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Show f , n ! f S U Her Wife Entitled I . T v a Specific Her Due salary 4 M1 By MME. LANDRY. K ' u Prominent Club Woman o( France. Iljw,;', rirnItY g00( w'fo 11,1(1 ,,10,llcr f l'10 ll0e hIioiiIi! be paid n . I j I 8Pcclfic sulury, according to the earnings of the hiisbnml. At Bk lsassj Prescnt '10 su,1 g'ven to tho honcowifo ia ladled out to her in jil ITl exiguous driblets, and in the majority of households there is JlR I W""lll 110 8cnC(lu' or "yslei", and consequently no satisfaction to any In ImII conccrnt4d 111 ,lS iiinnngcmciit. Needless to say, the absenco h,j mimmmhi 8Hcm 18 "lc roc "P011 which domestic harmony first splits, jlm- I Vl ''IC ma'11 misons w,1' tliis labor should, above all others, h. UHLU 03 remunerated arc that it is at once very hard and distinctly J productive labor, in the economic sense. In many a home, if not in all, the labor performed by the wife-mother is not less than heroic, ' aa a short consideration will show. t.' ' Sho rises before her husband, prepares breakfast, and gets her children EE ti . , . rewly for school. Her work really only begins when husband and children fi -' 'mvo le't to house. A German advocate of women's rights has made, in I fr ljls regard, the following curious calculation. Ho carefully estimated the different .weights daily lifted by a laborer in a factory, and compared them p ? w,'th those raised by a woman who docs her own housework. Having care- "Hy added up tho weights of provision baskets, kitchen utensils, f urni- U ture and whut not, ho came to tho conclusion that housewives are really Bf , subjected to harder work than tho hardest-working laborers. E t a no 'n my experience, only in tho poorer classes that the.wom- fcj ;- n performs hard 'work. They also, by force of circumstances, are com- Jp I polled to work haj-d even in the prosperous classes. Take, for example, r ho cse of the former Miss Alice Itoosevelt, who in 15 months attended jjjy 08 dinners, 271 receptions, 171 balls, 680 teas; she shook hands in the pff',, mo period with 32,000 fellow-citizens and visited some 1,643 of them. IbM?.: At the end of this, period, she had, small wonder, to take to her bed. Hero jpV J'ou "avo nc ordinary "social" work of your well-to-do woman. This social work of the woman-of-casc is productive, since her asso- M riations bring her into touch with the political, financial, industrial and I fi general world as a highly important and active participant who helps to ? flj harmonize tho whole and make conditions all tho more supportable. If $. Ili wo admit a salary for women doctors, lawyers .and others who perform economically-productive labor why refuse it to tho woman who is prac- Hi tically on tho ground floor of civilization and the prime source of the if III world's moBt prolific possibilities? According to the French code the wife I' Jit I '8 allowed half of tho common patrimony accruing to the menage. TIuh mpJ principle is founded on the earliest ethical laws, and it is a recognition of If tho fact that the wifo has a right to at least half the product of the wage- fl; . earning. |