Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/608

604 in this connection, however, that one current definition of genius docs not always grant the rationality of the individual. Only lawful marriages are considered in this study; liaisons are not recognized. Four morganatic unions are included. Owing to lack of information, ninety-three eminent women are unclassified as either married or unmarried.

One hundred and forty-two, or 16.3 per cent., of the entire number of women of ability, have not married. Of this group, 72.5 per cent, were born in the last two centuries, and 49.2 per cent, of the unmarried eminent women of history belong to the nineteenth century. There is, of course, the possibility that some of our contemporary women of distinction may yet marry, and thus reduce this ratio. England and America have produced 59.8 per cent, of the unmarried women of ability. The former country has twenty-one more unmarried eminent women than the latter, but the figures for America are the more significant, since in terms of per cent, they mean, that of the total number of distinguished women produced by England, 29.7 per cent, of them have not married; whereas, in America, the ratio is 42.6 per cent. It is a pertinent question whether our women realize that in attaining eminence nearly one half the number sacrifice their own homes and families. Our figures do not show that any one line of activity has appealed particularly to the unmarried group. Neither were they, in their freedom from the duties and responsibilities of wifehood and motherhood, able to attain a higher degree of eminence than the married women; nor was their average length of life found to be longer.

Two hundred and fifty-nine of the distinguished women married men sufficiently eminent to be recorded in three or more of the six encyclopedias used in collecting the list of women. The number of lines accorded these husbands was counted and submitted to the same system of standardization as that used for the women. Napoleon I., Peter the Great, Henry IA r. of France, Philip II. of Spain, Mark Antony, Nero, Philip II. of France, Claudius, Louis XII. of France, Ptolemy I. and Chilperic I. were each married to two of the eminent women. Five of the wives of Henry VIII. of England are included in our list of distinguished women. On the other hand, twenty-two of the women married more than one husband sufficiently eminent to fall within our classification.

Our knowledge of the relative eminence of the husbands and wives makes possible some interesting comparisons. Eight of the husbands, namely, Napoleon I., Mohammed, Julius Cæsar, Martin Luther, Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Socrates and Napoleon III. are more eminent than Mary Stuart, the most eminent woman of history. Jeanne d'Arc and Queen Victoria are less eminent than the poet Shelley, but more eminent than the first Roman emperor, Augustus Cæsar. Mary 1. of England is of equal eminence with Philip IV. of France.