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 difficulty. Educated women—statistics of college-taught women are available—are increasingly rebelling against the subjection or inferiority which this economic dependence seems to entail. It is the chief motive of the general demand for economic independence (or an independent place in the industrial world) and has much to do with the revolt against marriage itself. Whether or no we adopt new ideals of social life, this revolt will spread.

One very quickly sees that it is not so much marriage as the traditional practice of husbands which is chiefly responsible for the revolt. The practice varies considerably, but, apart from a small class in which the wife brings with her or earns an independent income, it is still generally true to say that the wife receives what the husband chooses to give. Now it is plain that this difficulty may be met in a very large proportion of cases by an equitable voluntary agreement. Various domestic experiments of the kind are being tried, and a comparison of experiences would be useful. Many people are agreed in the just view that, since the wife works at home while the husband works abroad, all income is joint income. A common fund, accessible to both, is assigned for household and saving, and an equal and fixed personal share is taken by each from the income or wage. Such an arrangement is quite easily practised by middle-class people, and it seems to me to remove every legitimate suspicion of ignominy from the wife’s position.