Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

Finances

If they try to add and subtract to see whether the relationship is equal, it won’t work. On his side, he is giving $50,000, she says. No, $70,000, he says. It doesn’t matter, she says. It matters to me, he says. What she is giving is a half-grown child. Is that an asset or a liability? Now, is she supposed to feel grateful to him? She can feel grateful, but not indebted, not that she owes him something. There has to be a sense of equality. I just love to be with you, she says, and you love to be with me. I’m grateful to you for providing for us, and I know my child is sometimes a trouble to you, though you say he is a good child. But I don’t know how to figure it. If I give all I have and you give all you have, isn’t that a kind of equality? No, he says.