ABSTRACT
Whether the individual, the married couple, the family including children, or some other group of persons should constitute the unit to be assessed for the levying of direct taxes raises a number of conflicting considerations, which become especially marked in a period such as the present during which social attitudes are rapidly changing. The idea that a woman on marriage becomes a dependant of her husband, who is then responsible for her welfare and for that of the family, accounts for much of the present treatment of the tax unit. This notion of the dependency of the woman on the man does in fact correspond with reality in many of the older married couples, where the wife, having from the start of the marriage stayed at home to care for the family and to bring up the children, has only a limited possibility of supporting herself at a later date by her own earnings. On the other hand, the notion is becoming less and less compatible with modern attitudes to the relationship between men and women, and in fact it corresponds less and less closely with reality when an increasing number of married women work in paid occupations.
