The Benefits of "Accumulated Capital."
How often do we see women who have lived for years in liberal comfort in the wedded state—the mistresses of pleasant homes, whose varied range of floors and apartments made them little worlds in themselves, and with the assured and dignified position in society that nothing but "one's own house" can give—suddenly stripped in widowhood of all their ample surroundings, and portioned off into one room, or at the most two, in some son or daughter's house, there to live as a supernumerary all the rest of their days. No doubt these grandmothers, saintly and subdued, often exercise a precious influence on all the members of the families they live with. But it is none the less hard for them; and if women could save and invest all the profits on the supplies and clothing consumed by their families that now slip through their fingers into the pockets of the retailers, thousands of lavish housekeepers who are marching straight to such a life-end as this would be spared its deprivations and humiliations. In my opinion, a woman that has once had a house of her own, in which she has borne and reared children, regulated servants, and played her part in society, should never be thrown out of it into the corner of somebody's else family except from choice, and I wonder that women are not oftener apprehensive of this than they seem to be.
It may be said, that as men furnish all the means for our housewifery, so, if we are able to save anything, it ought properly to return to them. This is the doctrine of the old Roman law in regard to the peculium, or savings of the slave from the allowance made him by his master. In law it belonged to the latter, because it was his in the first place, and the slave was his also; hence he could at any time resume it. And this would be tenable ground in regard to the savings of co-operative housekeepers; if men insisted upon our giving such savings to them we could not help ourselves. But this is so opposed to the indulgent American spirit toward women, that it is more than probable they
