Hubby's Helping Hand

1920

We see no reason under the sun why a husband should not do chores around the family home, wash dishes, make beds, sweep, mop and dust. Nor do we see a good reason for a husband seeking to make a wife pay him for putting paint on the front steps or doing necessary repairing with nails. Our opinion, thus publicly expressed, says the New York Morning Telegram, is upheld by the learned jurist, Vice Chancellor Backes of New Jersey.

George W. Newberry has a home at Belmar, N. J., and lived there with his wife. He now is having law difficulties with Mrs. Newberry, which have nothing to do with what we are considering. In the course of the legal contests Mr. Newberry put in a bill for work done around the house and other chores. Newberry demanded $2,600 for doing these chores around the place.

This first-rate judge said: "If I were to allow your claim, any husband who washes dishes for his wife might ask $8 a week. This kind of work is a gift."

That is just what it is — a gift. The dishes that he washes are as much his as his wife's. The floor he sweeps and the beds he makes and the steps that he paints are his as well as his wife's.

We are pleased, we repeat, that the status of idle husbands has been fixed by Jersey law. It has been said that a "woman's work is never ended." It will be ended, and the woman can rest and enjoy life if the husband takes a hand in doing the housework.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6. (Some errors were corrected to make sense of one passage. A random phrase, "an order, also, forbidding Mr. Newberry from interfering with his wife's property." was part of the article as well.)