SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 885 



party agrees to do thus and so, are bound by specified conditions. Cer- 

 tain labors are assigned eacli and a corresponding salary is named, a 

 rightful pay for services rendered. 



In a marriage contract each party is also bound by specific conditions. 

 The woman to love, honor and obey. O. what a risk she takes, when 

 she blindly makes that promise. The man to cherish and protect and in 

 many cases he adds that with all his worldly goods he will her endow. 

 How often this last clause is a dead letter. 



The matter of a salary for either party is never thought of. If the 

 woman has been a wage earner before marriage it soon becomes a seri- 

 ous matter to her to be dependent upon some one else for every nickle 

 she spends. Few husbands there are who make an allowance out of the 

 income for a wife's purse. They mean well, no doubt. They think and 

 say, why Mary can have anything she wants that I can afford. She can 

 get cre'at at the store at any time, what more does a woman want? 

 "Women feel a delicacy about asking for money, and credit at the store 

 does not meet all the wants of a woman now-a-days. 



A man in his daily round of business has frequent calls upon his gen- 

 erosity, his public spirit, when ready cash is the only way out of it and 

 he would feel much abused if after working day by day he was allowed 

 nothing in his purse to spend unquestioned as to what he did with it. 



Women have these same demands upon them and are often looked 

 upon as means spirited simply because they have no money of their owji 

 and do net know when they will have. We hear the remark quite often 

 that since women are so generally in business they are not so ready to. 

 marry as heretofore and the reason given they are more independent in 

 money matters, so the need of marrying for a home is not so urgent. 

 This may be true but the woman whose only object in marrying is to 

 gain a home is not generally the woman who will make a home for 

 others. 



Marriage should not be wholly a business contract, yet it should have 

 enough business mixed in it to balance the love there is, so that both 

 ends of the plank on the daily seesaw of life will rise and fall rythmically. 



We are tiiMte inclined to sneer at the thriftiness of our English cousins 

 when arranging for a marriage with an American but they scruple not 

 to insist upon the marriage dot being well secured before the marriage 

 knot is tied. This is true with titled Englishmen at all events. I do 

 not call to mind any English girl marrying an American man, nor the 

 money value of such a union. 



It would not sound well perhaps for a man when seeking a wife to 

 say I will pay you so much a week for your services as cook, laundress, 

 housekeeper and general manager, including possible duties as mother 

 and nurse to our children. We would look aghast at such a proceeding 

 and say how cold blooded. But what about the man who demands all 

 these services and when asked for money to use should surily respond 

 with, what have you done with that dollar I gave you a month ago. 



By common sonsent years ago the purse was conceded to be the prop- 

 erty of the man. But why? To be sure he may labor hard and his labor 



