CHAPTER XL
A FINANCIAL STUDY FOR OUR YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE
THIRTY years ago I held a heart-to-heart talk with reasonable, well-meaning husbands on the vital subject of the monetary relations between man and wife.
I quote a paragraph, the force of which has been confirmed to my mind by the additional experience and observation of three more decades than were set to my credit upon the age-roll when I penned the words:
“I have studied this matter long and seriously, and I offer you, as the result of my observation in various walks of life, and careful calculation of labor and expense, the bold assertion that every wife who performs her part, even tolerably well, in whatsoever rank of society, more than earns her living, and that this should be an acknowledged fact with both parties to the marriage contract. The idea of her dependence upon her husband is essentially false and mischievous, and should be done away with, at once and forever. It has crushed self-respect out of thousands of women; it has scourged thousands from the marriage-altar to the tomb, with a whip of scorpions; it has driven many to desperation and crime.”
I have headed this chapter “A Financial Study for Our Young Married Couple,” because I have little hope of changing the opinions and custom of the mature benedict. Our youthful wedded pair should come to a rational mutual understanding in the first week of housekeeping as to an equitable division of the income on which they are to live together.
If you—our generic “John”—shrink from coming down to “cold business” before the echoes of the wedding-bells have died in ear and in heart, call the discussion a “matter of marriage etiquette,” and approach it confidently. And do you, Mrs. John, meet his overtures in a straightforward, sensible way, with no foolish shrinking from the idea of even apparent independence of him to whom you have entrusted your person and your happiness?
THE WIFE’S PORTION
It is, of course, your part to harken quietly to whatever proposition your more businesslike spouse may make as to the just partition, not of his means, which are likewise yours, but of the sums you are respectively to handle and to spend. Do not accept what he apportions for your use as a benefaction. He has endowed you with all his worldly goods, and the law confirms the endowment to a certain extent. You are a co-proprietor—not a pensioner. If, while the glamour of Love’s Young Dream envelops and dazes you, you are chilled by what seems sordid and commonplace, take the word of an old campaigner for it that the time will come when your “allowance” will be a factor in happiness as well as in comfort.