vision of the family treasury into three distinct parts. The
first, and alas, in most families the much larger share, to be
dedicated to common household expenses. The excellent work of
specialists in family budgets shows us how this fund should be
distributed in details of rent or dwelling, cost of food, clothing,
reading, church, recreation, etc. Any one can now make up with
prudence and wisdom such an estimate in proportion to the known income
and the ascertained cost of living in any given locality. After this
common expense is provided for, with due regard for the duty of saving
for future needs, the remaining portion, be it much or little, should
be equally divided as the personal fund of the husband and the wife.
Some of those who have written on the family budget think that the
contribution of the housewife in work, for which wages would have to
be paid if she did not give this personal labor in the home, should be
estimated in wages value, and should go into her part of a separate
fund, after the common household expenses are deducted. That, it
seems, would not be fair, for if the man puts in his labor value the
woman should put in hers for the first and indispensable expense of
the common life together. What is to be made right is the old custom
of reckoning the savings and common property acquired after marriage
as "his" estate. It is the estate of both, and should be so
considered, even if he has earned outside and she saved and earned and
helped him earn from within the household only.

=What Shall be the Accepted Standard of Living?=--The final question
that must be considered by the two who are to marry and set up
housekeeping is the scale of living they shall aim to attain. It has
been well said that "the standard of living is what we desire; the
scale of living what we can achieve." What is desired often, and what
seems to the young only reasonable for all to have, is the scale of
living the parents' households have attained after a life of hard
work. It is a matter for profound ethical thinking to decide what
measure of increase in expense of home upkeep should follow upon
increase of income where there are children to be affected by changes.
It may sometime be seen to be a social duty to keep much farther
within bounds the natural desire to expand expense as income
increases; both for the reason that income may decrease with advancing
years for the parents and retrenchment be necessary when it is
har