Privately registering a determination to do nothing of the kind, I observed, “I should think their husbands would find out about that sort of thing and make trouble.”
“Don’t worry, we’d be well out of the way before they could find out anything about the business.”
“I wasn’t thinking about you and me, but about the farmer’s wife. Seems to me she has troubles enough without our adding to her burdens.”
“Now, you got to learn the first principles of this business, and the main thing is to look out for number one. Skin the other woman every chance you get. Lots of times they’ll stick you and by minding your own business, you’ll come out about even in the end. And you needn’t think there is anything new in a wife’s selling the groceries out of the house to get a few nickels to spend for herself. Why, when I lived in——” She stopped abruptly, then resumed. “Most grocerymen have cases of women who make a habit of padding the bills to get a few dollars returned on the sly. It’s all in the game, and you’ve got to play your end of it.”
“Well, I can’t say I like that kind of a game,” I declared decidedly. “I hope the day will come soon when men and women will develop a new psychology along those lines. The first thing that should be settled after a couple become engaged is the money question. They should have a definite understanding as to how the money is to be spent after marriage, and the girl should see to it that she never drifts into a position where she must plead with some man for what rightfully belongs to her.”
“That sounds very pretty, my dear, but most girls are glad enough to catch a man without taking chances by arguing over money matters—they’re too scared of being old maids.”
“That’s mostly the fault of their training or, I should say, lack of training. So long as they are led to consider marriage the whole end and aim of life, I suppose they’ll go on getting into situations where they are compelled to cheat and steal and lie to secure a few paltry nickels. If I had a daughter, I should see that she was fully equipped to become a self-supporting, self-respecting member of society, a woman who would not look upon marriage as the only possible solution of life’s problems.”
Mrs. Adams rolled her eyes in horror. “Good gracious, woman, you talk like one of these here suffragettes. If I had a girl that talked like that I’d disown her. Why, you want to break up the home!”
“If financial independence for women means breaking up the home, then let it be broken. Poverty and the economic dependence of woman on man is the curse of the whole sex relation. It extends from the society matron who caresses and fawns upon a husband whom she loathes in order to wheedle him into the gift of a diamond necklace, a new mansion or other extravagance, through all the middle class women who lie and cheat and steal the household goods to get spending money, on down to the daughters of the poor who are forced to sell their bodies in order to exist. We frown upon European marriages, but expect our own girls to make good matches, marry for a home, do anything to catch a man. Faugh, the thought makes me ill. If we support the American idea of matrimony, then we must admit that the only proper basis for marriage is love. If we are to have free men, we must have free women who refuse to sell themselves for a home, social position, or material gain in any form whatsoever. We must adopt a single standard of morals, and abolish prostitution, both within and without the marriage relation.”
“Why—why, you—I’m surprised at you,” stuttered my companion. “I never heard a woman speak such words before. Such talk is indecent, that’s what it is, indecent.”