New-York tribune., 1908-05-20
THE COST OF LIBERTY.
Women's independence Often
Bought at Price of Wifehood.

Writing on ''The Price Women Pay for Liberty, >,
in the June "Appleton's Magazine, which comes
out to-day Lucy NJ. Saunders says that the first
women who insisted upon going their own way.
instead of that prescribed by society. paid very
cruel price indeed. for their liberty
Most people can remember" she says, when
women who went to college became thereby social
outcasts. The pioneer college women jeopardized.
If they did not indeed sacrifice. their chances for
marriage. 1t was cruel price they paid-a price
which very few paid voluntarily. The normal
does not lightly sacrifice her chance of
wifehood and motherhood. The cartoonists and
the jokesters made free of these brave pioneers
Little they realizelittle did the laughing pub
lie reaze-that many Of these women were mar
tyrs. Some Of them were stern and unlovey.
Martyrdom does not foster the light and airy
feminine graces. Social outcasts are not apt to
be entertaining socially. Women who are Stunned
by men are not apt be skilled in feminine ac-
compshments.'
These pioneers have now given place TO the
sweet girl graduate. She pays no price for her
education beyond her term BILL which her father
pays for her. Even the society girl may now go
to college without hurting her chances socially
But there still pioneering TO be done, the article
points out, and the pioneer still pays for her
liberty. Society has reconciled itself TO women IN
certain professions No longer does the woman
writer have to hide her manuscript under her knit
ting as Harriet Martineau did. Society not only
accepts, but courts the woman who writes, to-
gether with the woman who paints and the woman
who acts But the business is still looked
askance.
"A woman may write for money without social
stigma but she may not sell merchandise or stocks
and bonds for the purpose says Mrs Saun-
ders Hence many of the women who succeed IN
business do at the cost of a husband, chlidreh
and home. The higher you go in the social
scale stronger the prejudices against ferni-
nine activity outside woman's original sphere
Among the poorest of the poor such pre1udlces are
naturally excluded by stern necessity There Is.
however a tenacious conservatism among the COM
Portable poor which frowns upon women working
except at their housework
Another sacrifice which not only the working
woman but most other women in these days nave
made is sacrifice at all, but distinct gam
Mrs Saunders thinks. This is the sacrifice of the
pedestal. The society man who rides, rows,
climbs, fishes hunts and plays tennis and golf with
a young woman soon gets the idea that she is a
saint and an angel-if he ever entertained 1t
knocked out of his head. And the man who works
In the office with woman can't be always
bobbing UP to offer her chair. II ne did ne
wouldn't have time for anything else. He can't
stop smoking when she is in the room. If he did
he might as well give up smoking altogether
This change is deeply deplored by the romanticists
What is become Of romance they inquire.
What is TO become Of marriage and the family!
How be induced TO marry when they
find there are no more saints and goddesses left?
1T seems pertinent TO ask Mrs Saunders re-
plies. how long under the old regime, 1t took
ma rried men to find out that they had not married
saints and goddesses? Did It make for marital
haDpIness and stability for men to marry fmpossi-
BILE ideals and find them only women after all? II
disillusionment after marriage is better than dis
illusionment before marriage, then the old order
was better than the new"