I do not like that word “allowance.” It savors too much of a stipend granted by a lordling to a serf; a government pension to a beneficiary; the dole of the rich to the poor. But since it has crept into general use as descriptive of that portion of the wife’s earnings which she is permitted to disburse more or less at her discretion, we must take it as we find it.

Marriage is to a woman one of two things—licensed, and therefore honorable beggary, or, a copartnership with her husband upon fair and distinctly specified terms. When I spoke of the wife’s earnings just now, it was not with reference to moneys accumulated by work or investments outside of the home which she occupies with you and your children. We will set aside, if you please, the legal and religious fiction that you have endowed her with all—or half your worldly goods, and put still further from our consideration the sounding oaths with which you protested in the days of your wooing, that you cared nothing for pelf and lucre—Cupid’s terms for stocks, bonds and mortgages, houses and lands—except that you might cast them at her feet. If you recollect such figures of speech at all, it is with a laugh, good-humored, or shame-faced, and the plea that everybody talks in the same way in like circumstances; that pledges thus given are in no wise to be regarded as promissory notes. Hymen’s is a general court of bankruptcy so far as such obligations go. Your wife is a sensible woman, and never expected to take you at your word—at least, such hot and hasty words as those, in which you declared yourself to be the most abject of her slaves, and herself the empress of your universe, including the aforementioned stocks, mortgages, houses and lands, real and personal estate—all assets in esse and in posse.

Having cleared away, by a stroke of common sense, this gossamer, that like other cobwebs, is pretty while the dew of early morning impearls it, and only an annoyance afterward; particularly odious when it entangles itself about the lips and eyes of him who lately admired it—we will look at the question of the wife’s work and wages from a business point of view—pencil and paper in hand.

First, we will determine what should be the salary of a competent housekeeper; one who makes her employer’s interests her own; who rises up early and lies down late, and eats the bread of carefulness; who is not to be coaxed away by higher wages, and is never in danger of giving warning if her “feelings are hurt;” if the servants are insubordinate, or the master is given to fault-finding, and not always respectful to herself. It would be to your interest, were you a widower, you confess, to give this treasure two dollars a day—as women’s wages go. “And,” you add in a burst of manly confidence, “she would be cheap at that.” But we will put down her salary in round numbers, at $700 per annum.

Now comes the seamstress’ pay. Again, a “competent person,” one who is ever in her place; whose work-hours number fourteen out of the twenty-four, if her services are required by you or the children; whose needle is always threaded, her eye ever vigilant; with whom slighting and botching are things unknown by practice; who takes pride in seeing each of the household trig and tidy; who “seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands;” who is an adept in fine needlework as in plain sewing, and not a novice in dress-making; who, perchance, can “manage” boys’ clothes as well as girls—who will do it, of a certainty, if you explain that you cannot afford tailors’ bills for urchins under ten years of age; finally, who possesses that most valuable of arts for a poor man’s wife,

Shall we allow to this nonpareil the wages of an ordinary seamstress who “cannot undertake cutting and fitting,”—one dollar a day? Or, is she entitled to the pay of a dressmaker’s assistant—half a dollar more? I do not want to be hard with you. We will set her down for $450 a year. And, again, we conclude that you have made a good bargain.

Next, the nursery-governess, and perhaps the most important functionary in the household. She must, you stipulate, have charge of the children, by day and night; guard morals, health and manners, besides teaching the youngerlings the rudiments of reading and writing; must superintend the preparation of the elder ones’ lessons for school-recitations, and look to it that catechism and Bible-lesson are ready for Sabbath-school; that musical exercises are duly practised; that home is made so attractive to the boys that they shall not be drawn thence by the questionable hilarity of engine-house and oyster-cellar. A lady she must be, else how would your girls be trained to modest and graceful behavior, and your friends be entertained as you deem is due to you and to them, in your house? A responsible, judicious person is indispensable to the comfort and health of you and yours; one who does not regard the care of a young baby as “too confining;” nor sleepless nights on account of it, a valid reason for “bettering herself;” nor a brisk succession of measles, mumps and chicken-pox cogent cause for informing you that she “didn’t engage for this sort of work, and would you be suiting yourself with a lady as has a stronger constitution—immediate, for her trunk is packed.”

Would a thousand dollars per annum provide you with such a hireling? I knew a wealthy man who offered just that sum for a nursery-governess during the protracted illness of his wife. She must be intelligent and ladylike, he stated, qualified to undertake the education of the three younger children. There were six in all, but there was a tutor for the boys. The governess’ bed-room adjoined that of the little girls, the door of which must stand open all night. The baby’s crib was to be by her bed, and a child, three years old, was also to share her chamber. She would be treated respectfully and kindly, and every enjoyment of the luxurious establishment, compatible with the proper discharge of the duties appointed, would be hers.

He could get no one to take the place.

This is simple fact, and it is pregnant with meaning.

Nevertheless, what if we put down the wages of your nursery-governess at the same sum you are willing to give your housekeeper—$700? Oblige me by adding up the short row of figures under your hand.

This you will please consider as the amount of your wife’s salary, due from you for services rendered, exclusive of board and lodgings, which are always the portion of resident employees in your house. There is no charge for “extras,” you observe. We have said nothing about the bill for nursing you through that four weeks’ spell of inflammatory rheumatism last winter, or the longer siege of fever, three years ago, when this servant-of-all-work sat up with you fourteen weary nights, and would entrust the care of you to no one else. By her skillful ministrations, the miracle of her patience, love and prayers, you were rescued, say the doctors, from the close clutch of death. You cannot see the figures very distinctly while you think of it, but we agreed, at the outset, to keep feeling in the background.

You “have tried to be a kind, affectionate husband,” you say, in a very unbusiness-like way.

I believe you, and so does the blessed little woman whom I have shut out from this conference, lest her foolish fondness should spoil the effect of our matter-of-fact talk. I would have you and all husbands be just, no less than loving. Let us return to our figures. The estimate is for a man of moderate means and modest home, one of the middle class which is everywhere the bone and muscle of the community—the class that makes national character, the world over. If you are wealthy, and put the care of a large and elegant establishment upon your manager, the remuneration should be in proportion. For a fancy article you have to pay a fancy price. You misunderstand your wife and me, if you imagine that we would inaugurate in your household a debit and credit system and quarter-day settlements. She would be the first to shrink from such an interpretation of your mutual relations. I should, of all your friends and well-wishers, be the last to recommend it.

But I have studied this matter long and seriously, and I offer you as the result of my observation in various walks of life, and careful calculation of labor and expense, the bold assertion that every wife who performs her part, even tolerably well, in whatever rank of society, more than earns her living, and that this should be an acknowledged fact with both parties to the marriage contract. The idea of her dependence upon her husband is essentially false and mischievous, and should be done away with, at once and forever. It has crushed self-respect out of thousands of women; it has scourged thousands from the marriage-altar to the tomb, with a whip of scorpions; it has driven many to desperation and crime.

“Every dollar is a lash!” I once overheard a wife say, in bitter soliloquy, as her husband left her presence after placing in her hand the money for which she had timidly asked him, to pay the weekly household bills.

Then, still supposing herself unseen, she threw the roll of bank-notes upon the floor and trampled it under foot, in a transport of impotent, and, to my way of thinking, righteous wrath.

“An exceptional case?” I beg your pardon! I wish it were. Her husband meant to be kind and affectionate as honestly as do you. When money was “easy,” he would give it to her freely and cheerfully, provided his mood was propitious at the time of her application. He had expended large sums in the purchase of jewelry and handsome clothing for her, and exulted in seeing her arrayed in them. He loved her truly, and was proud of her. His mistake was in ignoring the fact that he owed her anything in actual dollars and cents; that she worked for her livelihood as faithfully as did he, and that his debt to her was, in the highest degree, a “confidential” one. If put into the confessional, he would have admitted that he thought of himself as the only bread-winner of the family, and was, sometimes, tartly intolerant of the domestic demands upon his earnings. He made a yet grosser mistake in feeling and behaving as if the money deposited in her hands for the current expenses of the establishment, were a gift to her personally. This is a masculine blunder that poisons the happiness of more women than I like to think of, or you would be willing to believe. Be kindly-affectioned as you will, your wife cannot respect you thoroughly if she sees that you are habitually unreasonable and unjust. And it is neither just nor rational to speak and act as if all the butter, flour, sugar, meat and sundries which she saves you the trouble of buying, and of which, nine times out of ten, she is the more judicious purchaser, were to be consumed by her, and her alone.

“You never thought of such a thing!” you protest betwixt laughter and vexation.

Then, do not act as if it were your settled conviction.

Set aside from your income what you adjudge to be a reasonable and liberal sum for the maintenance of your family in the style suitable for people of your means and position. Determine what purchases you will yourself make, and what shall be intrusted to your wife, and put the money needed for her proportion into her care as frankly as you take charge of your share. Try the experiment of talking to her as if she were a business partner. Let her understand what you can afford to do, and what you cannot. If in this explanation you can say, “we,” and “ours,” you will gain a decided moral advantage, although it may be at the cost of masculine prejudice and pride of power. Impress upon her mind that a certain sum, made over to her apart from the rest, is hers absolutely. Not a present from you, but her honest earnings, and that you would not be honest were you to withhold it. And do not ask her “if that will do?” any more than you would address the question to any other workwoman. (With what cordial detestation wives regard that brief query, which drops, like a sentence of the creed, from husbandly lips, I leave your spouse to tell you. Also, if she ever heard of a woman who answered anything but “yes.”)

Advise her, for her own satisfaction, and because it is “business like,” to keep an account of her receipts and expenditures, but apprise her distinctly that you do not expect her to exhibit this to you, unless she should need your assistance or advice in balancing her books, or in some perplexed question of “profit and loss.” She will be ready to appreciate that the one sum deposited with her is a trust fund to be used to the best advantage for the general good, and the proud consciousness that she is the actual proprietor of the other, and irresponsible, save to her conscience, for the manner in which it is spent, will make her the more careful not to use it amiss. As to the housekeeping money—the weekly or monthly “allowance”—you may be very sure that you and the children will get the benefit of every cent. However economically she may handle her private store, the bulk of it will not be increased by surreptitious pinchings from the family supply of daily bread.

I have known women whose sole perquisites were what they could save from their not large allowances, who, in the absence of their husbands from home, would keep themselves and families of hungry, growing children,—with the consent and co-operation of the latter—upon the most meagre fare consistent with the bare satisfaction of the cravings of nature, that the few dollars thus spared might go toward the purchase of some coveted article of dress for one of the girls; a set of tools or books for a boy, or a piece of furniture desired by all. Which bit of economy (!) being reported to the paterfamilias when the dearly-bought thing was exhibited, was pronounced by him, his hand complacently finding its way to the plethoric wallet in his pocket, to be worthy of his august approval. How many husbands have heard their wives remark how cheaply the family lived when “papa was away?” and how many have asked themselves seriously why and how this was done?

Other women, and more to be pitied, I am acquainted with, who make false entries in the account-books, which are showed weekly to their lords as explanatory of “the way the money goes.” It is easier and less likely “to make a fuss,” to record that seven pounds of butter have been bought and used, his lordship having helped in the consumption thereof, when by sharp management, five have sufficed; to write down “new shoes for Bobby, $4,00,” when, in reality, the cost of mending his old ones that they might last a month longer, was only $1,50,—than to confess to the practical critic who does not overlook a single item, that the money “made” by these expedients was spent, partly in paying up a yearly subscription to the Charitable Society; partly for an innocent luncheon during a day’s shopping in the city.

“Unjustifiable deception?” Have I pretended to excuse it? But I look back of the timid woman—the pauper, bedecked in silks, laces and gems,—for most men like to see their wives dressed as well as their neighbors—the moral coward, who has lied from the natural desire to handle a little money for herself without being cross-examined about it—and ask—“by what stress of humiliating tyranny was she brought to this?”

All women do not manage monetary affairs well, you remind me, gently. Some are unprincipled in their extravagance, reckless of everything save their own whims and unconscionable desires. Must a man beggar himself and those dependent upon him, lest such an one should accuse him of parsimony? By yielding to demands he knows to be exorbitant, he proves himself to be weaker even than she.

I have said nowhere that a woman is the best judge of what her husband ought to appropriate from his gains or fortune for the support of his family. But he stands convicted of a grave error of judgment, if he has chosen from the whole world as the keeper of his honor and happiness, a woman whom he cannot trust to touch his purse-strings.

Let us be patient as well as reasonable. So long as a babe is kept in long clothes, and carried in arms, it will not learn to walk alone. The majority of women have been swathed in conventionalities and borne above the practicalities of business by mistaken tenderness or misapprehension of their powers, for so long, that, however quick may be their intuitions, time and practice are necessary to make them adepts in financiering. The best way to render them trustworthy is not by taking it for granted, and letting them see that you do, that they have sinister designs upon your pockets. They are not pirates by nature, nor are they, even with such schooling as many get from their legal proprietors, always on the alert to wheedle or extort a few dollars for their own sty and selfish ends. After all, is there not a spice of truth in the would-be satire of the old distich?

If you chance to be painfully conscious of the mental inferiority and warped conscience of your partner in the solemn dance of life; if there is more “worse” than “better” in the everyday wear of the matrimonial bond; if sloth and waste mark her administration of household affairs, instead of the industrious thrift you would recommend, and which you see others practise; if the rent in the bottom of the pouch carries off the money faster than you can drop it in, you are to be pitied almost as much as your bachelor neighbor, who sews on his own buttons, and depends upon boarding-houses for his daily food. Still, my friend, is there any reason why you should accept the consequences of this one mistake on your part, with less philosophy; bring to the bearing of it a smaller modicum of Christian resignation than you summon to support you under any other? Women have been as grievously misled by fancy or affection, before now, and have borne the burden of disappointment to the grave without murmur or reproach.

Then, there is always the chance that your wife is not “understood,” or that, well-meant as your attempts to “manage” her have been, you have not selected the most judicious methods of doing this. In this enlightened and liberal age, nobody, unless he be bigot or fool, habitually thinks and speaks of women as a lower order of intelligent beings. But even in your breast, my ill-mated friend, there may lurk a touch of the ancient leaven of uncharitableness, and in your treatment of her “whom the Lord hath given to be with you,” there may be a spice of arrogance, the exponent of which, were you Turk or Kaffir, would be brute force.

“I do not object to your proposal, my love. You always have your own way in household affairs,” said a very “kind and affectionate” man to his wife, with the air of a potentate amiably relinquishing his sceptre for love’s sake.

“Will you tell me, my dear husband, why, if I conduct ‘household affairs’ wisely and pleasantly (and you have often acknowledged that I do!) I should not have my own way?” was the unexpected reply, uttered in perfect temper—no less sweetly for being an argument. “For twenty years I have made domestic economy a constant and practical study. Is it reasonable to suppose that, after all this expenditure of time and thought, I am not a better judge of ways and means in my profession than are you, whose life has been spent in other pursuits? For all your indulgent affection to me, as displayed in a thousand ways since our marriage-day, I love and thank you. But excuse me for saying that I am not grateful that you have, as you are rather fond of saying, ‘made it a point to give me my head’ in all pertaining to housekeeping. That you do this shows that you are just and honorable. It is no more a favor done to me than is my non-interference with your clerks and purchases, your shipments and warehouses, a matter for which you should thank me.”

The husband stroked his beard thoughtfully. He was a sensible man, and magnanimous enough to recognize the truth that his wife was a sensible woman.

“Upon my word,” he said, presently, with a frank laugh, “that is a view of the case I never took before. I believe you are right.”

One more hint, which may be of service to those who are not so ready to acknowledge the superiority—in any case—of feminine reasoning, or to such as are not blessed with sensible consorts—the best friends of these ladies being judges.

“Drive him with an easy rein!” said my John in trusting me for the first time to manage his favorite horse. “His mouth is tender as a woman’s. You cannot deal with a thoroughbred as with a cold-blooded roadster.”

“What will happen if I hold him in hard?” inquired I, eyeing the pointed ears and arched neck with as much apprehension as admiration.

I commend the laconic answer to your consideration, as altogether pertinent to the subject we have been discussing.

“A rear-up, and a run backward, instead of forward!”