Page:The Future of Single Women.pdf/10

 narrows and damps the spirits of generous men. In marriage a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being." It is not surprising then that celibacy, whatever may be its disadvantages, should become attractive to women of a certain temperament, and that they should feel that their highest, noblest, and strongest characteristics can only be developed and maintained in conditions of liberty. It is objected that their highest qualities are tenderness and motherly love, &c., that these can only be developed through marriage, and that therefore an unmarried woman is undeveloped and incomplete. This objection is based on two assumptions—first that marriage includes the highest love; second that marriage gives a woman complete development. We will deal with the second assumption first. It is granted that when a young woman is kept by her friends in a state of enforced idleness, of strict tyrannical tutelage, is denied all healthy interest in life, all engrossing occupation and mental activity, it is granted that wifehood and motherhood would mean for her an added interest—a certain amount of development. To her marriage would be a gain. The starvation of her life requires immediate satisfaction at whatever cost. But this is not true of the unmarried woman who has interests and occupations of her own, and who has no personal preference for marriage.

The assumption that marriage offers to a woman the highest development is open to question. The married woman develops the special qualities of wifehood and motherhood often, almost always, at the cost of her general development; in proportion as her strength, her thought, her whole life is given to the special duties of race-preservation, they are necessarily withdrawn from the general duties of humanity. Thus a married woman may grow in the direction of wife and mother while her individuality is weakened and sometimes absolutely effaced. Although marriage sometimes develops the character in both sexes, in women it may secure this special development at a greater cost of general growth than is justifiable. When we are studying the development of the character for its own sake, and not for the sake of some special end, the nearest approach to a perfect character is reached by cultivating the faculties generally. If the absence of the special experiences of wife and mother are a loss to a woman, the loss may be more than compensated by the general knowledge of the world which her personal liberty places within her reach. "Aujourdhui la femme commence à ne plus faire du mariage son seul but, et de l'amour son seul idéal."

Speaking of the new order of women A. Dumas says: "Elle peut se passer de l'homme pour conquérir la liberté; elle