WAGES OF MARRIAGE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 15

WAGES OF MARRIAGE

A KEEN CRITICISM "Some wise and eminent persons have been spending their holidays in arguing that if only men received larger wages for being married most of the ills which afflict our social and industrial state would be abolished," writes ..."J. J." in the London "Daily Telegraph." "I have never myself felt those emotions which compel earnest folks to attend summer 'schools' and listen to lectures instructing them what they ought to think, but no doubt if you are made with a taste for this sort of thing it is very pleasant. And how could anyone better employ the shining hour than by preaching the doctrine that married men ought to be better paid than single ones. "That it lends itself to flippant criticism I am well aware. There is, or used to be, in the Navy a system by which men serving in destroyers, submarines, and other uncomfortable craft received a trifle of additional pay. Some light-minded persons of my acquaintance have asked whether the project of increasing married men's wages is based on the same principle, that the discomfort which the wretched man endures ought to be made up for somehow. But such insinuations can only bo received with contempt by all earnest social reformers. On the other hand ther,e are some very earnest, not to say solemn, people who point out with indignation that the married man has already financial advantages. The income-tax schedules make him special allowances. The vast and incomprehensive scheme of income-tax which we now enjoy makes allowance for wives (one per man) as well as children. No doubt it is better to marry thai to pay. But I have not seen any evidence that the remissions are sufficient to make the state of the married man as easy as that of the bachelor. And so this formal recognition by the State that marriage is an expensive business can hardly bo quoted as a precedent for paying married men more than bachelors. I think it is an admirable idea, but like many other, admirable ideas it seems very difficult to work out. ; . . Most of us will agree that, other things being equal, a married man is doing more for the State and the community than a bachelor. No one can deny that ho has heavier charges to bear. Therefore, as a mere matter of logic, the community and the State ought to see that he has better pay. But how? If a married man writes a book, shall we pay more for it than for the book by a bachelor? Shall we pay a larger fee to the married doctor than to the unmarried? Will the trade unions bring forward a scheme by which their married members havo a higher wage than the bachelors? If in somo moment of general aberration they did so, surely it passes the wit of man to work the thing out. "Again the extra costs of marriage are not the same to every married man. The number of his children and the age of his children make a difference. Some of '•hem take much more trouble and spend much more on their families than others. But in every class, too, there are many fathers, quite worthy, responsible men, who consider that they have done their duty if they send their children out to fend for themselves as soon as they can and do not trouble to provide any education which strains the family resources. "And so, a logical reformer should argue, it is just and expedient that the lather who does most for his children must have the largest income. It will not do to decide by marriage. My milkman on that basis will not have a penny more than the other milkman whoso children are costing him nothing. The professional man who lives shabbily in a small house to keep his boys at the university will havo no more than his cousin who spends his

income on himself. But I have no remedy for these things. Virtu© will have to be its own reward, as far aa I can see. For to draw up scheme of remuneration which will pay unselfish parents according to their services, and selfish parents on a lower scale, is a task beyond the wit of all the reformers who ever meddled with this unhappy world. And the last thing any sane father would desire is to have his fellow-crea-tures sit in judgment on him and decide whether he was selfish, or unselfish, deserving or undeserving."