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Women and the Alphabet - A Series of Essays by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
page 103 of 269 (38%)
part of what had been subscribed. No board of men would have done so. Any
board of men would have allowed far more than a quarter of the sum for the
first year's expenditures, justly reasoning that if the enterprise began
well it would command public confidence, and bring in additional
subscriptions as time went on. I would appeal to any one whose experience
has been in joint associations of men and women, whether this is not a fair
statement of the difference between their ways of working. It does not
prove that women are more honest than men, but that their education or
their nature makes them more cautious in expenditure.

The habits of society make the dress of a fashionable woman far more
expensive than that of a man of fashion. Formerly it was not so; and, so
long as it was not so, the extravagance of men in this respect quite
equalled that of women. It now takes other forms, but the habit is the
same. The waiters at any fashionable restaurant will tell you that what is
a cheap dinner for a man would be a dear dinner for a woman. Yet after all,
the test is not in any particular class of expenditures, but in the
business-like habit. Men are of course more business-like in large
combinations, for they are more used to them; but for the small details of
daily economy women are more watchful. The cases where women ruin their
husbands by extravagance are exceptional. As a rule, the men are the
bread-winners; but the careful saving and managing and contriving come
from the women.




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