Every-day Thoughts in Prose and Verse
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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XCVII.
Money Mania.
A young woman of twenty-one who married a
man of forty, asks me if it is her duty to go
out to work by the day as her husband wishes.
   He earns twenty-five dollars a week.  They live
in one furnished room.
   She wants a home, and thinks the care of it
would be a pleasure.  The husband prefers to hoard
his money, and thinks his wife should work by the
day to aid him in accumulating a fortune.
   Such a woman is victim to money mania.
   He could easily become a miser if allowed to go
on in this line of thought.
   His fortune would never do him or others any
good while he lived.
   He is the type of man who would delight in wear-
ing old clothes and living on cheap food--the older
and the cheaper--as his fortunes augmented.
   No woman should encourage such a spirit in a
husband.
   Money is only good for the comfort and happi-
ness it brings.
   It is the duty of a wife to be prudent and wise in
the use of her husband's earnings, but it is her
right to be provided with a home.
   The man who earns twenty-five dollars a week
can afford to give a wife a better abiding place than
one room.
   He can afford to allow her to be a home-keeper,
not a wage-earner.
   In her chosen sphere, if she possesses any skill or
management, she can provide her husband and her-
self with comfort, and lay aside a little sum every
month for future needs.
   This is a better use of life and money than to live
in discomfort and discontent, and to accumulate a
hoarded store of dollars.
   The tendency of the American man to-day, in
every walk of life, is to accumulate much more
money than he knows how to use with taste or wis-
dom.  He can acquire, but he can rarely enjoy what
he acquires.
   It is the duty of every wife, mother, and daughter
to teach American men the art of taking comfort in
life, and the first step toward that goal is in the
establishment of a home, however humble.
Every-day thoughts in prose and verse. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1901.
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