Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making — John Shaqi
Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-MakingSwan, Annie S.
General
Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making
Swan, Annie S.
Family life; Home economics; Marriage
There is a type of husband--unfortunately rather common--who begrudges
his wife, whatever her character and disposition, every penny she
spends, even though it is spent primarily for his own comfort, and who
has never in his life cheerfully opened out to her his purse, whatever
he may have done with the thing he calls his heart. This is a very
serious matter, and one which presses heavily on the hearts of many
wives. It is hard for a young girl, who may in her father's house have
had pocket money always to supply her simple needs, to find herself
after marriage practically penniless--having to ask for every penny she
requires, and often to explain minutely how and where it is to be spent.
I have known a man who required an absolute account of every halfpenny
spent by his wife, and who took from her change of the shilling he had
given her for a cab fare. We must pray, for the credit of the sex, that
there are few so lost to all gentlemanly feeling, to speak of nothing
else; but it is certain that, through thoughtlessness as much as
stinginess often, many sensitive women suffer keenly from this form of
humiliation. It ought not to be. If a woman is worthy to be trusted with
a man's honour, which is supposed to be more valuable to him than his
gold, let her likewise be trusted with a little of the latter, without
having to crave it and answer for it as a servant sent on an errand
counts out the copper change to her master on her return. There are many
little harmless trifles a woman wants, many small kindnesses she would
do on the impulse of the moment, had she money in her purse; and though
she may sometimes not be altogether wise, she is blessed in the doing,
and nobody is the poorer. However small a man's income, there are surely
a few odd shillings the wife might have for her very own, if only to
gratify her harmless little whims, and to make her feel that she
sometimes has a penny to spare. It is quite desirable, I think, that
there should be, even where means are limited (I am not of course
alluding to working people whose weekly wage is barely sufficient for
family needs), some arrangement whereby the wife may have something,
however small, upon which she can depend, and which she can spend when
and how she pleases.
Some indulgent fathers, foreseeing the possibility of their daughters
feeling the lack of a little money, continue their allowance to their
married daughters; but there are very few husbands, one would think, who
would care to leave their wives so dependent for little luxuries it
should be their privilege to supply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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