Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-17
Continued From Third page)

from their age of emotional maturity
and young women are the chief suffer
ers. They don't choose to wait, there
fore they are ushering in the two-earnel
family living standard.
It is a very basic change in more thar
one respect. There are living today mil
lions of husbands and wives of over Al
who recall the hardships endured IL
early married life, operating on the one.
Garner standard. The wives we're JUS
as brave and willing, but the one-earnel
standard was the traditional hard anc
fast rule, and husbands were adamani
in holding to it, thinking that they
would be Inundated by any other plan
Moreover, the wives were unframed
Tor any occupation, and even If they
dreamed of so practical solution as 9
two-earner family standard they werl
frustrated by their own economic capac-
ity. They turned their energies to petty
and often ridiculous economies. The
women'S publications of that day are
complete books of revelation concerning
this pathetic situation. Articles on how
to make a sugar barrel into an accept
able porch chair or how to make theil
own soap out of kitchen scraps were
common. Although the day of the
apartment was beginning, wives still
overelaborated their household duties
rather than study principles of efficiency
and time and labor saving. The epoch
was one of penny saving for women in
the brave but futile effort to make 9
one-earner family standard suffice.
Now in Spending Era.
Today the entire psychology is re.
versed. We are in not a saving" but Q
spending" era, and women have &C.
quired enough economic insight into
family economics to match mans insight
into industrial economics and see thai
earning more and spending more makes
far faster progress than penny saving
at least during an era of general bust
ness expansion. 1t is a simple mathe-
NAUTICAL matter-the time and energy
required to save dollar can often be
used to earn So, if person is competent
and trained. This is the economic truth
which woman has learned in respect to
family economics, and she Is capitalizine
this knowledge.
Woman is training herself before
marriage to be an economic Garner, and
her motive is triple plated. Not only
is 1t the motive Of easing the start in
marriage, but 1t is also one of self
preservation, looking toward accident
and change which might at middle age
thrust her out into economic depend
ence. This was always the serious
Achilles heel, Of the one-earner family
standard, bearing down bitterly upon
woman.
The third motive is frankly self-re-
spect and self-indulgence, for women
are not content to be deprived during
their best years, under the one-earner
system, of the good things of life; nor
are they willing to be in the position OF
complete economic subjugation to man,
as implied IN the one-earner standard.
Powerfully Motived.
The two-earner family standard is
therefore powerfully motived from wom-
ans side, although on the mans side
there is margin Of difficulty, now
gradually disappearing-a difficulty of
tradition and psychology which is not to
be considered lightly.
Because it is thus powerfully motived,
the two-earner standard is evidently re-
placing the one-earner standard as rap
idly as it can be forced. Little mention
was made of it In that connection, but
the unemployment situation In the
Spring Of 1928 very likely may have
had one origin in the increasing number
OF women in industry. A full count Of
them has not been taken since the 1920
census, which showed $500, 900 women
wage earners. There must now be H.
600, 900 or $4,000, 900. It Is a new thing
for American men to feel woman's COM
petition, but they wiz probably feel it
whenever our rapid pace Of progress
olackens, as it did in 1923.
England has had the situation to deal
with In very bald fashion, for unem-
ployed Englishmen have repeatedly pro-
tested against the competition Of mar
ried women in industry, as also have
single women. Women are now in SGT
out Of the 572 occupations listed in the
census there are woman blacksmiths,
longshoremen, bricklayers and stone
masons, and even lighthouse keepers
and technical engineers.
Industry Is Concerned.
American industry is deeply con-
cerned in the two-earner family stand
ard, for 1t Is the explanation of the
enormous increase in volume of sales in
the last decade of household equipment
packaged foods, etc. 1t Is also one of
The hopes and possibilities of still
further expansion, for, after all, only
about Is to 80 per cent Of American
families enjoy vacuum cleaners, wash
ing machines, radios, refrigerators, and
so on. One reason why farmers and
farm laborers are better Of than ali
other classes studied, as shown by DR.
Willford I. Kings new index compar-
ing the costs of goods consumed, il
that the farmer and farm laborer's
wives are in special sense economic
earners, like the married city wives who
work.
Farm wives earnings show In the
avoidance Of purchase Of certain goods
which they themselves manufacture
This was the manner in which all won
en- in an earlier pioneer and rural era
were economic earners. Being now dis
tinctly an urban people, we have discov-
cred that 1t is necessary, as 1t always
has been in all ages, for the family
economic standard to be a two-earnel
one. The one-earner standard is arti.
fetal, inadequate and unSound from
many angles, and It may be the truth
to say, further, that the general revolt
of women resulting in suffrage was not