HOUSEKEEPING SURPLUS

Evening Star, Issue 18159, 27 December 1922, Page 6

HOUSEKEEPING SURPLUS

THE HUSBAND’S PERQUISITE. .RULING OF ANCIENT LAW. Now that the air has been cleared for a while on the Prohibition question (sa ya the Auckland ‘Star’), the female voters of the community will be able to take notice of a point concerning them that crops up periodically in Britain, and was recently discussed again in tho London papers—the respective property rights of husband and wife. Tho particular point at issue this time was whether or not a wife is entitled to claim savings she has made out of tho household allowance, and two justices of tho peace who ruled in a court case that the money belonged to tho woman were confronted with legal authorities and rulings confounding their decision. A searching of the law books has confirmed the position on an old-time law that whatever the wife eaves from, her husband’s salary belongs to the husband, and the only thing which belongs to her is what she can prove in court as having been an absolute gift from him. So it would appear that the emancipation of woman has only started with the vote. BONUS OR SALARY. Several suggestions have been made by correspondents. One lady holds that if the wife gives the husband the standard of living he is entitled to expect from her housekeeping allowance, anything she might save by means of good management should be hers absolutely—a bonus for good management. Another 11 better half ” is of opinion tluit where the husband has a good income the wife should have a housekeeping salary as well as an allowance, and then hoi' housekeeping could bo subject to audit and her salary be subject to increase or reduction according to her ability to gave. A local cynic suggests that a way bus been found out of the difficulty by not a few colonial wives by applying to a magistrate for a separation and maintenance order, and getting her allowance legally fixed, with the benefit that anything she might save out of that amount absolutely belongs to her. THE TIB THAT BINDS. “It would certainly be a blessing if married folk as a whole mingled a little common sense with their domestic sentiment,” remarked a male social worker of Auckland, “and fixed a profit-sharing basis. Quite a lot of the misery we come across is caused by the weakness of either husband or wife in. dealing with the common purse. A man who hands over all his wages to his wife is entitled to an accounting of it; and a wife who receives a housekeeping allowance from her husband is equally entitled to know that it is a fair proportion of Ids income, as well as having the duty of justifying her stewardship. With such ordinary frankness at tho start we should be saved much of the’ misery arising out of mistrust and more than half of the agony cases that come before tho court. If both husband and wife treated the household surplus as a thing of comradely Interest and pride from the start, they would bo less likely to look for outside interests and to become real pals. If both knew how tire surplus was really arrived' at, its apportionment, iu ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, would be Bimpjo.” In conclusion, this expert remarked that tho husband who dodged the worry of a little epmpathetio oversight and assistance in creating a surplus in the domestic treasury was scarcely entitled to be considered the head of thq household.