Running-Away-Fund: 21st Century Good Housekeeping by Deception

Here’s a moral problem of modern mores that has recently come to my attention.

Call me old-fashioned but I’m at present dumbstruck by a September 2006 issue of Good Housekeeping (doctor’s waiting room) in which their Problems Page discusses women’s housekeeping, and whether a husband or Significant Other can be trusted to provide for a stay-at-home mother of a child.

The step-by-step advice given to the reader, on the assumption she does not work since she is rearing an infant, is that ...

1: She should discuss with her Significant Other a household budget that is falsely ‘weighted’ by 20 percent; 

2: She should negotiate with her Significant Other the proposed budget less 10 percent to gain credence; 

3: She should salt away the 10 percent budget surplus and her Child Benefit as ‘running-away-money’.

The conclusion is that, whatever the ethics of how the surplus housekeeping is obtained (and Good Housekeeping’s agony aunt recommends base deception), all women should have secret ‘running-away-money’ ... the advice column concludes with the example of a woman long married who had amassed a secret ‘running-away-fund’ of £57,000 from her housekeeping... (?)

Well. Here’s a case of modern morals for debate, and one that raises many questions about the sanctity of marriage and the case for mutual trust.

As I wrote in my most recent fiction for Ambit (issue 212, Darkly, More is Seen): 

Soon I had my escape route mapped out in the same meticulous detail with which my Significant Other would pack his emergency grab-bag for a transatlantic yacht race in the event of sinking.
   An abandon-ship-bag!
   Let me affirm here and now, in the strongest terms, that, for a moonlight flit, ‘Every Housewife Should Have One!’
   Hereunder, then, allow me to itemise the contents of an essential panic-bag all survivalists should pack in readiness for the old heaveho.
   Your grab-bag should contain: Nightdress, Toothbrush, Underwear, Passport, Identity Card, Credit Card, Prescribed Medication, Basic Toiletries, Facial Tissues (Mansize), and Foldable Raincoat and Galoshes.
   Forget your house-keys and address book; you won’t be needing them again. Similarly, for the completest disappearing act, of course, you will not need a distress call nor rescue flares for your life-raft.

Well. When it comes down to it, fiction is pure escapism, of course, yet I trust my escapism outside fiction does not have to depend on the housekeeping budget being squirrelled away in an abandon-ship-panic-bag ... on balance, if I’m heading for a shipwreck I’d rather remain onboard and rearrange the deckchairs to avoid seeing the rocks ... and, for the moment, that steamer lounger on the sun deck has a distinct appeal.

Moonlight Flit by George Cruikshank (detail)