The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-05-18
IT MAY COME TO PASS

No doubt many of our readers
have read some of the stories that
are often published in these days of
voluminous literature, treating of
the dwindling of the masculine sex.
These stories are mostly laid in the
future, tho the theaters of few are
located in the center of the earth, or
| on some mysterious islands, and
some on other planets.
They vary from putting man in
/ the place of the weaker sex to his
entire extinction. Some of the most
| vivid imaginations make mother not
only the head of the family, but all
of it, and save the race from extinc-
| ton by scientific methods
All this would have been ridicuI-
Gus and contrary to nature-even
| blasphemous to think of a genera
ton ago. Today, there is a faint
| foreshadowing of some of it. At the
present rate, there will be more than
| foreshadowing in another genera
| ton.
Men and women were either Great
| ed to live together in families, of
| which fatherhood and motherhood
formed the basis, or they evoluted
| into that condition when the race
was in its most primitive conditions.
Such is their natural state, and only
| in a few countries and grades of So
ciety, in time insignificant in the
! life of the race, has there been any
symptoms of changing it.
Complex civilization, however, has
brought about state of affairs that
renders the family a responsibility
to brighten any thinking person. And
the number that dread the response
bility grows necessarily greater.
A mans responsibility for fam
| lily is mostly material. It's the neces-
sity for strength and cunning to OBJ
tain the means to pay for food and
clothing, and style, far greater than
that needed by his ancestor who
roamed the forest, and even greater
than that of the more recent ancestor
who only titled the field.
The mothers responsibility is
| vastly more Motherhood was never
any too easy. even when boys and
girls needed little more care than
puppies. Now, when boy must be
cared for more than dollhouse
plant till he is fourteen or sixteen,
and girl even longer, motherhood
/ is with most women a lifelong,
glorified slavery, with load of care
that chattel slavery never knew.
Some women fear to assume the
higher motive than fear. They have
some other duty they will not resign
in order to marry, or they find
themselves able to maintain their in
dependence, and decline to give it uI
for a chance in the lottery of mar.
riage Some would marry if they
met the right man, but they do not
meet him, or he doesn't meet them
or they meet without recognition
The number of widows who refuse
to take a second chance in matri
mony is steadily increasing. And 81
it has come to pass that in Americs
there has formed a good-sized ant
| growing element of Independent
women, who live as sufficient unto
, themselves as tho men were in thu
same class as horses and dogs. Thes'
: aro all women IF intellect and force
4 of character, as they need to be, a
l each and every one of them is gen
orally confronted with greater diff
Guilty in maintaining her position il
r business and society than maj
:. would have in the same place.
: That the morality of these womel
is high goes without saying. It ha
to be, for otherwise a woman can
t not maintain her standing in tn
e business and social world.
: There is no corresponding elias
s among the men.
r Civilized men are becoming NOR
4 and more shy of family responsible
4 tiles 1t is not that so many refus
4 to assume them altogether, blu
S when the widows and Divorces, no
to speak of the runaways (who ar
: always more numerous than anyon'
5 knows) are lined up alongside tn,
! bachelors, they make host like al
army with banners. They greatl!
) outnumber the opposing class o