Page:Co-operative housekeeping.djvu/41

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Co-operative housekeeping

occupation is not the business of a few months or years, but their life-long vocation, which the better they understand and practise, the higher will be their pay and their importance; and of course there is no way of doing this, except by making it possible for them to continue it after marriage, instead of giving it up, as they now must do, in order to cook, wash, and sew for their husbands and families. Admitting them into the association as co-operative housekeepers, however, would solve the whole problem; for then their cooking, washing, and sewing would all be done for them as for the richer members, leaving them free to give to the association their working hours, and their skill in that special branch of household duty to which they had devoted themselves in their unmarried years. But, after all, the amount of the admission fee, like the pew-rents of our churches, will decide the character of each co-operative association. Birds of a feather have never hitherto found any difficulty in flocking together quite exclusively; and all that would arrange itself, like the different quarters of a city, without the necessity of invidious clauses in the constitution.

Article IV.Resignation.

A housekeeper may resign her membership after the third settlement subsequent to her written notice of intention to resign. An immediate resignation may be accepted by a vote of the society, either in case of sudden removal, or in case of some violation of the housekeeper's obligations to the society, or in case there is some other housekeeper who is ready to become a member, and assume all the rights and obligations of the one resigning.

Remarks on Article IV.

The first clause of this article is necessary in general, in order to prevent housekeepers from suddenly and unexpectedly resigning, and thus withdrawing their share of stock when the association may be unprepared for it. The second clause modifies this somewhat, by making it, in peculiar cases, depend upon the vote of the society. The