القرن التاسع عشر ، رقم ١٨٢، أبريل ١٨٩٢ [و‎‎٢‎٤] (٢٤٤/٥٢)

1892
537
PROSPECTS OF MARRIAG
A century has passed since Mary Wollstonecraft publislied her
Viudication of the Rights of Woyna and Maria Edgeworth, with
greater tact and knowledge of the world, pleaded for the higher
education of women in her Lettevs Whatever
views we may hold as to the change, there can be no doubt that the
modes of thought and of life of women in all classes have altered
considerably, for good or for evil, in the last hundred years. It is,
however, possible to exaggerate the change, and to be mistaken both
as to its causes and its resulting tendencies; and now that there are
signs of a new departure, it may be as well to take stock and consider
how we stand at present.
First and foremost the question presents itself. How do women
stand now with regard to that all-absorbing occupation obtained
through marriage ? Their position in industry is so vitally affected
by their attitude towards marriage, and by the attitude of those
around them, they are so constantly called upon to balance an in
dustrial gain with social loss, that before all things it is necessary to
see on what the expectation of marriage is grounded and the effect
produced by it on efficiency and wages. After marriage we should
estimate not so much the effect of marriage on industrial posi
tion, but rather the effect of industry on domestic life.
In calculating the possibilities of marriage on a statistical basis,
the method is frequently adopted of subtracting all the widows from
the population and pointing out that in the remainder (the widowers
not being subtracted) there is a slight surplus of men; the moral is
drawn that every woman can get married if she will only make
herself agreeable, and not be too particular. Putting aside the
practical objection that all men are not able to support a wife, and the
sentimental one that numerical equality does not guarantee mutual
attraction, this method of calculation ignores several important facts.
One of these is the preference that men feel for women younger than
themselves as wives and that women feel for men older than them
selves as husbands. Granted an equal number of males and females
between the ages of eighteen and thirty, we have not therefore in
English society an equal number of marriageable men and women.
Wherever rather late marriage is the rule with men, that is wherever