Page:Why are Women Redundant?.pdf/41

 WHY ARE WOMEN REDUNDANT? cally dealt with. As an immediate result of the removal of 500,000 women from the mother-country, where they are redundant, to the colonies, where they are sorely needed, all who remain at home will rise in value, will be more sought, will be better rewarded. The number who compete for the few functions and the limited work at the disposal of women being so much reduced, the competition will be less cruelly severe, and the pay less ruinously beaten down. As the re- dundancy at home diminishes, and the value is thereby in- creased, men will not be able to obtain women's companion- ship and women's care so cheaply on illicit terms. As soon as the ideas of both sexes in the middle and upper ranks, on the question of the income and the articles which refine- ment and elegance require, are rectified,-as soon, that is, as these exigencies are reduced from what is purely factitious to what is indisputably real,-thousands who now condemn themselves and those they love to single life will find that they can marry without foregoing any luxury or comfort which is essential to ladylike and cultivated and enjoyable existence. Finally, as soon as, owing to stricter principles, purer tastes, or improved social condition,-or such combination of all these as the previous movements spoken of must gradually tend to produce,-the vast majority of men find themselves compelled either to live without all that woman can bestow, or to purchase it in the recognized mode,-as soon, to speak plainly, as their sole choice lies between marriage and a life of real and not nominal celibacy, the apparent redundance of women complained of now will vanish as by magic, if, indeed, it be not replaced by a deficiency. We are satisfied that Ir the gulf could be practically bridged over, so that women went where they are clamoured for; and IF we were contented with the actualities instead of the empty and un- real and unrewarding shadows of luxury and refinement; and Ir men were necessitated either to marry or be chaste, -all of which things it is a discreditable incapacity in us not 38