An Odd Objection - Fear of a Wife's Independence - Professional Jealousy - Various Occupations by which Wives Earn Money - How a Smallholder Depends on the Wife's Help - The Unmarried

Breadwinner's Point of View he is a very useful person - this wife who can add a few pounds to the family income. In most cases she has known the glory of being wholly or largely independent before her marriage, and after that event she likes to know that her struggles against Fate and often bitter experience are not to be lost, and that she will still have the joy of receiving cheques made out in her own name for her own unaided efforts.

But, oddly enough, most husbands object to the money-earning wife.

Some of them are glad that no longer will their particular " frail woman " have to fight with the world for the world's gold. They know how hard and cruel is the task of him or her who has work to sell, and willingly they insist on undertaking all that side of the marriage partnership. They realise it is hardly fair that a woman shall be home-maker and home-keeper as well. It is hardly fair that she should both bake the bread and earn the money to buy the flour. But the number of these charitably thinking husbands is few.

The Independent Wife

The objection of the greatest number of husbands is the fear that their wives will continue to be independent so long as they have the power of buying their own hats and silk stockings. The heaviest claim a husband has over a wife is an economic one. If she is dependent on him because he earns the money, she is much more likely to be humble and amenable. The aged " joke " - that a man can bring his wife to a state of entire subjection by holding over her head the threat of no more new hats or silk dresses - is a very real weapon to some husbands. And yet these husbands are not tyrants, probably very good husbands from many points of view ; but because they are men, they have an inborn notion that as they earn the money they have the sole right of saying how it shall be spent.

Another horribly powerful reason why many wives do not attempt to earn money is jealousy. Some wives, literary or artistic, can earn more money than their husbands, and these same wives often win fame and the world's honour, while the husband is only known as " Mrs. Author's husband." " Mrs.a. is a clever woman, but her husband is quite an ordinary man," is the dread sentence every husband begins to fear when he realises his wife's ability. It is a rare case when a wife is jealous of her husband's success, but most men feel a sense of resentment, if nothing more, when their life's partner wins the world's applause, and they remain in the dim shadows of the " wings."

Professional Jealousy

Quarrels, separation, and even divorce have been the direct results of a wife's capability to earn as much money and win as much fame as her husband.

A husband was an editor, and his wife wrote sweet, appealing lyrical poetry, for which she could very soon ask almost any price. The husband, when his wife's skill was mentioned to him, would answer in an offhand way : " Yes, my wife does occasionally dash off some light verses - just the sort of stuff anyone could do who had the time to spare." This same husband would depreciate his wife's earning efforts, and would tell his friends, even before his wife, that she earned " just about enough to keep her in shoe leather."

But really there is no single solitary reason, except that of unfair competition, why a wife should not earn money.

If her husband's income is not a large one, her addition to it is very helpful, and often means the difference between bread and bread-and-butter. A woman marries a poor man of her own free will, and if she can manage to look after her home well, and at the same time earn money, the husband need raise no objections. In the present generation more wives are earning their share of the daily bread than ever before, and yet there was never such an interest taken in cooking, housekeeping, and artistic house furnishing.

Women In The Colonies

Varied are the occupations of wives of my own acquaintance. One is a house decorator, another is a garden designer, another designs and makes wooden toys. Church embroidery brings one wife a few pounds a year ; poster and sign painting is the useful accomplishment of another.

And it is not only professional women who can and do add their helpful share to the family purse. Many a country husband - a farmer, or smallholder, or Colonial settler - is very dependent on bis wife's earnings from eggs, poultry, jam, and butter. Often it is said - even by men - that the success of a smallholder depends on his wife. If she can use the surplus fruit for bottling and preying, any extra milk for cheese and butter, and take such care of the poultry that the greatest number of eggs will result, a smallholding can be made profitable. But a helpless wife, who does not care if she earns money or not, will ruin a man who has to depend on every branch of his work to make a profit. These wives have homes, and many have children, and neither are neglected. Some days perhaps these industrious women have no time for their own particular work ; on other days they are able to arrange that they shall be free to give their whole attention to it.

A Popular Fallacy

The objection raised by some people that wives are using time which is not their own, if they are earning money, is one that has nothing to support it. Many wives do political work, often for their husbands, or undertake some form of philanthropic or charitable work which the world could ill afford to lose. If they do not spend their spare time so unselfishly, they spend it on afternoon calls, bridge parties, dances, and theatres. A clergyman and a doctor depend very largely on their wives in their work, yet these women are not accused of neglecting their homes and families.