Arthur G. Staples : On "Make Your Wife A Partner" (1919 )

partner: ( one who shares )

 In 1919, Arthur G. Staples published a limited-edition book titled, "Just Talks On Common Themes". Staples was a journalist for the Lewiston Journal in Lewiston, Maine. In his book, he offers his opinion on a variety of subjects. He often uses a combination of common sense, wit, and wisdom to make his case. Only 1500 copies of his book were printed, I own number 818. On page nine of his book, he  gives his slant on the equal distribution of the responsiblities of running successful family finances in "On "Make Your Wife A Partner". His views are somewhat surprising, given the fact that this was written eighty-six years ago. 

    ON "MAKE YOUR WIFE A PARTNER"

 Let us talk in a common and possibly practical way about using woman's brains and business acumen more commonly than is now being done.

 Most wives are given no chance to show whether they have any business sagacity or not. If the wife asks her husband what is troubling him in his business he replies that if he told her she would not understand. He thinks he is the main-show and the side-show thrown in. He probably never gives his wife a cent of money that she does not have to beg for and he has kept her so that she does not know the difference between a promissory note and a bank check. He says that she is extravagant. She says that she has to grovel so for a cent, that she will be darned if she won't be extravagant when she can get the money. Thus many a marriage, otherwise happy, goes to the bad.

 Women, who are actually doing independent mercantile or industrial business, go bankrupt less frequently, on the average, than do men. The founder of the Vanderbilt fortune was a women. The father of the old Commodore Vanderbilt, Cornelius by name, was a poor business man. He lived by selling produce to the people of the city of New York, then a community of about 80,000. The family lived on Staten Island. The old man Vanderbilt was a truck peddler and a small farmer. And he failed at that. The farm went bankrupt under his supervision and was to be sold for debt.

 But it happened that his wife in that household had financial ability. She had been allowed a small sum for housekeeping and had been able to invest a little of it in hens and she had kept books. So, when old Vanderbilt came miauling around and saying that the old home must be sold, Madame Vanderbilt said to him, " O, I don't know." And dragging down the family stock, she dug into it and extracted $3,000 in gold, of which her husband knew nothing. Out of this, the old home was saved-just like the movies. When she died she left $50,000 in cash. It was she who started Cornelius in the way of making money, by advancing hin the capital for his ferry that netted him $1,000 the first year and laid the foundation for his millions.

 And yet there are a lot of pin-heads who think a woman cannot possibly know how to do business in a proper way. They seem to think that God cornered the brains in man. A man's wife should be his partner in a going concern, the business of keeping house and saving money reasonably. The rounders and the boozers and the proselyters have very little in common with their wives and want less. They consider that what they earn is theirs and a part of what the wife earns is also theirs and then what they can borrow,both owe. The news-dispatches, the other day, relate that a man over in New Hampshire, shot his wife because supper wasn't ready. There is more excuse for that than there is for not giving a woman her share of the joint earnings of the firm of " Wife and I. " In the case of the wife who did not get supper, she was a quitter on the job. She should not be killed- of course-but she ought to be fined her week's allowance.

 So-since we are working for peace,comfort, beauty, joy, human betterments, we ought to make use of the vast amount of woman's brains, lying idle around the house. Give her a chance to show what she can do in running the finances of the family. Turn over to her a fair amount of cash per week and make her keep books on it. Let her have her own bank-account and draw her own checks and paddle her own financial canoe-yea, even let her buy her own hats and gowns and pay for them. She can do it if you divide fairly. I know a woman who runs her own house on a fair allowance for keeping her husband as a boarder and now she has so much money in the bank that he is borrowing it at a fair rate of interest. It is a certainty, that if your wife has a business-skill as so many of them have -all unsuspected-you can turn in less money and have more money at the end of a year than you would think possible-and live better,too.

 Try it ! Try it ! It will end your bickering over money.

* Given the difference between our culture today and the culture of  A.G.'s day some his examples may ruffle some weathers, but the core of what he says is very interesting.

                                                      Arthur G. Staples