Thousands of them--thousands and thousands. If they aren't
dependents ..."
"They're not, though," said Rodney. "Not a bit of it. They're giving
their husbands an economic service of a peculiarly indispensable sort.
The first requisite for success to the husbands of women who live like
that is the appearance of success. Their status, their front, is the one
thing they can't do without. Well, and it's a curious fact that a man
can't keep up his own front. If he tries to dress extravagantly, wear
diamonds, spend his money on himself, he doesn't look prosperous. He
looks a fool. People won't take him seriously. If he can get a wife
who's ornamental, who has attractive manners, who can convey the
appearance of being expensive without being vulgar, she's of a perfectly
enormous economic advantage to him. She'd only have to quit buying the
sort of clothes he could parade her in, and begin spoiling her looks
with a menial domestic routine, to draw howls of protest from him.
Only, so long as she doesn't call his bluff, she leaves him free
to think that he's doing it all for her and that except for her
extravagance--extravagance, mind you, that nine times out of ten he's
absolutely rammed down her throat--he'd be as rich, really, as he has to
try to pretend he is.
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