Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1889-11-02

and general girl is not the child of riches Neither
is it the wealthy maiden, as a rule, who remains
unwedded. She has suitors galore If she does
not choose a husband for herself of whom her
parents approve, or takes, wly-nily, whomsoever
she has set her affections upon without their bless
ing they invariably arrange an alliance for her
suitable in point of social and commercial stand
ing with her position. The rich girl seldom devel-
ops into the ''o1d maid The larger proportion
of girls who remain unmarried are those who have
gone to work when girls, and are more or less in
dependent in business or profession. The success
full business woman is not so ready to hamper her
self and curtail her freedom of action by marriage
as the girl whose interest centers in some mans
affection and in her home. Love, marriage, ma
ternty may come to the woman of business or
profession. But they do not make up the entire
foundation of her contentment as they do for the
woman for whom they constitute the sum total of
existence.
The young man of moderate means is not kept
from marriage solely because he cannot find a
prudent self-sacrfcing wife, as so many latter-day
reasoners argue The modern young man is not
especially eager to limit his individual expenses
deprive himself of the pleasures and luxuries he
can afford for himself alone upon his income, in
order to support wife. He must be very much
in love, indeed, when he will jump out of the
$1,000 or $500 frying pan of bachelorhood into
the fire of matrmony on the same amount. When
he contemplates the winsome creature he has asked
to be his very own it is seldom in immediate con-
nection with the marriage service. In fact, his
mental picture Of the wedding day is apt to stand
afar off in the dim future, framed by the POSSIBLE
ity "When get raise He is even more re-
luctant to assume the responsibilities of married
life than the girl.
Upon the girl alone as upon the woman since
history has been kept by man, the present-time
philosopher places the blame of the falling off Of
the matrimonial ratio. This theorist forgets that
the barbarism that once. cast the shadow of
obloquy upon the unmarried woman of maturity
or old age has dissolved and disappeared in the
light of advancing civilization.
That all women are destined to be wives and
mothers was for so many centuries regarded as the
law of nature and was such thoroughly accepted
creed that the utterance of facts to dsprove this
arrangement was almost regarded as blasphemy.
The political economist who now cries out against
the lessening of the marriage ratio has neglected
to observe that the conditions of life have mate
NAMED unwedded was despised, was set spinning
over the earth.
Greater independence and wider opportunities
are now granted the single woman than in the past.
She is no longer forced into half-welcome marriage
by the fear upon her that she will one day be afraid
to look the world in the face because she is an "old
maid" Many woman has spoken the VOWS that
made her wife solely from the scourge of this
fear in the by-gone time.
The largely increasing number of independently
situated women preferring to live unmarried is
likely to work decided change in the status of
the sold maid" The elderly girl, too, who pre-
fers the luxuries or comforts of her fathers home
to sharing flat or clearinghouse apartment with
salared young man is so rapidly multiplying that
she is bound to have show in things generally,
the same as younger maidens and her married sis
tiers. The tendencies and cold figures Of the CEN