It is true that the ‘girl of the period’ (not the Saturday Reviewer’s ‘girl’ by any manner of means), is, generally, better dressed and more accustomed to luxury than her mother was before her. But it must be remembered that the expenses of a girl before marriage are regulated by the wishes of her parents, and because they like to see her sail about in the last Parisian fashion, it by no means follows that she will always expect to be dressed the same, or that she will not cheerfully resign some of the luxuries she has been accustomed to, to meet the means of the man who has taken it upon himself to support her.
Apropos of which I have far oftener been called upon to remonstrate with newly-married female friends on their folly in stripping the trousseaux, which had been prepared for them with such care, of all their pretty trimmings of lace and ribbon and embroidery, in order to adorn the little frocks and caps which are scarcely ever noticed but by the mother herself, than to blame them for outrunning their husbands’ means in order to procure such vanities.
Various reasons may combine to make the parent, who can afford it, take pleasure in seeing her daughter well dressed. A true mother is naturally proud of a girl’s good looks; and anxious to show them off to the best advantage; or the feeling that her child may not long be with her may make her desirous to please her to the utmost whilst she remains. Of course, the indulgence may arise from lower and more mercenary motives, such as have been attributed for many a long year to the stereotyped ‘Belgravian mother;’ but even in such a case it does not follow that the girl will never be able contentedly to accommodate herself to a lower range of comfort. It is not to be expected that, single-handed, she should put away from her the luxuries which her parents’ income can command; but it remains to be proved whether she will not willingly exchange them to become the mistress of a house of her own, even though it may be smaller than the one to which she has been accustomed. Naturally parents wish to see the children, for whom perhaps they have worked and slaved, comfortably settled in life; and it is folly for men with barely sufficient money to keep themselves to rave against fathers who refuse to sanction their daughters’ starving with them.
But the idea as to what constitutes starvation has risen with the times. A little while ago, it used to be the clergyman with a large family on eighty pounds a-year: a twelvemonth back it rose to the celebrated ‘three hundred;’ and but a few weeks since I heard a lady gravely affirm that any one who contemplated marriage now-a-days with an income of less than two thousand, must be either a madman or a fool.
Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this paper of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to maintain a family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few words upon what I consider to be the secret of the economy which has need to be exercised in these days in the largest household as well as in the smallest.
The order of her household is a true woman’s battle-field, and the better she can manage it, the more comforts she can command, and the more regularity she can enforce upon a small income and with few servants, the greater is the triumph of her victory. If means are unlimited the triumph is lost; and the woman who has a thousand a-year for her housekeeping, and is content to let her husband enjoy no more luxury upon it than his friend who spends five hundred, allowing the surplus to be wasted for want of a little thought or supervision, is not a true woman or a good one. For if prodigality is not a sin in itself, it arises from the indulgence of a combination of sins, amongst which selfishness holds chief rank.
Take the care of her household out of a woman’s hands and what remains for her to do? As a generality she would sit in idleness, for these are not the days when mothers nurse and look after their own children, and, thanks to the sewing-machine, the toil of needlework is over, even in the poorest families.
She would probably take up a novel the first thing in the morning, thereby unfitting herself for any solid work for the remainder of the day; or she would waste her time on fancy-work, or unnecessary letter-writing, or on anything but what sensible people who know they will be called to account hereafter for the use they have made of the brains God has given them would do.
And, as a rule, I believe few women would like to be lightened of their trouble in this respect. The sex is uncommonly fond of a ‘little brief authority,’ and even those who have every aid at their command, generally choose to dabble in their housekeeping affairs. And it is just this ‘dabbling’ which does harm, which often increases the expenses instead of lessening them.
I am not a second Mrs Warren; I have no ambition to try and teach my sex how to manage their husbands, houses and children on two hundred a-year, by wiping out the bread-pan every morning with a clean cloth; and making one stick of wood do the duty of two by placing it in the oven to dry the night before.