Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea

by Marion Harland

But 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 whatever 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.

“Every dollar is a lash!” I once overheard a wife say, in bitter soliloquy, as her husband left her presence after placing in her hand the money for which she had timidly asked him, to pay the weekly household bills.

Then, still supposing herself unseen, she threw the roll of bank-notes upon the floor and trampled it under foot, in a transport of impotent, and, to my way of thinking, righteous wrath.

“An exceptional case?” I beg your pardon! I wish it were. Her husband meant to be kind and affectionate as honestly as do you. When money was “easy,” he would give it to her freely and cheerfully, provided his mood was propitious at the time of her application. He had expended large sums in the purchase of jewelry and handsome clothing for her, and exulted in seeing her arrayed in them. He loved her truly, and was proud of her. His mistake was in ignoring the fact that he owed her anything in actual dollars and cents; that she worked for her livelihood as faithfully as did he, and that his debt to her was, in the highest degree, a “confidential” one. If put into the confessional, he would have admitted that he thought of himself as the only bread-winner of the family, and was, sometimes, tartly intolerant of the domestic demands upon his earnings. He made a yet grosser mistake in feeling and behaving as if the money deposited in her hands for the current expenses of the establishment, were a gift to her personally. This is a masculine blunder that poisons the happiness of more women than I like to think of, or you would be willing to believe. Be kindly-affectioned as you will, your wife cannot respect you thoroughly if she sees that you are habitually unreasonable and unjust. And it is neither just nor rational to speak and act as if all the butter, flour, sugar, meat and sundries which she saves you the trouble of buying, and of which, nine times out of ten, she is the more judicious purchaser, were to be consumed by her, and her alone.

“You never thought of such a thing!” you protest betwixt laughter and vexation.

Then, do not act as if it were your settled conviction.

Set aside from your income what you adjudge to be a reasonable and liberal sum for the maintenance of your family in the style suitable for people of your means and position. Determine what purchases you will yourself make, and what shall be intrusted to your wife, and put the money needed for her proportion into her care as frankly as you take charge of your share. Try the experiment of talking to her as if she were a business partner. Let her understand what you can afford to do, and what you cannot. If in this explanation you can say, “we,” and “ours,” you will gain a decided moral advantage, although it may be at the cost of masculine prejudice and pride of power. Impress upon her mind that a certain sum, made over to her apart from the rest, is hers absolutely. Not a present from you, but her honest earnings, and that you would not be honest were you to withhold it. And do not ask her “if that will do?” any more than you would address the question to any other workwoman. (With what cordial detestation wives regard that brief query, which drops, like a sentence of the creed, from husbandly lips, I leave your spouse to tell you. Also, if she ever heard of a woman who answered anything but “yes.”)

Advise her, for her own satisfaction, and because it is “business like,” to keep an account of her receipts and expenditures, but apprise her distinctly that you do not expect her to exhibit this to you, unless she should need your assistance or advice in balancing her books, or in some perplexed question of “profit and loss.” She will be ready to appreciate that the one sum deposited with her is a trust fund to be used to the best advantage for the general good, and the proud consciousness that she is the actual proprietor of the other, and irresponsible, save to her conscience, for the manner in which it is spent, will make her the more careful not to use it amiss. As to the housekeeping money—the weekly or monthly “allowance”—you may be very sure that you and the children will get the benefit of every cent. However economically she may handle her private store, the bulk of it will not be increased by surreptitious pinchings from the family supply of daily bread.

I have known women whose sole perquisites were what they could save from their not large allowances, who, in the absence of their husbands from home, would keep themselves and families of hungry, growing children,—with the consent and co-operation of the latter—upon the most meagre fare consistent with the bare satisfaction of the cravings of nature, that the few dollars thus spared might go toward the purchase of some coveted article of dress for one of the girls; a set of tools or books for a boy, or a piece of furniture desired by all. Which bit of economy (!) being reported to the paterfamilias when the dearly-bought thing was exhibited, was pronounced by him, his hand complacently finding its way to the plethoric wallet in his pocket, to be worthy of his august approval. How many husbands have heard their wives remark how cheaply the family lived when “papa was away?” and how many have asked themselves seriously why and how this was done?

Other women, and more to be pitied, I am acquainted with, who make false entries in the account-books, which are showed weekly to their lords as explanatory of “the way the money goes.” It is easier and less likely “to make a fuss,” to record that seven pounds of butter have been bought and used, his lordship having helped in the consumption thereof, when by sharp management, five have sufficed; to write down “new shoes for Bobby, $4,00,” when, in reality, the cost of mending his old ones that they might last a month longer, was only $1,50,—than to confess to the practical critic who does not overlook a single item, that the money “made” by these expedients was spent, partly in paying up a yearly subscription to the Charitable Society; partly for an innocent luncheon during a day’s shopping in the city.