Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[116] horse-feed. The true division is not based on convenience, but on right — on the knowledge, namely, that the wife's share of the day's work is as essential as the husband's, and that there should be some equality in the distribution of proceeds. The family relation is, in its merely business aspects, a kind of co-partnership. Now it is very common in such partnerships for one partner to see to the manufacturing or to the care of the property, while all the money passes through another partner's hands. But he who handles the money does not therefore regard it all as primarily his own, nor does he talk of “giving” it to the other partners; they simply draw their share of the profits from time to time, under conditions agreed upon. They draw it as of right, not through his kindness. Why is it not so with a wife?

In a few cases, no doubt, such a proposition would be unreasonable. There are cases where the wife is a toy, and does nothing to help her husband, so that he could both make and spend his income more judiciously without her. So there are cases, on the other side, where the wife supports the husband outright, whether this be done by ballet-dancing or at the wash-tub. These are extreme cases, and may be set aside together. In the great mass of instances the wife helps the husband in establishing the fortunes of the family, or — in modester phrase-earning