Edward A. Ross, The
Social Trend, 1922.
When
with spinning, weaving, knitting, churning, pickling, curing and preserving,
the home was a workshop, the wife was not "supported" by her husband.
He knew the value of her contribution and took her seriously, even if he did
belittle her opinions on politics and theology. But, with the industrial decay
of the home, it is more and more often the case that the husband
"supports" his wife.
How
will the case appear in the eyes of the wife? As the woman of leisure realizes
that everything she eats, wears, enjoys, and gives away comes out of her
husband's earnings, her rising impulse to assert herself as his equal is damped
by consciousness of her abject economic dependence. She is tempted to pay for
support with subservience, to mold her manner and her personality to his
liking, to make up to him by her grace and charm for her exemption from work