And what "the serpent of old Nile" said, the wives of the future, who are
to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, may well ponder. It takes two
things different to make a union; and part of that difference may as well
lie in matters political as anywhere else.




WOMEN AS ECONOMISTS


An able lawyer of Boston, arguing the other day before a legislative
committee in favor of giving to the city council a check upon the
expenditures of the school committee, gave as one reason that this body
would probably include more women henceforward, and that women were
ordinarily more lavish than men in their use of money. The truth of this
assumption was questioned at the time; and, the more I think of it, the
more contrary it is to my whole experience. I should say that women, from
the very habit of their lives, are led to be more particular about details,
and more careful as to small economies. The very fact that they handle less
money tends to this. When they are told to spend money, as they often are
by loving or ambitious husbands, they no doubt do it freely: they have
naturally more taste than men, and quite as much love of luxury. In some
instances in this country they spend money recklessly and wickedly, like
the heroines of French novels; but as, even in brilliant Paris, the women
of the middle classes are notoriously better managers than the men, so we
often see, in our scheming America, the same relative superiority. Often
have I heard young men say, "I never knew how to economize until after my
marriage;" and who has not seen multitudes of instances where women
accustomed to luxury have accepted poverty without a murmur for the sake of