These wants spread among the masses with great rapidity, and their gratification depends upon economic resources. The demands are generally felt first in the home. Many women attempt to satisfy them by their labor so that there is little danger of idleness on the part of the homeworker of this class as long as wants of this nature increase more rapidly than the desire for leisure. If their labor has a money value in the labor market it becomes a luxury when performed for their families, which could not afford to pay for these services at a very low cost. Only where the financial means of the families are sufficient to do without the help of the women in providing the necessities of life, can this new standard of life be maintained. Hand in hand with the expansion of wants must go an increase of the money income of the family unless the cost of production has correspondingly cheapened. If not, the family is living beyond its means. The income of the family must be increased either by increasing the wages of men or by the wives and mothers entering the industrial field. Since to lower one’s standard of consumption is to lose one’s social status, it is considered far better to engage in some reputable employment outside the home, even though it entails continuous toil from morning until night. The difficulty is not always met in the same way. In one community it may be perfectly proper for a married woman to continue her stenography after marriage while in another it would entail social ostracism. Often small economies are practiced in the home where no one is the wiser. In France “the sitting-room is apt to be shut up all the week in the interest of the furniture, and only opened on the single afternoon the lady of the house is supposed to be at home to her friends. Then in winter, just before the hour of reception, the meagre wood-fire is set ablaze, and sometimes tea is prepared, along with biscuits far from fresh. You may be thankful--if tea is to be offered you, a rare occurence--should the tea be no staler than the biscuits.”[52] We need not go to France for illustrations, for even in democratic America expensive table service does not necessarily imply an abundance of food. Where men’s incomes do not compensate for the decreased economic value of women’s work in the home, the problem is as pathetic as the one faced by the aristocracy of Cranford. “The present relation of incomes to wants may be seen more clearly in the case of single men and women than in that of families. In the life of both sexes there is a lengthening period between the beginning of the working years and the marriage age, where the standards of the individuals are directly made by their income. Whatever they are they are carried into marriage; if the first epoch is one of advance, the second is likely to be also.”[53]