
lion in the path Of marital happiness,
as 1t is in the path of business success.
Adequate capitalization of any economic
venture means that a longtime plan
may be operated. A home may at once
be planned for and financed, insurance
may be provided, and even an automo-
bile. At the same time an adequate
supply Of modern household equipment
may be purchased to make the domestic
plant" ready to produce.
This is an age of machinery and
there is now q very considerable and
valuable array Of domestic machinery
in the well planned, systematic home
capable Of producing the leisure time
necessary for the woman wage Garner.
The same principle which makes it i'm
portant for factory to be modern in
its equipment applies to a modern home
operated on a two-earner standard.
The one-earner standard home is actu-
ally drag upon American industry
4 H1lF1VHn AvyA kana r..
young couples in the average financial
position. They cannot afford to buy
the goods needed for a modern family.
Installment buying has grown vast as
a method Of alleviating this very situa-
ton, but it is not really adequate for
the task. for to stretch it to adequacy
makes family finance dizzy and un-
sound.
Pace for Expenditure.
A $40-a-week man can't very well
take on 1nstallment obligations to the
extent OF a quarter to a half of his
salary. Any business man knows that
even II unlimited credit is offered him
by bankers 1t is unsound to borrow more
than certain ratio. It is the earn
ings which set the pace for expendi-
ture, except at the start, when caui-
talization Of the enterprise and the
plant" or equipment is important.
The initial capital in the form of
savings Is often completely lacking in
young marriages, and this makes it par
ticularly logical that the earning power
OF both parties be used as the basis of
the family economics. This Is all the
more logical today, as so many women
possess earning power at marriage-an
earning power, paradoxically, greater
than that OF the average young mani
THESE modern young women, to their
credit. have done their part in remov-
ing the feminine onus of social opinion
against the bride who Stavs OF, her