Page:The Future of Single Women.pdf/11

 a l'entrevoir, sans pour cela faire abandon de sa pudeur et de sa dignité; tout au coutraire, en développant son intelligence, en élargissant son domaine; et la liberté qui lui viendra par le travail sera bien autrement réelle et complête que la liberté purement nominale qui lui venait par le mariage. Une fois la fortune et la liberté acquises, que leur représentera le mariage sinon une dépossession, le mari étant le chef de la communanté, et un esclavage, la femme devant obeissance au mari?" If this is true of a single woman in France much more true is it in England. Bacon says, "The most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles."

The mental life of a single woman is free and untrammelled by any limits except such as are to her own advantage. Her difficulties in the way of development are only such as are common to all human beings. Her physical life is healthy and active, she retains her buoyancy and increases her nervous power if she knows how to take care of herself, and this lesson she is rapidly learning. The unmarried woman of to-day is a new, sturdy, and vigorous type. We find her neither the exalted ascetic nor the nerveless inactive creature of former days. She is intellectually trained and socially successful, her physique is as sound and vigorous as her mind. The world is before her in a freer, truer, and better sense than it is before any individual male or female. Her tastes are various and refined, her opportunities for cultivating them practically unlimited. Whether it be in the direction of society, or art, or travel, or philanthropy, or public duty, or a combination of many of these, there is nothing to let or hinder her from following her own will, there are no bonds but such as bear no yoke, no restrictions but those of her own conscience and right principle. She feels that it is in no sense her duty, since it is not her choice, to devote herself to securing the happiness of some one individual, nor to add to our difficulties of over-population. From her stronghold of happiness and freedom she can help the weak and protect the poor. She is fitted to fill a place which has always stood empty in the history of the world, that of a loving and tender woman armed with official power to redress the wrongs of women and children, to stand as their representative before the nation, the creator of their rights, and the shield of their weakness; those whose nature and necessities are known only to her, and to her only because she is a woman, have found in her a guardian, an advocate, and a friend. While losing none of the fun and frolic and gaiety of life, she is called by a deep religious conviction to stand face to face and hand in hand with suffering; it is