The smallness of this result is likely to startle anybody; but none the less is it true: and it is well to consider it carefully, because the reason why it startles us requires to be particularly noticed. Of the female population of the country that is above fifteen years old, the portion that works for wages is not so much as a half;[7] and of the married women that do so, the portion is much smaller. The remainder work, no doubt, quite as hard as the rest; but they work as wives and mothers; and whatever money they have comes to them through their husbands. Thus when the ordinary man considers the question of income, he regards income as something which belongs exclusively to the man, his wife and his children being things which the man maintains as he pleases. But the moment the principle of equality of distribution is accepted, all such ideas as these have to be rudely changed: for if all of us have a claim to an equal share of wealth, just as the common man’s claim is as good as that of the uncommon man, so the woman’s claim is as good as the claim of either; and whatever her income might be under such conditions, it would be hers in her own right, not in that of anybody else. Accordingly it happens that an equal distribution of wealth, though it would increase the present income of the ordinary working man’s family, might actually, so far as the head of the family was concerned, have the paradoxical result of making him feel that personally he was poorer than before—not richer.[8] [Sidenote ◆1 The highest possible standard of living would be represented by a man and wife without children.]