The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-11-10
Marriage and Higher Education of
Women.
Cincinnati Gazette.1

4
Does the higher education of women
make them averse to marriage? If i
does, ought higher education 10 be en-.
couraged? A journal situated in region
where the higher education of women
has long been the fashion, to-wit, the
Springfield Republican, affirms that it
causes this unnatural aversion. If so.
| it is a subject for scientific inquiry and
moral reflection. The first and super.
fetal suggestion will be of incredulity
that ANYTHING but experience can make
women averse to marriage; but this is
not the scientific method, and it cannot
answer the fact stated by q careful Jour.
nal, that it works so. If the conjecture
be offered that the higher education
gives women mental resources, and then
they cease to desire marriage, il has the
reflection that mental vacancy leads the
mass of women to marry-a conclusion
so unpleasant that it cannot be accepted
without positive proof.
To suppose that it is because higher
education expands the female mind and
forms reason and judgment M the place
of nature and instinct, and thus makes
them capable of drawing deliberate
judgment on men, whereby they fail to
discover sufficient merit in them to in
duce such connection, is only an elab-
Grafton of the previous conjecture, and
is alike unhattering to the mass OF
women and to men, For the number of
men who have gone through the higher
education is sufficient to mate the col
lege-bred women. Besides, this as
sumes SO much as to make it traversty
on the scientific method; it assumes
that the higher education expands the
mind, forms reason and judgment, and
makes a higher general capacity
things which are far from being
scientifically established. In large
part of the young men it is observed
that the time when they come from col
lege is the green age, and that their
most conspicuous requirement Is the idea
that they are finished; while the
anxious inquiry of their friends is, what
are they good for?
During the present year woman
suffrage convention adopted resolution
that the breeding of statesmen cannot
be carried to high point unless they
who are to be mothers of statesmen are
taught and practised in craftsmanship.
The resolution seems to have good
foundation both in the rules applied by
scientific breeders of domestic animals,
and in the common tradition that sons
get their intellectual brightness from
the mother. But if it be true that
higher education makes women averse to
marriage, then this fitting of women for
craftsmanship, like all other plans for
perfecting society, would culminate in
the extinction of the human race.
This, however, Is no hindrance to the
true philosopher The distinguished
Anacharsis Cloots, surnamed the Friend
of Humanity, said that the principles OF
the constitution, adopted by the national
assembly of France, would be cheaply
purchased at the sacrifice of the whole
human race. And Thomas jefferson
in his letter to Mr.. Short, minister at
the Hague, defending the massacres Of
the priests and gentry in France-with
the modification that they did not kill
enough-said that if every nation were
killed off to single pair, and they free,
it would be better than for people to
live as they are Still, his plan was
Iamed By tne weakness OF WHAT is ct''le d
humanity, for if left in each nation a
single pair, would propagate and per-
petuate the same evil state.
This illustrates, however, that the
argument that a plan for amelioratlng
society will work extinction of the race
is no objection to the true philosopher.
One of the most puzzling things to the
philosopher is the multiplication of the
species that people should make the
chief business Of their lives to propa-
gate their kind to the same fate, with
the large chance of going to the worse.
1t is that this college education for
women, this eating of the tree OF knoWl
edge, opens their eyes to the vanity OF
ali things, and makes them reluctant to
bring others into the world to the
same experience, and thus makes them
averse to marriage? This idea may tino
some support in the common Observation
that the expansion of the female mind
by the suffrage movement makes then
more discontented with their sex. One
of the most eloquent and fortunate o
the suffrage apostles said that when sh'
became mother, and an attendingprlest
ess told her it was a girl, she turned
her face to the wall and wept.
If the expansion of the female mlnC
efectuates aversion to maternity ant
marriage, the theory of propagating
more intelligent race by higher eduea
tion Of the mothers seems to fail. Som
NAV see in it a compensation in the
increased chances of marriage which
will be given to the mass by taking tn
college bred girls out of the field. Bu
NAV not this lead to a classification o
the married women as the uneducatet
part of the female race, and thus resul
| in degrading marriage to woman D.
associating it with ignorance ? Thel
female society would be divided by
class of spinsters of higher education
and superior minds, devoted to then
own intellectual elevation, and to th'
pursuit of the good, the beautiful ant
the true, and a much larger class Q
married women, good enough for dc
nestle uses.
They who hold that Creation under
stood itself when it made the humal
race male and female, and that it mad
no mistake and did not mean them t
be alike, or to have the same sphere
have argued that the Office of maternl
ty is a very high one, and that 1t
very absorbing to woman's powers, AM
that Creation meant that her vita
forces should be reserved for this grea
function, and that the diverting of he
energies to hard mental application
during those years in which her bodily
powers are maturing diminishes he
| ability for healthy maternity. If thi
| be true. then the inability to properl,
discharge her great function of mater
| nity NAV bring disinclination to mar
riage. But, as was before remarked
no consequence to the human rae
should be allowed to stand In the wa,
of plans for perfecting human society
| and there are signs that the advances
woman will revolt against the Office 0
maternity, as imposing on them dis
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