SUPERFLUOUS WOMEN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4487, 3 November 1922, Page 4

SUPERFLUOUS WOMEN.

By Marjorie Bowen in the “Overseas Daily Mail. Who shall dare to define the superfluous woman ? >. How can any 'human being be “ superfluous ”? Yet there are, we read repeatedly, two million superfluous women in Great Britain—perhaps a menace. A single woman may be an asset to the Empire, a married woman nothing but a burden; a clever woman 4nay prove a plague to the community, and a stupid, lazy one may have a family of fine children. He who shall decide to what age, class, profession, or type these unfortunate two millions belong will require the wisdom of Solomon and the tact a fashionable portrait painter. Even in this day of emancipated femininity the superfluous 1 women are popularly supposed to be those without husbands, ■So viewed, the problem becomes a simple one. There is room even for the two millions in the Cree wide lands of tihe hew world; perhaps a home and. a husband in Australia, or Canada, are worth' more than a job in London, a share p 0 someo'ne’s home in some scrambling sort of capacity, fhe millionth dhance of the luck that will bring fame and riches, the safe plod in country, towp, op village—yes. perhaps they really are worth all these usual ways a woman 'has of ■spending her life in the old country, even with the lure of kinemas and bargain sales added. Perhaps they are not. After all, a woman does not easily give np hope that she is not one of the two millions.