Little Problems of Married Life: IX

Little Problems of Married Life BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. IX. — Providing for the Future. There is one problem that dominates the home, an obtrusive, pervasive problem that ofttimes fills the whole horizon of life, one that, like Banquo's ghost, "will not clown;" it is the ever-present question of home financing. When we have mastered the "to have," the problem of the "to hold" confronts us. It is the question of providing for the home, which can never be properly answered until we realize that "provide" is a verb we must learn to conjugate in two tenses — present and future. There is in our American life, too often, a blind optimism in living up to an income, in assuming that because the sun of prosperity shines warmly today there is no need of providing umbrellas for a possibly rainy tomorrow. Those who wisely live within an income rarely have to face the problem of trying to live without one. There are two simple guarantees against future poverty and dependence on others, two great safe-guards for home and family — a bank-book and an insurance policy. They represent the material defense of the home, a bulwark of love's forethought standing strong and firm in the hour of need. Providing for those nearest and dearest to us is no special virtue for which we should receive a gold medal and a halo. It should not be construed as just a duty; it is greater and bigger and sweeter than duty — it is a privilege that is ours alone. Financial independence can be secured by most men only by hard, careful saving. It means preparing in times of peace for the hour when fate may wage war against us, being ready for any sudden storm of sorrow, trial, affliction, accident or adversity, and holding poverty for a time at bay in trying hours when the individual is unable to stand bravely between his loved ones and the world. *Copyright, 1910, by Fleming H. Revell Company.

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF .MARRIED LIFE 635 Saving means wise economy, careful planning, thoughtful management and prudent forethought in handling the home funds, be they large or small. If met in the proper spirit, it brings husband and wife into closer harmony, more loving co-operation and deeper recognition of mutual helpfulness. The wife, too, then becomes a money earner, but it is the sweet atmosphere of her home, where she belongs; she is practically earning money by her wise economy and her wise saving. The savings bank is the best and most practical way of keeping together small amounts of money, for it is safe, conservative, pays interest and is available when it becomes necessary to call on this reserve. Systematic thrift will accomplish more than spurts and spasms of saving. If the members of the home finance committee decide that they can afford to set aside monthly or weekly a regular stated sum from the family income, it should be reserved religiously. This surplus should be considered as not really belonging to them at the time but merely as part of a little fortune they are preparing to come into at a later date. Saving does not imply penuriousness in the home life, but just wise watchfulness against the tyranny of the unnecessary, guarding against the little leakage in home expenses, and pitching the key of living in proper harmony with the incoming funds. There are times when the needs of the home are so pressing and the income so small that it requires most careful straining merely to keep the ship afloat and saving seems impossible, but even here the true spirit of saving may serve to keep at the lowest possible point the creeping invasion of debt that must somehow be paid later. Debt becomes a hard mortgage to be paid off when times brighten, a heavy, clogging burden easier to put on than to cast off. The savings bank is an excellent reserve in hours of sudden need, but when the bread-winner of the home is called forever from his defense of the family, an insurance policy often proves of inspiring helpfulness in the dark hour of loneliness and need. The very best wedding-gift that a young husband can make his bride is an insurance policy. It carries with it a conviction of starting out right, it is a guarantee that living or dead his protection still will be the constant atmosphere of her life. The wedding-ring may bear its consecrating inscription, "Yours while life

636 IMPROVEMENT ERA lasts," but the policy tells of love not ended with life, of love that spreads over her the wings of guardianship even from beyond the grave. It is vital that the insurance question should by all means be solved as early as possible in married life. No amount of money spent on little luxuries for the wife, no unbroken record for Saturday boxes of candy, no loyal observance of birthdays and other red-letter days on the calendar of love, no acts of thoughtf ulness, nor graceful attentions nor easy-going liberality in household expenses, can ever compensate for the treason to love implied in forsaking the duty of insurance. The husband's square, inevitable duty is to insure his life if he can possibly meet his premiums. The amount of his policy should be as large as he can afford, with due recognition of his resources and his other responsibilities. Many men who carry a twenty-five thousand-dollar fire-insurance policy on their store or factory have only a three-thousand or five-thousand-dollar policy on their life. Insurance should not be unthinkingly put in the luxuries class. It should ever be faced as one of the stern, inevitable necessities of life that have an irritating way of rising superior to argument, like rent, food, fuel, taxes, light, clothing and other unsuppressible and omnipresent elements of home living. Men whose hearts are in the right place on the insurance issue, bothered in the day-byday battle with the seemingly immediate problems, often through mere thoughtlessness defer their manifest duty. Mere intentions to insure, no matter how good and generous, amount to nothing unless translated into actual deeds. It is not the seed we meant to sow in life, but the seed we have sown that brings the harvest. Grocers, butchers and other tradesmen will not accept his intentions as collateral when dealing with his heirs. Wives are often afflicted with a strange hesitancy, an oversensitive delicacy, in broaching the subject of insurance to their unspeaking husbands. They fear that the suggestion might be misinterpreted, that they might be deemed mercenary or some other wildly improbable thing; so in a really cowardly way, that throws into eclipse their own rights and their duty to their children, they suffer in silence what they feel is a slight of love's consideration. Their simplest expression on the subject might have acted as an alarm clock on the sleeping conscience of the husband, wakened him to his duty and stirred him to instant action. The

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE 637 result of this would have been greater peace of mind to all concerned, and a hardly noticeable increase of present expenditure. For the future protection of the family, for a given sum of money, insurance will yield greater returns than a savings bank which it so admirably supplements. Two or three annual deposits in a bank mean at the death of the depositor merely the return of his capital with interest ; a single payment in insurance, shortly followed by the decease of the insured, gives prompt payment of the full amount of the policy at the time of greatest need. The regular date at which premiums must be paid acts as a wonderful impelling incentive to thrift, which the bank, with no such leverage, cannot inspire. Until the questions of saving and insurance, the two great provisions for the future of the family, are fully met in the home, one of the great problems of married life remains unsolved. ["Pulling Together Through a Crisis" is the title of the next article in this series.] "