1860 it was a shawl.) When a woman had property, even for some time
after the Act, she was not considered fit to administer it. She was not
fit, but she should have been allowed to administer it so as to learn
from experience how not to be swindled. Anyhow, the money was taken from
her, and I know of three cases in a single large family where the wife
meekly indorses her dividend warrant so that the husband may pay it into
his banking account. That spirit survives, but every day it decays; man,
finding his wife competent, tends to make her an allowance, to let her
have her own banking account, and never to ask for the pass book. He has
thrown upon her the responsibility for all the household and its
finance; by realizing that she was capable he has made her capable.
Though she be educated, he loves her not less; perhaps he loves her
more. It is no longer true to say with Lord Lyttleton that "the lover in
the husband may be lost." Formerly the lover was generally lost, for
after she had had six children before she was thirty the mother used to
put on a cap and retire. Now she does not retire; indeed, she hides his
bedroom slippers and puts out his pumps, for life is more vivid and
exterior now; this is the cinema age.

Finding her responsible, amusing, capable of looking after herself, man
is developing a still stranger liberalism; he has recognized that he
may not be enough to fill a woman's life, that she may care for
pleasures other than his society, and indeed for that of other men. He
has not abandoned his physical jealousy and will not so long as he is a
man, but he is slowly beginning to view without dismay his wife's
companionship with other men. She may be seen with them; she may lunch
with them; she may not, as a rule, dine with them, but that is an
evolution to come. This springs from the deep realization that there are
between men and women relations other than the passionate. It is still
true that between every man and every woman there is a flicker of love,
just a shadow, perhaps; but not so long ago between men and women there
was only "yes" or "no," and to-day there are also common tastes and
common interests. This is fine, this is necessary, but it is not good
for the old British household where husband and wife must cleave unto
each other alone; where, as in the story books, they lived happy ever
after. As with the home, so with the family; neither can survive when it
suffers comparison, for it derives