The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-12-02
THE sYND1cArED WOMAN.
Real Life Work of the Girl Who
Never Marrics.

Any woman can marry some sort OF a
fellow. 1t is an infinitely bigger achieve
| ment to remain unmarried-as many sem
sible women do-from keen sense OF duty
70 others. loyalty to high ideal or for a
| wider sphere OF action. which is fortunate
for the rest of humanity. for the world
would swing along very lamely without the
| unmarried woman.
She is generally owned by a syndicate
composed OF the various members of her
family, and she is passed back and forth
among then-a sort of jointly possessed
treasure-to be loaned wherever 1t hap
pens TO be most required, frequently serv-
ing as the uniting link between the dis
senting factions thereof She feels all the
interest OF an owner in the worldly pos
sessions of the lucky syndicate which
knows her ministering. and yet in all this
great universe she owns absolutely moth
ing.
For more than one reason she Is ire
mendous source of comfort when things
go wrong. the sort Of things that cause a
man to blaspheme under his breath and
cast about in his mind for somebody to
lay the blame on. She makes a fairly
good scapegoat after years have tanned
her spirit and taught her the wisdom of
silence. While she has youth and at
Effectiveness she finds 1t very true that
marriage is possible for any woman. She
may discuss by the hour; she may write
about it at a certain rate per column: she
may dream of the bliss OF possessing 4
home and real sure enough man all to
herself: of the satisfaction OF indulging
her own tastes and following her own in
clinations; of the sweetness OF an unself-
ish love and the soothing of mans SYM
pathy when heartaches and other aches
wax strong; of the pleasant sense Of pro-
lection that comes with mans arm al
ways between her and the world.
She may even have an occasional idea,
of trying the experiment with some lar
ticular one of her numerous admirers,
writes Adele Z. Shaw, in "Housekeeper."
but when she looks around and sees the
many empty places that nobody else can
fiji and remembers the many people who
need her she hasn't quite the nerve to
desert her post. She believes that an
other woman will console each man in
whose life she has created an aching
void and that no one can fill the other
gap. She is convinced that it would be
selfish just then for her to think of mar
riage for herself.
As she grows older and these temDta-
tions come less often she fills the senti-
ment craving side of her nature with
other peoples love affairs. Many mat
rimonial aspirant goes to her for
bracer when his soul is sick with uncer-
tainty and goes away with a certain
buoyancy and sense of peace.
II probably requires much grace and tact
to know just how to behave when people
you've tended through sundry infantile Ills
and spanked and bossed generally begin to
wear grown-up airs and be patronizing.
It's even worse when they IoftiIy take you
into their confidence about some budding
romance, going into all the details for
fear you wouldn't understand, you, who've
been there so many times, but the unmar-
ried woman is equal to even this, and she
gets the lions share of these condolences
too. Being very mortal. there come times
to her when she wonders why God gave
her such splendid abilities and permitted
circumstances to curtaiI the possibility of
their development; whyhe gave her a
soul with such infinite capacity for loving
and enjoying and withheld from her the
beautiful things Of life and the realization
Of her ideal.
When she consecrates her life to her
kith and kin she almost invariably carries
with her the possibilities OF physician,
nurse. cook, housemaid. and when an
emergency. arises, general commanding
the whole situation. She's "a rock in a
weary land when small, pink. colicky
edition OF humanity arrives on the scene.
She halves the sorrows and burdens and
failures and doubles the joys and sue
cesses with which she is called upon to
sympathize. She it is who gracefully
crowns with tulle and orange blossoms
the girl who walks down the fower-be
decked aisle to stately wedding music. to
return wife. Her fingers press down the
lids over eyes she had loved and bid the
departing spirit godspeed on its last jour-
ney, and with quivering heart and throb
bling brain under calm exterior she goes
about soothing grief less bitter than her
own. because 1t finds relief in expression.
When she dies, there is sorrow inccn-
solable in many rudderless homes over
the first loss she has ever failed to
tighten. and for the longest time they
wonder how they can find existence pos
sible without her. They never before
realized her actual worth.
Yet some women actually declare that
the woman who doesn't marry fails to
fulfill her whole duty to the race.
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