WHAT A WIFE OUGHT TO KNOW.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1414, 21 December 1887, Page 6

WHAT A WIFE OUGHT TO KNOW.

Very few men have the time or the patience to make a shilling go as far as it can ; but, said the author of " John Halifax," women haye — especially a woman whose one thought is to save her husband from having burdens greater than he can bear ; to help him by that quiet carefulness in money matters which alone gives an easy mind and a real enjoyment of life ; to take care of the pennies — in short, that he may have the pounds free for all his lawful needs, and lawful pleasures too. Surely there can be no sharper pang to a loving wife than to see her husband staggering under the weight of family life ; worked almost to death in order to dodge " the wolf from the door ;" joyless in the present and terrified of the future, and yel all this might have been averted if the wife had only known the value and use of money, and been able to keep what her husband earned — " to cut her coat according to her cloth." for any income is " limited " unless you can teach yourself to liva within it, to " waste not-," and therefore to " want not." But this is not always the woman's fault. Many men insist blindly on a style of living which their means will not allow ; and many a wife has been cruelly blamed for living at a rate of expenditure unwarranted by her husband's means, and which his pecuniary condition made absolutely dishonest, had she known it. But she did not know it ; he being too careless or too cowardly to tell, add she had not the sense to inquire or to find out. Every mistress of a household, especially every mother, ought to fiud out what the family income is and where it comes

from, and thereby prevent all needless extravagance. Half the miserable or disgraceful bankruptcies never would happen if the wives had tbe sense and courage to stand firm, and insist on knowing enough about the family income to expend it proportionately ; to restrain, as every wife should, a too lavish husband, or, failing that, to stop herself out of all luxuries which she cannot righteously afford ; above all, to bring up her children in a tender carefulness which refuses to mulct " the governor " out of one unnecessary halfpenny, or to waste the money he works so hard for in their own thoughtless amusement.