I am amused by the situation which has developed in Rumania, as a result of the employment of married women in the state services there.
At the beginning of the year the Rumanian government decided that where husband and wife were both employed by the state, one of them was to be dismissed for reasons of economy. The dismissal was to fall on the one who was receiving the higher salary. As, in the majority of cases, it was the husband who received this, a curious position arose. Rumania was in a fair way of compelling its married men to become housewives, while their better halves went to the office.
These male civil servants have a sense of dignity, however, and refuse to attend to the frying pan while the wife takes the morning paper to the train. A result is that there have been an unexampled number of petitions for divorce from the dignity-wounded members of the stronger sex, and in Bucharest alone more than 2,700 have already taken steps in this direction. One does not require to be much of a prophet to predict an amendment in the regulations before very long.
The Irish Times, June 18th, 1931.