The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-07-28
HIGHER EDUCATION.
While It's Advocates Among Women
Have Their Life Work, the
Noble Mother is the
Ideal Woman.

A favorite topic OF discussion Just
now in feminine circles is the woman
who does not marry. and among men
there is a certain amount of curiosity
as to why she does not wed. 1t seems
to be conceded that there is o growing
Discrimination on the part of women to
commit themselves to wedlock. and
this seems to have been the inspira-
ton of a recent article by Mrs. Il.
LYNN Linton on the Revolt Against
Matrimony'' in the Forum, and of
Mrs. Kate Gaunet Wells's paper in
the North american RerietC entitled
''Why More Girls Do Not Marry" A
hundred years ago marriage n
motherhood were regarded o. the
crown and consummation of female
life, and the girls of every household
were trained solely with the view TO
becoming qualified heads of homes in
which they should be installed by the
marriage service. 1t is only of late
years. since what is known as the
higher education has come into vogue
and our modern civilization has alb
sorbed women into so many other
pursuits, that the disclination to mat
rimony has arisen and the superior
woman of the day has found herself
looking down with contempt on the
work OF sweeping the domestic hearth
stone and rocking the cradle.
The college graduate, highly edu-
Gated. capable of earning a salary and
OF making a place for herself in the
world. is a new factor in femininity,
and she finds herself refined up to a
point where she is unwilling to sink
her identity in that of a man and
play second fiddle in his house
hold. In the opinion OF one
OF the writers of whom we
have spoken, woman has heretofore
commended herself to man by reason
of her ~''simpleness and Stiffness and
now that they have outgrown their
sweet simplicity, the ordinary man
has ceased to admire them or fears
their power in the household of which
he is the recognized head. IL IL is
true that there is a growing disin-
clination ON the part of women to
marry, it is still doubtful whether the
world is to be the gamer by the
change. True, there are too many
unfit and hasty marriages, and the tie
is made a cloak for vulgar passion
whose safety finds refuge in divorce;
but. in spite OF all this, marriage re-
mains the diyinest institution of the
world. With the rapid growth of the
worlds population under the peace and
sunshine OF modern civilization, what's
needed is not so much large house
holds of children but better. healthier
children. These are to be the fruit of
wedlock, honored and honorable, and
the mothers care, love and example
are still to be the g%randest pictures
that life can paint. To the end OF
time the hand that rocks the cradle is
to shape the destinies of the nations.
Meantime, the unmarried roma is
to have her own place and her work.
The rewards of genius, of philan-
thropy, of money, of scholarship and
OF art. are all within her reach, and
it may be that in the field OF politics,
as well as professional life, she will
achieve fame and fortune. But that
her influence will equal that OF the
oma who finds in married life and
motherhood the field for all that is best
and purest in woman's nature, no
thoughtful man will admit. 1t is a
pitiful thing on the part of woman or
man to despise matrimony and so to
deliberately cut themselves off from
life's purest joys and prepare for them
selves that worst of all fates-a home
less old age. Theories are very fine
on paper, but when it comes down to
practice. the girl who is willing to
marry will carry the suffrage OF mas
culine hearts, and her influence will
outweigh that of a hundred blue
stockings and specialized female foes
of wedlock .-Albany Telegraph.