£ s. d. The Butcher 35 00 00 "Poulterer 06 00 00 "Fishmonger 07 00 00 "Herb-Woman 05 00 00 "Oylman 05 00 00 "Baker 08 00 00 "Brewer 10 00 00 "Grocer 06 00 00 "Confectioner 02 00 00 "Cheesemonger 04 00 00 Wine, Cyder, etc., at a moderate computation 30 00 00 The Fruiterer 01 10 00 The Milk-Woman 01 00 00 Salt, Small-coal, Rotten-stone, Brick-dust, Sand, Oat-meal, Whiteing and many other little Ingredients in House-Keeping I am ignorant of 02 00 00
| £ | s. | d. | |
| The Butcher | 35 | 00 | 00 |
| "Poulterer | 06 | 00 | 00 |
| "Fishmonger | 07 | 00 | 00 |
| "Herb-Woman | 05 | 00 | 00 |
| "Oylman | 05 | 00 | 00 |
| "Baker | 08 | 00 | 00 |
| "Brewer | 10 | 00 | 00 |
| "Grocer | 06 | 00 | 00 |
| "Confectioner | 02 | 00 | 00 |
| "Cheesemonger | 04 | 00 | 00 |
| Wine, Cyder, etc., at a moderate computation | 30 | 00 | 00 |
| The Fruiterer | 01 | 10 | 00 |
| The Milk-Woman | 01 | 00 | 00 |
| Salt, Small-coal, Rotten-stone, Brick-dust, Sand, Oat-meal, Whiteing and many other little Ingredients in House-Keeping I am ignorant of | 02 | 00 | 00 |
This detailed calculation over, we again catch a glimpse of the man's personality and his conception of what is due from him towards a wife. 'If my Wife pleases me, as I do not doubt but your Relation will, (I know my own Temper so well in that Respect that) I shall be often making her Presents of either Rings, Jewels, Snuff-Boxes, Watch, Tweezers, some Knick-Knacks, and Things of that Nature, in which, one Year with another, I am sure I shall spend 5l.' After this it occurs to him that he has left out one important source of expense which he 'least wishes for,' but which 'happens in most Families'—that is, the fees of doctor and apothecary, which will, he fears, average £5 per annum.
'As for Children, we may reasonably expect one in every two Years, if not oftener.' Reckoning the 'Expence of Lying-Inne, Child-Linen, Midwife, Nurses, Caudles, Possets, Cradle, Christenings, etc.,' the annual expense consequent on being a family man will be £15. But the initial expense is not all: 'Nursing, Maintaining, Education, Cloathes, Schooling,' and—here, surely, we have found the prototype of Mr. Walter Besant's ideal father—providing an endowment or fortune for each child will require a sum of £30 per annum; and he is 'satisfied' that he has stated a sum 'vastly less' than is likely to prove needful in the end—a foreboding in which he was certainly justified, for of payments for school and 'cloathing,' now as then, there is no end!
Having provided himself in imagination with wife, house, servants, and children, our far-seeing friend suddenly remembers that his dignity and respectability will require to be supported by a seat in church, so we find an entry, 'Pew in Church,' £2. This is followed, although we cannot trace the connection, by an estimate of £8 per annum for 'Washing his wife's and the Family Linen,' and we wonder how laundresses managed to live in those days. But so far the house is not furnished, and an initial £350 must be found for that. Fifty pounds is to go for plate alone, 'without which, being so moderate a Quantity, I daresay my wife, nor indeed should I myself be satisfied.' This £350 he calmly proposes to deduct from his wife's fortune, reducing it, therefore, to £1650.
This £1650, placed out at 5 per cent. interest, will bring in an income of £82, but the cautious bachelor says 5 per cent. is not likely to continue, therefore he will reckon interest at 4 per cent. only, and at this rate the wife's fortune will produce an income of only £56. He then proceeds to show that, adding together the foregoing items, he will have to spend on his wife £215, or even £231, 10s., 'above the Income of the Fortune she brings, besides the Hazard and want of certainty for the Money, which ought to be considered.'
And now the pamphlet draws to an end, with a conclusion we will give in the writer's own words:
'These Things considered (and he that marries without previous Consideration acts very indiscreetly), I do not see how I can marry a Woman with the Fortune you propose, or that I should better myself at all by it, and in Prudence, People should do so or let it alone; (not that I propose or think to have more) I must therefore live single, though with some regret that I cannot do otherwise, and increase my own Fortune, which happens to be sufficient for my own Maintenance till (if I may so call it) I can afford Matrimony.
'I wish the Lady all Happiness and a better Husband, and if it be for her Satisfaction, one who has thought less of the Matter; not but that I have a very good Opinion of Matrimony, and think of it with Pleasure, as hoping one time or other to enter into its Lists, but I now wait with Patience till my Circumstances or Thought vary. One Thing I would not have you mistaken in, is, that I do not mean, that your Relation will be thus expensive to me, more than any other, only that whenever I marry, let her be who she will, I must necessarily (if She has no more Fortune than you propose) expend considerably more than 200l. a year on her, above the Income of her Fortune, and at present I cannot persuade myself to be at so great an Expense, for the value of trying a dangerous Experiment, whether the Pleasures of Matrimony are yearly worth that Sum.'
And all this is submitted to the proposer by his 'Obliged and Humble Servant.'
The whole question of marriage, with its arguments for and against, seems to have been as engrossing a topic amongst English men and women in the early part of the eighteenth century as it certainly is with us now, and the bachelor's pamphlet brought forward at least two replies, which we found bound up with the original. One of these, purporting to be by the lady herself, and signed 'Philogamia,' may be dismissed in a few words; its arguments are neither serious nor to the point, and such wit as there is is of a low order, and too much in the tu quoque style to be amusing. The second rejoinder is by the 'Woman's Advocate,' and is probably not, as it pretends, written by a man on behalf of women in general, but rather by an irritated member of the weaker sex, who finds herself and her fellows insulted en masse by the bachelor's refusal to marry one of them.