NEW DEAL SOUGHT

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 4

NEW DEAL SOUGHT

WIVES , CHARTER.

AUSTRALIAN MOVEMENT.

THE TTNGENEKOtre HUSBAND.

(From Oαr Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, September 15

Australian women are following the example of their English sisters, enrolled in the Married Women's Association, who are demanding a Xew Deal for wives in a written charter. Australian women are linked with the movement through the Equal Rights Internationale, of which a well known Sydney woman, Mrs. Linda Littlejohn," is president.

"A charter like that being prepared in England for submission to Parliament is equally necessary in Australia, ,, said Mrs. Littlejohn in an interview. "Women are not entitled to even 3d of their husband's income. Many huebands are quite generous; our campaign is agaimt those who are not. Most of these ungenerous onee have middle-class incomes."

One of the English charter demands is a legal basic wage for wives, but Mrs. Littlejohn objected to the word wage on the ground that wages were paid to employees whereas wives were partners. Describing wives as unpaid coworker* who converted into goods the I-αw materi.-tls provided by their hushauda, she (supported another demand for the abolition of the legal description of wives as dependents.

Among other demands in the charter are national health insurance for wives, which is not included in the Australian National Health Insurance Scheme now beinjr introduced; equal pay for equal work, and removal of all legal restrictions on married women. In Australia a woman who marries retains her nationality only while she remains in this country.