PERSONAL PROBLEMS
We have one, a mere sample, left over from last time.
Query: “My wife is spending more of my income on dress than I can afford. How can I stop her? G.
Answer: G. “By letting her earn her own income and spend it as she pleases.”
G. would never be content with that. G. would get back at us and say—
Query: “How can a woman do her duty as a mother and earn her own living?”
Answer: “If your wife was doing her duty as a mother she wouldn’t be spending so much money on dress!”
Answer further: Motherhood is “piecework”—it is not done by the hour. The value of a mother to her children is not to be measured by quantity, but by quality. If a mother understood any business thoroughly, she would begin to understand her mother-work better than she does now.
Query: “But how can a mother leave her children and go to work?”
Answer: “She does not have to. She could be a milliner or dressmaker at home just as well as a cook.”
But these problems are general rather than personal. Here is a personal one.
Query: “I am about thirty—a woman. I wish very much to be married. All the nice men in our town have left it—or are married. There are thirty or forty more unmarried women than men. What shall I do? X.”
Answer: “Leave that town and go to some place where there are more men. Go as a matter of business, earning your own living. Keep well, be as good as you know how, and trust in Providence.”