Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for ReformBesant, Annie
Philosophy
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Besant, Annie
Marriage -- Great Britain; Marriage law -- Great Britain
unmarried" (p. 95). The apportionment of household expenses must
necessarily be left for the private arrangement of the married pair;
where the woman has property, or where she earns her livelihood it would
be her duty to contribute to the support of the common home; where
the couple are poor, and the care of the house falls directly on the
shoulders of the wife, her personal toil would be her fair contribution;
this matter should be arranged in the marriage contract, just as similar
matters are now dealt with in the marriage settlements of the wealthy.
As means of livelihood become more accessible to women the question
will be more and more easily arranged; it will no longer be the fashion
in homes of professional men that the husband shall over-work himself
in earning the means of support, while the wife over rests herself
in spending them, but a more evenly-divided duty shall strengthen the
husband's health by more leisure, and the wife's by more work. Recovery
of debts incurred for household expenses should be by suit against
husband and wife jointly, just as in a partnership the firm may now be
sued; recovery of personal debts should be by suits against the person
who had contracted them. Many a man's life is now rendered harder than
it ought to be, by the waste and extravagance of a wife who can pledge
his name and his credit, and even ruin him before he knows his danger:
would not the lives of such men be the happier and the less toilsome if
their wives were responsible for their own debts, and limited by their
own means? Many a woman's home is broken up, and her children beggared,
by the reckless spendthrift who wastes her fortune or her earnings:
would not the lives of such women be less hopeless, if marriage left
their property in their own hands, and did not give them a master as
well as a husband? Women, under these circumstances, would, of course,
become liable for the support of their children, equally with their
husbands--a liability which is, indeed, recognized by the Married
Women's Property Act (1870), s. 14.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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