stick-pin recently presented
to her by her teamster. "I like him all right," is her notion about
it, "but I ought to have took him ten years ago. Now he can't support
me."

S---- V----. Makes twelve dollars a week as a manicurist. Thinks a man
ought to have at least thirty dollars a week before marrying.

T---- V----. Sister of S---- V----, who doesn't think much of her. She
works in a paper-box factory at five dollars a week and is engaged to
a glove cutter who makes eleven.

T---- A----. Saleswoman. Thinks women ought to be paid as much as men.
"Then they wouldn't be so ready to marry _anybody_." Works in the
cloak department. Is a star. Makes about eighteen dollars a week. Says
that most of the men she knows who could support her would certainly
get in a terrible row at home if they married a cloak-department girl.
Families are stuck up. "But I don't care; let it run a while. Tell you
something. I was born in the steerage. I've been right where the money
isn't. I'm not taking any chances on getting there again. Let Georgina
do it."

R---- B----. Sub-bookkeeper. Seven dollars a week. Engaged to clerk
who earns thirteen. Says: "Of course I'm not earning much, but I'm
living with my folks and when we're married I'll have to give up a lot
of things. Kinda wish I hadn't got used even to the seven."

This last case, of the bookkeeper engaged to the clerk, is the modern
situation at its happiest normal. The modern marriage, except among
the rich, is a contraction of resources. It is just the reverse, in
that respect, of the colonial marriage.

The colonial bride, marrying into Industry, brought her full economic
value to her husband.

The modern bride, marrying out of Industry, leaves most of her
economic value behind. And the greater that value was, the sharper is
the shock of the contraction of resources.

Of course, the case of the department-store buyer and the teamster is
irrelevantly extreme. But aren't there thousands and thousands of
cases which, while less advanced, are pointed in the same direction?
The more a woman earns, the fewer become the men who can support her.
How can the clerk support the cloak saleswoman who has had eighteen
dollars a week of her own? How can the barber support the manicurist
who has had twelve?

The cloak saleswoman may talk flippantly about it, but, at heart,
isn't she seriously right? She has pulled herself up to a certain
level. Except in response to a _grande passion_ sh