git init with specified user.email

git checkout has a --config option so one can do:

    git clone --config 'user.email=email-for-this-clone' ...

which I find nice to setup as git alias:

    clone-work = clone --config 'user.email=my-work-email'

(while leaving the default clone for my personal projects; or an alias for clone-personal with the work email as the clone default).

I would like something similar for git init. However, git init does not have a `--config` option. I tried to use

    git -c 'user.email=my-work-email' init

but that's not working (I'm guessing it only picks up configurations mentioned on the man page for git-init).

I am currently working around this with a template for work but would prefer to init with `-c` (or similar) or at least understand why this is not possible.

-- David