Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1876 — “With All My worldly Goods 1 Thee Endow?’ [ARTICLE]

“With All My worldly Goods 1 Thee Endow?’

Not many days ago, when the crowd was crushing and pressing through the Women’s building, an old couple .from the country were stepped in a narrow passage close by some woven goods shown for sale. The man was largo, hard-fea-tured and prosperous. She was stout and comely. About her face were lines of care, and the mark of hard work was upon both. But her eyes brightened as she took up a soft blue-and-whfte shawl, and looked at it with longing admiration. Over her arm was a waterproof, but this pretty fluffy thing in her hand was dainty and different from waterproofs, and the the plaid shawls of her home life. Her husband worked his way on a little further, turned, looked over his shoulder at her, and said: “Come on.” “Isn’t it pretty?” she answered, still lingering. “Yes, yee! come on.” “But Burt—” -she said in a soft, entreating tone. He shook his head. f ‘ Indeed, I would like to have it.” “ Well, you can’t,” he curtly answered, and she laid it softly down. It was not simply that she was refused ‘something that was to her beauty and grace, although the possession would have 'counted for no little in a life that, it was plain, had been denied almost everything but anxiety and hard wark —it was not because her husband caret! so little to gratify her, that the faces of some women standing near grew warm, and their eyes flashed. It was a coarse example of what the business relation between man and wife can reduce the wife unto. When the man promises to endow his bride with all he owns, it is a pretty and pleasant thing to do, but, when they have fairly started life together, she is likely to find that she is simply his agent, spending his money as he gives it to her, sometimes, perhaps, using her own Judgment, but always accounting to him. When individual tastes are to be exercised, they are more fre quently the husband’s than the wife’s. He may buy a plow to his liking, but she must consult him about the churns. It was a wise little ,wjfe who, when talking over business matters with her husband, when he told her that she should never be deprived of anything that she desired if he could obtain it for her, asked him to give her blank checks to fill up as she needed. She knew she could be trusted to draw his money, just as well as she could be to spend it, and she would be happier in feeling free to make her bwh discreet margins. But if he had gone a little farther and made the deposit in her name, and had then consulted her upon the purchase of his crayons, his canvas, and his oils —for he was an artist—if he had explained to her the reason why he bought his engravings, and why it was not extravagant to spend a little surplus fund on the etchings of Raphael’s 11 Spasimo, he would have realized, as so many women have, that the early settlement of the question of “pin-money” is not as unnecessary, nor distrustful, as some brides, and some husbands, are apt to consider it. —New Century for Woman.