The grant of outdoor relief to widows having children, apart from this six months' term, is, "_so far as it relates to able-bodied women in employment_," regarded as of doubtful policy, to be made with circumspection, as likely to excuse contributions from relatives, to discourage insurance, and to have all the evils of the rate in aid of wages. It is suggested, moreover, that a widow can usually earn enough to support one child.[142] It may be understood from a bare reference in the Instructional Letter of 1839 to "able-bodied women themselves" as well as to widows, that the Central Authority was alive to the effect upon women's wages of the grant of outdoor relief to single independent women in employment.[143] But in the revision of this Instructional Letter in 1841--though its terms remained almost identical--the slight reference to the single able-bodied woman wage-earner was silently omitted.[144] [142] See note 1. [143] p. 108 of Report on the Further Amendment of the Poor Law, 1839. [144] p. 102 of Seventh Annual Report, 1841. With regard to married women, the policy laid down by the Central Authority differed according to the particular kind of Order in force, and thus according to the locality in which they resided. In all but specially excepted cases, relief to a woman under coverture was deemed to be relief to her husband, and came thus within all the various regulations and conditions limiting outdoor relief to the able-bodied man. In the thirty-two unions to which Outdoor Labour Test Orders were applied by themselves--these culminating in the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order 1852 (still in force)--the policy of the Central Authority was to leave the discretion of the local authorities unfettered, with regard to the grant of outdoor relief to married women, except the wives of those men ("the able-bodied and their families") to whom outdoor relief was only to be granted in return for labour. In these latter cases the measure of the relief was to be the needs of the family, not the work done by the husband. In 1835 the Central Authority had even urged that, where the families were large, they "should be furnished with provisions according to their numbers and necessities in the same way as other paupers" by way of "additional relief" to the man for the "wives and children, as far as shall be actually necessary."[145] [145] Circular, 21st September 1836, p. 48 of Second Annual Report, 1836.