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torced, to be dependent may have consciously med to involve a financial Any sexual relationship, ers have to undergo hum. women - even where they and company, is presu- the identity and where. abouts of children's fathers.

Women who definitely relationships. Single moth. reject any continuing involvement with these men -whether because of a history of battering and abuse or simply because they want nothing further to do with them - are pushed into a position of claiming not to have any idea of who the father is (with the implication that they have so many casual sexual encounters that they've lost track of who it was with).

This in turn leads to suspicion either that they are prostitutes and therefore do have a source of income, or that the father really is still around and supporting the woman. In both cases it's liable to lead to increasing unannounced visits and early morning snoops.

The effect of this is to increase the harassment and humiliation of women. (I would like to see the proposals to suften up and prevent 'abuses' in the application of the cohabitation rule, but they will alw is prove ineffectual if they do not confront the real abuse - the assumption that where a woman and a man have any relationship (whether married, 'living together' less permanent than that) that the man has the right to expect certain services in exchange for financial support.

Inequality Until women have the the right to an independent income (provided by the state if it cannot or will not provide jobs and the facilities necessary to take those jobs) to keep themselves and any children, then any other independence and equality is illusory - relationships based on financial inequality inevitably result in inequality in every other area. Any demand for financial independence and the right of individual benefits must also include married women. The DHSS are right to say that cohabiting women should not have an unfair advantage over married women, but wrong in their conclusions - to punish both.

Vulnerable

Because married women have no entitlement to money in their own right, they are prepared to take on the low-paid, part-time unpleasant jobs, which are so vulnerable in a recession, just so that the у can have some money of own in their hand, which they don't have to beg, plead, cajole their husbands for.

Even within the same family, women have a lower real standard of living because any money they get goes on necessities, whereas most husbands reserve some money for spending themselves on 'luxuries' - drinks, nights out etc.

The one guaranteed source of income for married women with children is child benefit. Yet this bears no relation to the cost of having children and is now under threat.

All new recipients of child benefit will get it paid in arrears (with the exception of those on social security). But it is precisely those women who don't have any other benefit who desperately need the small amount of financial room for manouevre that child benefit gives who will lose out on weekly payment.

Dire Benefits are under dire attack from the changes proposed in the Rayner report on unemployment benefits and the new social security legislation. This attack has to be beaten off urgently, but we must no lose sight of the fact that the present system is not only woefully inadequate for its poverty levels but also absolutely rooted in the assumption of women's inequality and designed to perpetuate and wors plight of women.