The above are not the only respects in which the peculiar training for, or expectation of, marriage acts disadvantageously upon woman as soon as she steps outside the walls of the home to earn her bread by other means than household work and the bearing and rearing of children. I have already pointed out that the wage she receives for her work as a wife and mother is the lowest that she can receive—a wage of subsistence only; and I believe that the exceedingly low rate at which her services inside the home are valued has had a great deal to do with the exceedingly low value placed upon her services outside the home. Because her work as a wife and mother was rewarded only by a wage of subsistence, it was assumed that no other form of work she undertook was worthy of a higher reward; because the only trade that was at one time open to her was paid at the lowest possible rate, it was assumed that in every other trade into which she gradually forced her way she must also be paid at the lowest possible rate. The custom of considering her work as worthless (from an economic point of view) originated in the home, but it has followed her out into the world. Since the important painful and laborious toil incurred by marriage and motherhood was not deemed worthy of any but the lowest possible wage, it was only natural that other duties, often far less toilsome and important, should also be deemed unworthy of anything much in the way of remuneration.
It is very commonly assumed, of course, that the far higher rate of wage paid to a man is based on the idea that he has, or probably will have, a wife and children for whom he is bound to make provision. If this were really the case, a widow left with a young family to support by her labour, or even the mother of an illegitimate child, would be paid for her work on the same basis as a man is paid for performing similar duties. It is hardly needful to state that the mother of fatherless children is not, as a rule, paid more highly than her unmarried sister. Nor is the theory that the “unattached” woman has only herself to support, and does not contribute to the needs of others, borne out by facts. I believe that in all ranks of society there is a pronounced disposition on the part of the family to regard the income, earned or unearned, of its female members as something in the nature of common property—the income, earned or unearned, of its male members as much more of an individual possession. Wives who work for a wage in factories, workshops, etc., usually devote the whole of their earnings to the upkeep of the home; their husbands very commonly only a part. Where sons and daughters of the same family go out to work and live under one roof, it is customary for the girls to put practically the entire amount of their wage into the common domestic fund, while their brothers, from quite early years, pay a fixed sum to cover the expenses of their board and lodging, retaining, as a matter of course, the rest of their earnings for their own individual use. And, so far as my observation goes, the same rule holds good in the upper and middle classes. In the case of any monetary difficulty, any need of financial help, the appeal, in the first instance, is nearly always made to those women of the family who are understood to be in a position to respond to it; it is tacitly assumed that they must be the first to suffer and sacrifice themselves, the men of the family being appealed to only when the women are unable or unwilling to meet the demand. My experience may be unusual, but I have met very few working-women of any class who, earning a decent livelihood at their trade or profession, were not called upon to share their livelihood with others.