existence and endeavor; to wit, that toil and economy are for the
common weal. He is not a miser for his individual enrichment, nor does
he plan with deliberate design for the shadowy second wife. It is not
to be denied that No. 2 often lives like a queen upon the wealth which
No. 1 helped to accumulate, and killed herself in so doing. But John
does not look so far as this. Much scrimping and hoarding may engender
a baser love of money for money's self. In the outset of the task, and
usually for all time, he means that wife and children shall have the
full benefit of what he has heaped up in the confident belief that he
knows who will gather with him. Men take longer views in these matters
than women. To "draw money out of the business" is a form of speech
to a majority of wives. To him whose household expenses overrun what
he considers the bounds of reason, this "drawing" means harder work
and to less purpose for months to come; clipped wings of enterprise,
and occasionally loss of credit. He who has married a reasonably
intelligent woman cannot make her comprehend this too soon. If he can
enlist her sympathies in his plans for earning independence and
wealth, he has secured a valuable coadjutor. If he can show her that
he is investing certain moneys which are due to her in ways approved
by her, which will augment her private fortune, he will retain her
confidence with her respect.

Each of us likes to own something in his or her own right. The custom
and prejudice that, since the abolition of slavery, make wives the
solitary exception to the rule that the "laborer is worthy of his
hire," are unworthy of a progressive age. The idea that such having
and holding will alienate a good woman from the husband who permits
it, degrades the sex. He whose manliness suffers by comparison with a
level-headed, clear-eyed wife capable of keeping her own bank account,
makes apparent what a mistake she made when she married _him_.