Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1902-06-21
The General Usefulness of Old Maids.

While You are talking about old
maids, said the Little Woman. there's
a word or two | should like to say on
the subject.
IF there is fault of which the world
should by this time be corrected it is
this eternal harping about old maids
And if there is disease of which too
many girls need curing it is this notion
still current. no matter how much we
hear to the contrary, that a girl must
have husband ut any cost; that mar
riage is the chief and only end of a wom-
ans existence, and that the spinster
has lamentably missed the purpose of her
creation.
Certainly, l agree with you that
womanly woman is at her best as mis-
tresS of a household, wife and mother.
The dependence of those she loves de-
velops those essentially feminine facul-
ties. self-Sacrihce and tenderness as an
Independent life would not seem to.
But YOU may be sure it is not this
womauly woman who sets out on a
frantic mental search for a husband:
who yeXes her soul with decision be-
tween this man and that man, fearing
that If she does not take either she may
not get any man. She is not cycling ev
cry man as a possible husband. The
man who does win her has got to do his
own wooing, and likely wake her up to
the fact that she loves him.
AT any rate, she is not running out
in the road to lasso him in. And if he
doesn't turn mp her way of his own ac-
cord, does she sit down and Mariana-in-
the Moated-Grange it? Indeed she does
not. She just goes happily on her way,
cheerful, Industrious bachelor woman
to the end of her days
What | am trying to impress upon
You Is that she has not missed her call
ing. | am just as sure that some women
We're iLl3 n,ied for bachelors Get us taboo
The word ,plnSters. as suggestive of the
time wheu single ladies had nothing to
do but wipe their eyes, knit mittenS and
moan their fatcl-I am just as sure,
say. that some women We're meant to be
bachelors As | am that some persons
were cut out for PreShyterians, and some
NethoIistS. some Baptists and some
EpiscopalianS.
There will be different denominations
as long as there are different tempera-
ments: and there will he old maids as
long as there is work in the world that
only old maids can accomplish.
Some Of the finest women | know are
unmarried. Their lives are filled with
busy interests, and that not always with
out the pale of domestic circles either.
How lamentably, sir, would you bach
unmarried sisters, old or young?
How would fare the married sister
and her children without the old maid
auntie?
How would those parents dependent
on a daughters care or even on her earn
ings-how sadly would life go with them
deprived of the privilege of her undivided
attention?
Il think now of woman with silver
h0; nj 20 -bC
For twenty-eight years she held a re-
sponsible position with a large firm. Her
interests have been all outside her own
life, and a funny friend she has been in
every case of need that came her way.
Friends often said. How strange that
you, of all women, should not be mar
riedn
n while ago her brothers wife died.
There was n houseful of children. the
youngest mere baby. for whose train
ing no paid service would be adequate.
1t began TO seem fortunate that auntie
had never married. She stepped into the
great breach. and cares for her brother
and the half dozen little folk as of course
the married sisters cannot.
There is always Il place for her use
fulnesS. and as she regards that as the
real reason for her existence she is per-
fectly happy.
II know four other busy bachelor wom-
en-. no longer young. but nice looking. re-
fined. intelligent women every one of
them. They are not single because they
lack any qualities of a noble wife. but
because there is some special work cut
out for them with which marriage would
interfere.
"No. no. DO not regard the single
blesSedness Of any woman as an acct
dent or a blunder. II generally means
that there Is a duty waiting to be done.
aud her happiness lies in getting up and
going cheerfully about it,"