therefore, like all other sweated trades tends to lower the general
market value of women's work. This is casting no reflection upon the
hundreds of thousands of husbands who do their part fairly, who share
and share alike whatever they have or earn with their wives. How many
a workingman regularly hands over to his wife for the support of the
home the whole of his earnings with perhaps the barest deduction,
a dollar or two, or sometimes only a few cents, for small personal
expenditures. Many wives enjoy complete power over the family purse.
Or the married pair decide together as to how much they can afford to
spend on rent and food and clothing, and when sickness or want of work
face them, they meet the difficulty together. The decisions made, it
is the wife who has the whole responsibility for the actual spending.

But though so often a man does fulfill in spirit as in letter his
promise to support, as well as to love and honor the girl he has
married, there is very little in the laws of any country to compel
him. And because the man can slip the collar more easily than the
woman can, the woman's position is rendered still more uncertain.
If she were an ordinary wage-worker, we should say of her that her
occupation was an unstandardized one, and that individually she was
too dependent upon the personal goodwill of another. Therefore,
like all other unstandardized callings, marriage, considered as an
occupation, tends to lower the general market value of woman's work.
Conversely, Cicely Hamilton in "Marriage as a Trade," points out that
the improvements in the economic position of the married woman, which
have come about in recent years, are partly at least due to the
successful efforts of single women to make themselves independent and
self-supporting.

But during the process of transition, and while single women are