Show KA KATHLEEN NORRIS dont mix love too well E VA CARPENTER of syracuse is g going 0 I 1 n g to be married in june tune and she writes to ask me what financial adjustment a wife has a right to demand because as she the says she has always bated being imposed upon and she wants things understood barry her young man appears to b be casual and cheerful about these bese matters and assures her that with his good steady salary prospect of promotion with his comfortable tor for 1 house free of encumber ances and with the small but sure income acome both be and eva derive from wartime investments everything t will be fine tine barrys motherless ess small daughter meg will uv live with them but her school and clothing expenses are paid by her mothers mother 1 I made out a budget saya says evas letter barry laughs at this but I 1 have been a financial manager of a small sanitarium for soma some years and know how to handle such affairs fairs Rf my idea is that just lust so much shall be allocated to table telephone cleaner and so on just ao go much go to barry for taxes car maintenance lunches club and so on and the residue be divided on an equal basis unless a wife is to be an unpaid servant as my mother was for 25 years she surely has a right to her share sham knowing your opinion of the importance of a money agreement in marriage I 1 want to ask you two questions what out of an income of about goo a month should be my share and az should uld I 1 ask barry to put our agreement into writing X serious question eva I 1 say in reply you are quite right in quoting me as saying that the money question is a most serious one in marriage and that if it is settled to the satisfaction of both parties other problems are apt to fall into line I 1 mos F 5 I 1 awve bove abado ont out a but that is not to say that I 1 believe a woman of 31 marrying a man 10 years her sei ser senior llor ilor should enter upon matrimony in this brisk business businesslike ilki liki mood no wonder it amuses barry who has already bad had some experiences of the way domestic expenses go your staid maidenly budget will be blown sk sky y hish high when the guest room bathroom overflows wa onto the dining room belling cel ling when the dentists i bill co comes m es in just double doubled your expectations when your brother tom needs another loan when your cleaner by bythe th hour eho slips on thy the the cake of soap meg pick up and sues you for when your mother Is taken suddenly ill and you ba have ve to fly to santa barbara have all advantages you alk ari are ars a responsible person barry is successful industrious thrifty reliable what more do you want certainly not budgets before you are even married and a bombardment bar dment of such words as allocation residue and basis barry wants confidence from you and unless you feel an affectionate trust in him dont marry him at all with the assets you mention you are having much more than an average start and your difficulty as I 1 see it is going to he be the loosening of all your arranged prearranged pre lists bud gets restrictions rather than the tightening of your rules for barrys ry s improvement no rife wife is more annoying than the watching suspicious woman who questions every move and eyes the spending of every penny the old phrase aa an unpaid servant la in house has been in us use for generations I 1 remember hearing bearing it in my childhood but it a apply epply now now with the modern modem science doing all it can in heating beating cooking lighting canning conning wa washing shing a woman moves with trent great ease among miraculously efficient machines in a sense she is a servant in the house budnot unpaid she is the most richly paid woman in the world she the is paid in love and gratitude she is paid whenever sha abe sees the children bright and good at the supper table or when a tired man comes home to what to him is the loveliest spot in the world solitary lives know nothing of the ecstasy of richness but the honest wife and mother knows certainly she wants to lad feel sure of her husbands understanding of her household and her personal needs but eva wm win make nuke a fatal mistake if she starts into matrimony atri holding firmly in her newly ringed hand that signed document that gives her just so much legal tender every month in california we recently had a case in which the brides bride father slather insisted upon full divorce settlements signed sealed and delivered the groom was criticized because he be treated the whole matter as a ort ont sort sont of joke but granting th that thai t he be wanted to marry the girl under r these extraordinary circumstances I 1 dont dow t know what elss else be he could have done if he had been a wiser and older man he would nave have withdrawn from the marriage eva if it you insist upon this ironbound document as a preliminary to putting your hand in barrys barwe then I 1 suggest that barry look into this pre matrimonial divorce idea and perhaps have another document in his own hand |