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Show ALLOWANCE NOT RIGHT WORD. Writer Objects to Term Applied to Sum Wife Shall Receive from Her Husband. "An allowance is a mighty fine thing when a man knows just how much is coming in, but I don't like that word 'allowance.' Who are you to 'allow' your wife to have money ? You endowed her with it as soon as you married her. It's just as much hers as yours. In the partnership she and you are equal if you married the right sort of woman. 'Allowance.' 'Just due' would be better. bet-ter. Give her her just due the first ol every month and relieve her of the humiliating hu-miliating necessity of asking so selfish a creature perhaps I should say thoughtless a creature as you for money. "I've talked with a good many wives, and they don't like to ask for money. Many of them do not realize that they have a perfect right to it, while some of them have too much spirit to ask for what is their due. "The trouble in most cases is that so many husbands have the 'lord and master' mas-ter' idea of their position, and they like to feel that it is for them to say what disposition shall be made of the money that they earn. "But remember that in the great middle mid-dle class, of which American life I say American life is largely composed, the wife works as hard as the man does, and, while he does work for which another an-other pays him, she does her work from love; and so, if he's a decent fellow, fel-low, he will never force her to ask for money; he will be glad to share it with her." Charles Battell Loomis, in Smith's. |
