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 THE SPINSTER

the Zend-Avesta, as translated by Anquetil-Duperron, there is a discouraging sentence passed upon voluntary spinsterhood: "The damsel who, having reached the age of eighteen, shall refuse to marry, must remain in Hell until the earth is shattered."

This assurance is interesting, less because of its provision for the spinster's future than because it takes into consideration the possibility of her refusing to marry;—a possibility which slipped out of men's minds from the time of Zoroaster until our present day. A vast deal has been written about marriage in the interval; but it all bears the imprint of the masculine intellect, reasoning from the masculine point of view, for the benefit of masculinity, and