have expected Edith Russell to have suggested across the breakfast table: "My dear, the propaganda of such and such a society to which you belong is not pleasing to me. I do not care to have you support it." Why, either gentleman would have been a henpecked husband to have permitted any such interference with his personal liberty. Not even in America would any wife so presume to dare. It is quite likely that a lady living in New York could announce over the coffee cups, "My dear, we will move to Long Island to-day." And the voice behind the newspaper would probably agree without a demurrer, "I'll be out on the 4:30 train." Probably also he has never heard how many pairs of slippers she has, and all he knows about her hats is their price. But after all, it is only by the privilege he permits her that the lady can put it over like this. At any moment that he cares to assert it, he still holds the balance of power in this household.
Because man and wife are one, he who carries the purse is the one. It's only the new purse in the family that can alter the situation anywhere in the world. She who carries it is another one, with her personal liberty too. In the last analysis, it is only a person who can pay the rent who can talk with assertion about where "we" shall live and how.
No economist in any university chair understands this any more clearly than does Mrs. Webber, who once lived in two rooms and now lives in three because she can pay the rent! The new purse in her
