Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

I was raised in an age of thrift
and the gender apartheid of strict roles 
when, by custom, married women
were banned from paid employment,
by employers. who reasoned that in marriage
women were chattels of their husbands,
and should not want a life beyond chattel-dom;
the husband was provider for both of them.

Their husbands did not always think that way.
In a good marriage the husband brought home
the wage packet for it to be opened
in the wife's presence, they both put
the house first, and what was left
the husband kept to keep up with his mates.

In a bad marriage The wife never knew 
what the husband earned, and kept to himself
he gave her a certain amount of money,
gave her instructions that were often impossible
to follow and kept his own assumptions
of how he spent his own money to himself.

Such men often complained, at volume,
in front of friends and family, about
how other's mis-spent their wealth
and lived beyond their means-
as if they were incapable of such a thing.

The theory went that having little,
and a lot to make money cover
made women use money better
than they might if they given more
having less stopped the women
wasting any of it on frivolities.

Whereas what men did with money
always seemed vital, and above questioning
even by other, similar and higher status, males.

Such men paid faint and feigned lip service
to any sense of democratic accountability,
and always think that dictatorships worked best
-systems where self belief at others' expense
always masks incompetence.