Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-22
CASHAND MATRIM0NY
Effect of the Financial Emancipation
of Women on Sir Cupid.
WILL HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL.
Opinions of Leading Advocates Of Equal
Rights for the Sexes.
POETlCAL AND PRACTICAL NOTIONS

the unmarried women of the United States
increase in number. There are more than
90, 200 unmarried manageable girls in
Massachusetts, and the coming census will
show that fewer marriages are contracted
now than ever before. The females among
the Government clerks at Washington say
they prefer Independent single blessedness
at 81, 900 a year to dependent matrimonial
existence at hard work and no pin money,
and it is question as to whether the new
openings in business and professional lives
are not going to drive the wives and mothers
out of existence.
During the past winter nearly every noted
Independent female thinker has visited
Washington. have met most of them and
have questioned them on this subject. My
first interview was with Susan B. Anthony.
She said:
Free From Financial Bondage.
"Our business and professional life will of
course affect marriage. 1t will lessen bad
marriages and it will guard women from
ill-sorted ones 1t will take from immoral
and unworthy men the advantage they now
have over some women as their only means
Of support and will give them the freedom
to choose for themselves. On the other
hand good marriages will be increased by
the present condition. When women
achieve real independence and have their
political, industrial and financial equality,
they will no longer sell themselves to a So
called husband for a so-called home. They
will not be satisfied with board and lodging
in some mans house and as much else OF
his worldly goods as he chooses.
Financial dependence is the secret of
this women's rebellion, for it is the core of
her domestic unhappiness. When men
recognize women as equal factors in human
government as creatures of financial inde-
>pendence and apace with themselves, then
women will not only be wooed as real sweet
hearts, loved as wives and enjoyed as COM
panions, but they will be respected as self
respecting human entities"
One of Anna Dickinson's Chances.
Miss Anthony pointed her argument with
a story related of Anna Dick inson during
the time she was nightly earning $3.50. She
received at this time proposal of marriage
from a S40-a-month Yankee school teacher,
who stipulated that ''such marriage must
be followed by her retirement from public
life.''
TOO many marriages are made because
women are driven to marriage for support"
said Nav Wright Sewall, President-elect of
the Woman's National Council "As
women enter the industrial world, acquire
higher education and are admitted to the
professions, they will be fitted for selfsup-
port and able to maintain that self-respect
which forbids unchaste marriage. The man
of the future is to be envied; he will be ac-
cepted because he is loved, not as a mere
means of living. Men now have little
assurance that they are accepted for love
alone when there are so many other motives
impelling women to matrimony. Educa-
tonal and industrial freedom will permit
woman to give her heart with her hand"
Frances wilIards Poetic Ideas.
"When 1 was child, =" said Frances Will
lard, 81 lived in the country and close to
the heart of nature. loved all animal life,
and unconsciously became a student of nat
ural laws. 1t was there, idly watching the
mating of birds and the association of the
animate creation generally, that learned
the fundamental principles of sex. Though
my eyes were keen in those days, saw
nothing of what we call domestic tyranny,
nor of marriage based upon anything but
natural law.
"The father and mother birds to be, first
sang together, flew together, and then to-
gether buided the nest. Except in tribes
that betrayed sex by plumage I was always
puzzled as to which was which. When the
nest was full of eggs. even then they shared
the long, loving service of bringing their
family into the world. Each of the birds
sat upon the nest, and when the children
had chipped the shell both parents brought
them iood, sang to them and taught them to
fly. Nor did 1 ever see manifestations OF
superior and inferior relations between
horses, male and female, or other of the
L L. H.. .. l..
Nature Is Democratic.
Mature also arranges that her children
shall go two by two. There are no go-it-
alones in the field or wood, and if felt that
the emancipation of woman would interfere
with this divinely appointed union, would
be totally against the woman movement.
But see in women's physical, mental and
spiritual Advancement the only road up to
natures stapdard of harmony to the human
race. / grieve over this unnatural division
of the sexes into apparently antagonistc
groups. We would usurp no rights of men.
We are willing to concede man his half of
the world, but he must give US ours.
"By and by marriage will rise to a uni
versal harmony, and this is the love that
will be the iufllment OF the law. True
marriage is a perfect mating upon the three
planes, physical, mental and spiritual. At
the present stage men have the greater
mental, women the higher spiritual devel-
cpment. Women must acquire the mental
hardihood of men, and men must reach
higher spiritual plane. II man may be
called the mind of the world, woman is its
soul, but they must be in harmony. Mar.
riage must mean companionship."
Lille Devereux Blake's Ideas.
eyes" said Lille Devereux Blake, "wo-
4 IL L
1t makes girls fastidious. In New York
of the unemployed women marry,
while over one-half of the school teachers
remain single. This, said Mr.. Jasper, su-
perintendent OF public schools, is because
sensible young woman isn't exchanging
certain $50 tor an uncertain young man.
Nor is this Independent or emancipated
woman to lose her attractiveness. Higher
education, finer thoughts and equal rights
will not obliterate. but rather add to youth
and beauty"
The Rev. Anna B. Shaw, President of
the Wimodaaghsis, national lecturer for
the Suffragist Organization, when ques-
toned said without hesitation: II have no
doubt that this emancipation OF woman, po-
litical. mental and industrial, will have
marvellous effect upon marriage. 1t will
tend u decrease the number Of bad mar
riages. 1t will increase the number of
happy ones. Just so long as men continue
to marry their mental interiors and women
to select their moral interiors marriage will
be unequal and unsatisfactory. AS there
will be fewer ill-assorted marriages among
equals, so there will be
Smaller Families and Better Children.
eff L were to state the chief cause of
domestic uDhappiness where divorce is not
sought, I would say it was the wife's lack
OF financial independence. When women