Under the law passed by Congress in October, 1917, an American private
receiving thirty-three dollars a month when on service abroad must allot
fifteen dollars a month to his wife, and the government adds to this
twenty-five dollars, and if there is one child, an additional ten
dollars, with five dollars for each additional child. A man can secure
an allowance from the government of ten dollars a month to a dependent
parent, if he allots five dollars a month. Such are the bare bones of
the allowance schemes of the Allies on the western front.

In the United States the general policy of exemption boards, as
suggested by the central authorities, is most disciplinary as regards
women. Their capacity for self-support is rigidly inquired into. Our men
are definitely urging women to a position of economic independence. The
aim is, while securing soldiers for the army, to relieve the government
of the expense of dependency on the part of women. There is no doubt
that our men at least are faced toward the future. No less indicative
is it of a new world that the allowance laws of all the western
belligerents recognize common-law marriages. In our own law, marriage is
"presumed if the man and woman have lived together in the openly
acknowledged relation of husband and wife during two years immediately
preceding the date of the declaration of war." And the illegitimate
child stands equal with the legitimate provided the father acknowledges
the child or has been "judicially ordered or decreed to contribute" to
the child's support.

Men are feminists. Their hearts have softened even towards the wife's
relatives, for the word "parent" is not only broad enough to cover the
father, mother, grandparents or stepfather and mother of the man, but
"of the spouse" also. Thus passeth the curse of the mother-in-law.