888 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULT"URE 



but a comparison of the ways this money is expended in open 

 family council will result I am sure in good. Have the 

 children keep a diary of their spendings. Nothing will bring 

 financial wisdom sooner than to look over an expense account and see, I 

 have spent so much in such a time, now what for, go over the items and 

 the foolish spendings will stand as warming for the future. Nothing 

 makes a man or woman more self reliant than to have money to spend 

 oneself. It gives an independant feeling that nothing else will. $10 in 

 credit at the store may buy more goods but will not give the same 

 pleasure in spending that $5 in cash will. 



Another item we are forgetting is the money spent by the average 

 man each week for tobacco and beer. Now I am not going to read you 

 a lecture on the harmfulness of these two apparent necessaries of life. 

 They are likely no more harmful than many other things we humans 

 Indulge in. 



But let us remember there are few men who do not habitually use one 

 of these luxuries. Now it takes money, not much at a time to be sure, 

 but what man ever thinks of putting aside a corresponding nickle every 

 time he spends one on these things for his wife's share? He would laugh 

 if it were suggested by her . Still it would be no more than right. Some 

 one may wish to suggest to me that a man has more responsibility than 

 his wife. He is expected to support her, is liable for her debts. True, 

 with privileges come responsibilities. A strong framework is needed to 

 support the roof and walls of a house, but if the framework alone is 

 put up the house will not be very habitable, at least in sucii weather as 

 we are having now. There are many responsibilities in homemaking 

 that do not have to do with earning money, and who can say the wife 

 does not bear her full share of these? 



I think the only trouble about the ownership of the purse comes from 

 our false education. From away back in the dim ages custom decreed 

 the man's labor alone merited cash payments, that woman's work was a 

 duty or a love-offering. Time is gradually doing away with this super- 

 stition and the woman laborer is more and more being considered worthy 

 of her hire. I have no doubt that many of you will disagree with me 

 reg3,rding the purse's ownership. But think it over after you go home 

 and see if down deep in your heart the feeling will not essert itself, that 

 the labor, sympathy, counsel, the quiet cheering you on life's way day 

 after day of your good wife will not balance all the cash the purse will 

 ever hold. 



The man who is the most emphatic in thinking and saying that a 

 wife's work amounts to little is generally the one who hunts up a second 

 wife as soon as he dares after he buries the first. 



Then let us say the family purse belongs not alone to the man to 

 draw its strings tightly against any but his own spendings. Not to the 

 woman to want only trifle in foolish and unnecessary expenditure. Not to 

 the children to dissipate its hoarded treasure in riotous living. But like 

 some scared heirloom in which each has a share, to which all may come 

 sure of finding something of their own for their cheer and comfort. 



