THE ALTAR OF ECONOMY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 95, 23 April 1931, Page 10

THE ALTAR OF ECONOMY

(To tho Editor.) Siv, —Your correspondent, Louise Bell, writes fluently on tho labove subject. It seems to me that there are many women of similar views who speak and write fluently. At the same time, there are a great many women, the majority, _ I believe, who can neither speak nor write their views and yet have very strong opinions on tho subject adverse to those stated. All married women do not wish to earn money. Are they to be forced to do so? Is there 110 one to speak for them? ■ Is it not right that every fit man should receive sufficient salary to keep a non-earning wife and children? Your correspondent asks "Why should the woman worker always be the victim oF economy.?" I would answer: Because the man is the natural provider for. his family, because the law compels him to support practically any relation in need, because he is compelled to risk hia life and health in defence of his country. That salaried women support needy relatives I .am aware, but they do. it from choice, and if compelled by law to do so would take little pleasure in it. In nny case,' it is not the same drain upon tho purse as that upon the father of a family, whose nestlings always have their beaks wide open. The theory is that a woman capable of earning £200 a year is wasting hoi1 time keeping house which could he better kept by a help-at £100 a year. Tho practice is that tho woman earns her £200, keeps her own house, filling two billets, and lives in a stylo that sots a high standard of luxury for her unfortunate sisters, married but not salaried. ■ • It would be interesting to know how many married women with salaries pay as ]-.ucii as £1 per week for household help. Yes, if I were king I would put single men into positions, before either married or single women. Most of them will eventually marry, and if they are frittering away their time and money now, their'lean, days will come—very lean for those who will have' to "pay off" after marriago. ' Are not even these of more importance to the country than tho married woman working for luxuries, and we single women to whom I have never heard the word superfluous applied.—l am, etc., A. BOSS.