Middletown transcript., 1878-12-07
THE UNMARRIED ONES.

N two to FIVE per cent. This is the nee
e essary superabundance but owing to
4 the vicious state of modern society,
n and many other causes, the real pro-
q portion of surplus and consequently
9 necessarily single-women is thirty
per cent. At first sight this seems an
g alarming number condemned to lead
a career of vice or a life Of celibacy /;
for most people consider that to be un-
married means miserable, or at least
: incomplete, existence. A thoughtful
! writer, speaking on this subject, has
said: "There are hundreds of thous-
ands of women, scattered through all
: ranks, who have to earn their own liv-
ing,......and who are compelled to
; lead an incomplete existence of their
! own. Thousands of girls are working
in mills ;......in great cities thousands
are toiling in the ill-paid meters of
seamstresses and needle-women. High
er in the social scale we find two class
es of similar abnormal existences-
women more or less well educated
spending youth and middle age as gov
nesses,......but laying by nothing,
and retiring to lonely and destitute
old age; and old maids with just
enough income to live upon, but wretch
ed and deteriorating." This is indeed
sad picture, if true; and the sadder
because the writer seeks to demon
strate that the misery is entirely un-
necessary, and could be prevented in
divers fashions.
No doubt almost all evil is, to
certain extent, preventable, but first
let the question be asked and answer
ed whether celibacy is an unmitigated
evil. The marriage of completion
that perfect harmony between two per-
sons in which the weakness of the one
is supplemented by the strength Of the
other, the sweet and tender affection
of one beautifying and softening the
rugged and stern asperities of the
other, both striving toward perfection,
both in full sympathy, ringing out
full chord of love and trusts certain
ly the most divine state upon this
earth. But how often is the actual
state one of chickering's, mutual hate,
misunderstanding, aid distrust, sell
fishness ready to grind down all the
finer feelings in order to gain its own
end. unforgiving harshness, niggardly
spite, a perfect hell of evil passions,
the more furious for being chained up
in the small space of two hearts and
unable to expend themselves in wider
horizon! There are some women to
whom marriage is only a secondary
consideration ;~-children are the sole
end and aim of life, and the pleasures,
happiness, and advantage of the chill
dFen are placed far above the wants
and wishes of the husband. Women
of this description are equally happy
as Sisters of Charity, as nurses, as gov !
ernesses, as fond aunts ready to spoil {
the whole tribe of nephews and nieces,
who know where to fly from the stern {
discipline of father or mother to ca |
resses, kisses, and sugar-plums. Again, t
some of the most exceptional and v
highly strung dispositions would suf- h
fer terribly in the wear and tear of s
life, would writhe under the selfshness S
of man, and possibly sink altogether Fl
under the load of petty worries and fl
inevitable anxieties that the possession s.
of husband and children entails. Il
Granted even that marriage is the b
true outlet for women's energies, are Il
we not sometimes the better and the Y
truer for what we have not, rather d
than for what we have? 1t is said N
that every woman has had one offer of g
in the course of her life. If tt
she has not accepted it, from folly or hi
from mistaken motives, or from any b.
other cause, is she therefore to sigh in lie
despair and sadness all the rest of her 10
lays, and call herself incomplete, or hi
or wretched? The very ci
persons are those who, having 70
Injured enjoyment for themselves,
hrow all their sympathy into the lives let
# others, possessing thus an endlessly N
vide range of interest and affection. M
The involuntary celibates, chiefly a
ecruited from the upper portions of Sta
ociety, are certainly much to be pitied. sol
Few things are more wretched than str
0 see a girl pining away, listless and 60
dissatisfied, hoping against hope, for to
he hsuband who cometh not, and re- LET
using to throw herself heart and soul pei
nto any engrossing occupation. She chi
ees that her beauty, the only possess to
IN she values as snare to entrap
len, is waning hourly; the very fret cit,
ng she indulges in is Fastening the the
rocess No wonder that such exam VIII
les call forth a deluge of laments fro
bout the difficulty of girls getting acc
Iarried, and the absolute necessity noa ~"
lere is for women to find husbands the
order that they may "suckle fools She
nj chronicle smaII-Deer. it IS far - .
ore likely that sour old maids and ear
ivolous girl will develop into scold- ''O'