to account than she has to insist on seeing a
list of his expenditures?

I have nothing to say about extravagant or untrustworthy wives, who do
not come into the subject at all. I am only referring to the
magnificent multitude of good, careful, thrifty, typical American
wives, whose sole aim in life is to make a happy home for husband and
children. Nor am I denying that these women have all their wishes
granted, and are allowed to spend their husbands' money with
reasonable freedom, provided they account for it afterwards. I am only
asserting that every married woman, from the farmer's wife to that of
the bank president, should have some money regularly which is sacredly
her own.

Perhaps men think I am exaggerating the evil. Perhaps they do not know
that the only advice married women give to engaged girls which _never_
varies is: "Be sure you ask for an allowance from the first, because,
if you don't, you may never get it."

I suppose that the majority of men do not know that their wives hate
to ask them for money. Of course it does not seem so terrible to those
of us whose fathers occasionally want to keep back enough money to buy
coal when our daughterly demands get refused. But it never occurs to
us that a girl's lover-husband, this courteous stranger whom she has
loved and married, would ever forget his theatre and American-Beauty
days sufficiently to say: "What did you do with that dollar I gave you
yesterday?"

Now, frankly speaking, it never occurs to unmarried girls that the
honeymoon can ever wear off. We look upon husbands as only married
sweethearts. We sort of halfway believe them--at least we used to,
before we observed other girls' husbands--when they tell us that they
long for the time when they can pay our bills and buy clothes for us.
We never thought, until we were told, that any little generous
arrangement, which we expected to last, must be fixed during the first
few weeks of marriage. I dare say most of us had planned to say, in
answer to the money question, "Just as you like, dear. I'd rather have
you manage such matters for me. You know so much more about them than
I do." It is a horrible shock, from a sentimental point of view, to be
told to say, "I'll take an allowance, please," and then, if two
amounts are mentioned, to grab for the biggest. Oh, it is a shame! It
is a shame to be told that we shall be sorry if we don't, and to know
that we shall have no opportunity to show how unselfish a