WHEN WIVES HAVE SALARIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18019, 6 November 1920, Page 10

WHEN WIVES HAVE SALARIES

MATTERS DISCUSSED ON A business basis. By "MYRON PARROT. Barristers have been recently debating the question of how much a wife is worth in money. The discussion must have made quite an impression on some wives, for I observe that they are now claiming the right to be paid regular wages like everybody else. And lam heartily in favour of the plan. One should get all the diversion out of existence that he can. Life is rather dull and commonplace just now. and I am for lightening it up in every way possible. Wages for wives will do a lot towards colouring the dra'b monotony of existence. The luckless bridegroom will have to guarantee something more material than love in his marriage vow. “I take this woman for my lawful wife,” he will probably be called upon to say, “at a salary of five pounds five a week.” And the bride will then promise to love, honour, and obey fob and in consideration of the weekly five-guinea emolument £4,000 A YEAR. The girl who marries well will find immense satisfaction in the newspaper announcement of her matrimonial achievement. “The engagement. is announced” it will read, “between Captain Coiney Gotrox, of Golden-court, Mayfair, and Con, i stance, only daughter of Mr and Mrs John Slimpurse, of Brixton. The bride’s stipend will be four thousand a year.”

It will afford many a wife a smug and satisfying sense of superiority to learn that the pretty girl with the big eyes is only a three-pound wife. When a young man proposes', the lady will no longer have to give the classic reply, “See papa,” or “This is so jolly sudden.” She will say simply and more to the point:. “Howmuch can you pay?” Then there is the problem of determining just what remuneration a wife is really worth. Should the wife who stays at home and coos receive more than the butterfly wife whose flutter in society advertises her husband’s prosperity and importance? Is she worth more when young and ornamental, or when old and experienced? Perhaps we shall read in the classified columns of the daily papers advertisements such as the following: “Wanted, wife, young, industrious, and good looking” or perhaps the advertiser, with Tony Weller in mind, will request the applicant to “state previous matrimonial experience, and salary required.” PREMIUM REQUIRED. The lounge-lizard type of gallant, with an unlined pocket book, and an honest abhorrence for w-ork, will, of course, scarcely be expected to pay his wife a salary. He will very likely advertise his willingness “to take an inexperienced young wife as apprentice; premium required.” Wives naturally as wage earners will form unions. It would be unreasonable to ask all husbands to pay the same salaries, so there will have to be separate unions, classified according to the sizes of the husbands’ incomes.

I have no doutjt that the “wages for wives” system will meet with popular approval. England’s million superfluous women, I imagine, will b e especially anxious to see the scheme adopted. When the National Federation of Wives' Union goes out on strike the million-too-many will at last have their opportunity. And when such an eventuality does come about, I shall want to hear the argument between the strike-breakers and the pickets.