The wife may summon the husband. Why may not the husband summon the wife? If a wife commits a certain offence once, though in every other respects she may be a decent woman, the law is outraged and society scandalized, so much so, that the husband is entitled to cast her off. But a lifetime of wifely drunkenness, of horrible dirt, of insensate waste and utter neglect, are at present not worth a moment’s consideration. These are the women who ought to be the inmates of our inebriate reformatories, and numbers of husbands would be only too glad to pay reasonable sums for their detention and treatment. Let the State keep and control its criminal inebriates, and treat them scientifically for whatever may be the matter with them. Private individuals or philanthropic societies will not be able to do much with them or for them; but they might do much for drunken wives if those wives were committed to their care. We have heard so much of women’s rights that there is a danger of the rights of men being overlooked, so on their behalf I contend that the sober husband of a drunken wife should have the power of summoning her before the magistrate, when, if it is proved that she is persistently drunken, the magistrate shall have the power of committing her for not less than a year to some certified inebriate reformatory; and at the same time an order should be made upon the husband for a weekly contribution towards his wife’s support while she is in the reformatory. Wives know only too well that the law will not interfere with them for home drunkenness. They are perfectly aware that they can snap their fingers at the husband, police, or magistrate, and, knowing this, many of them are quite content to live in filth and misery. Happy would it be for them if they were for a time taken out of that misery; great would be the relief to many decent husbands, while untold numbers of children would be infinitely happier. Sober, industrious people have rights as well as drunkards, and it is high time the State considered those rights--high time, too, that the State considered the wrongs inflicted on itself by such drunkenness, for, though the State at present does not care, it is not let off easily. It has to pay, and the penalty is a heavy one. CHAPTER V PARENTS AND CHILDREN