A WIFE’S SAVINGS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6494, 14 April 1908, Page 2

A WIFE’S SAVINGS.

Much has be con written about ibo right of the wife to anything she may have been able to save from the weekly sum allowed her for housekeeping, -uucc people hold that- this right ot hers ks but a wrong, and that the husband, who furnished tho money in the fuv>t place, has tho right to anything which his wife's economy may have saved. It is a nice question, and one that has many sides, lor if tho husband claim this money, and lake it against his wife e will, then it seems to me is if he pats a high premium cn extravagance and careless housekeeping; for a woman may cosily think that if tho money gained by her economy goes back to tho husband to be spent, may be, on his pleasures, football, tobacco, ay, even on drink, then she had very much better spend all sho has given on herself and tho children, the husband, of course, getting his due share in food, etc. Better far. than let things come to a crisis like this, would it be to have an. amiable understanding an the subject to begin with, the assurance that such money should bo spent on something needed for the house, or the household, so that the wife might point with pride to it n.s tho evidence of her good management, while the husband would have tho use and enjoyment of it also, as ho should in equity have. A direct injustice, too, would be committed by any man who, because his wife had been able to save sn much in one week or month, which, by the way, had gone into his pocket, made this smaller expenditure the standard of payment for each and every week, because, as any housewife knows, a cheap week at one time usually means an increase of expenditure the next, so that to take an average of weeks is the only \ right course to pursue But whether tho wife has tho savings or not, these should bo true savings, ami not that which is got by cheesepaiing and tho cutting down of supplies to their lowest point. This may ho considered economy, but it’s a very poor specimen of it. and cf housekeeping too—“a penny-wise-pound-foolish” proceeding which no woman who has tho welfare of the family at heart would over countenance, much less pursue, because she would thus be giving the household less than its due, and sapping tho health of its inmates—for what end? to have a surplus to be quarrelled over.