SPINSTERS AS THEY ARE AND AS THEY MIGHT BE.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3054, 28 November 1878, Page 4

SPINSTERS AS THEY ARE AND AS THEY MIGHT BE.

Take the case of a family consisting of a father and mother and half-a-dozen daughters. The father is a professional man, two-thirds of whose income cease at his death; the mother is an active woman, and, at the time when the youngest of her daughters reaches the age of eighteen, still a vigorous housekeeper. Three of the daughters marry; one remains at home to help her mother in the management of the household. What are the others to do P Their own home is orderly and well governed. It is true that they may have neighbours and acquaintances whose homes are quite the reverse; but it is in their own home, or in none at all, that this " reconquering of their own sphere " must take place. They cannot say to a friend, nor even to an enemy: "My dear Mrs Jellaby, I am quite distressed at the disorder of your household; I will come and put your whole establishment on a totally different footing." What generally happens in real life is that all three, unmarried daughters stay at home with practically no real or sufficient occupation; they spend their time making their dresses, and endeavouring, by snipping and altering and turning, always to be in the latest fashion, and to make the £30 ayear or so which they have for dress and pocket-money go as far as £35 or £40. This, it appears. to me, is an unhealthy and unnatural existence: why shonld the labour of three fine, strong, active young women produce such an insignificant result ? Further, they are apt to present as time goes on, the unlovely spectacle of middle-aged spinisters aping the appearance and manners of girls of eighteen. They are eagerly and perhaps. vainly hoping for marriage which would give them a reasonable occupation and work worth doing. They are not prepared, as the Saturday Review says, " to judge calmly of an offer when it comes." This state of things is surely not at all conducive to- the realisation of a high ideal of marriage. Let us now suppose what would have happened if these two young women had had an ambition to find some career for themselves more satisfactory than that of a third-rate dressmaker. One goes to Girton or-Newhaxn, and thus, by getting a university training, prepares herself for the profession of teaching, and in a few years she may be earning £200, £300, or £400 a-year. The other goes to the school of medicine for women, and after the proper course has been gone through and the examinations passed, she begins practice: if she has anything- like a real faculty for her profession, her income will very speedily outstrip her sister's;. and moreover she too will have found a. work worthy of a' rational human being 1 — a work that calls out some of the best and noblest qualities. If either of these Bisters marries after she is established in her profession, it will not be for the sake of escaping from the ennui of perpetual young-ladyhood. It will not be because in no other, way could she find useful work to do in the world; the chance of the marriage being happy will be improved by the fact that it was a real choice, and not a Hobson's choice, such as marriage is when the other careers of usefulness are closed.