Page:On the forfeiture of property by married women.djvu/14

10 nothing should be settled. Such a limit would hardly be placed above say £200, even that would exclude the vast majority of cases. But who has watched the course of settlements of even much larger sums, say £2,000, without observing the enormous proportion which the expense bears to the sum settled, and the continual efforts that are made now to get a little more interest, and now to encroach on the capital? Those efforts represent the uneasiness of the parties affected by the settlements. The sum falling under such an Act as this would in few cases exceed £300 or £400. And sums of that or of much larger amount are far more beneficially applied when left free to be used for the exigencies of the family, than when tied up, and made available only by way of income. Rich people may afford to put by a sum of money, and say that there it shall lie for a term of years. The poor cannot; the possession of a little capital often makes to them the whole difference between getting a start in life and losing it, between moderate success and total failure; they have no margin, and no friends to fall back on for the critical occasions when money is necessary.

Besides and beyond the crippling effect of tying up money comes the demoralising effect of expectations. They are peculiarly noxious to the poor and ignorant, who always exaggerate them, often relax their exertions on account of them, and not seldom discount them. When Eutrapelus wished to ruin a man he gave him fine clothes. If I wished to throw sore temptation in the way of a humble family, I would put a couple of hundred pounds in strict settlement for them.

But if settlements are such good things why not extend them to men?

When women ask that marriage may not operate as a forfeiture of their property, they are to be told that it must be kept for their children. It is difficult to see why the same principle should not be applied to men when they marry. If the arrangement is based on the good of the children, it must be the same to them from whichever parent the money comes. If based on the good of the wife, is it not rather wiser to let her be the judge, whether it is for her good or not? The argument must come ultimately to this—that women when they marry are such poor weak creatures that they cannot be trusted to deal with their own money; they cannot judge