The Washington herald., 1920-07-07
WHAT WILL SHE DO.

One of the perplexing questions
raised by the staying OF so many
young men in battle is the super
fuous woman problem.
In England the women now out
number the men eight to one. On
the continent the preponderance of
females over males is probably just
as great, and even in our own coun-
try the war disastrously. upset the
Equilibrium of the sexes,
There are, therefore. vast num-
ber of women whom fate has de-
barred from following the usual oc-
cupation of their seX-wifehood
AMI motherhood. They cannot hope
TO marry and thus find work for
their hands in making a home and
an outlet for their emotions and
aspirations and energies in rearing
a family.
Neither can they look to any man
to support them. for when the oak
Is felled the clinging vine goes
down with it and must perish. or
else find somehow the strength to
stand alone. Its days of a parasite
are over in a world in which there
Is nothing else left for it to fasten
upon.
So the question of what these
women are to do, to keep from be-
ing a danger to themselves and So
.iety is a very real one. For they
are young. They have not lived
their lives and are not ready to
meekly accept the drab existence of
the old maid who retires to the
Spinster's Retreat. or become an an
mex to somebody eIse's family. and
fills in her days with sweetly ro-
mantle musings on what might
have been, and dreams OF the gold
sn-haired children she never had.
No. These young women are full
Of pep and go. They bubble over
with health and energy. They want
he best that life can give them and
Il life has taken away from them
the chance of husband and home
and child it must offer some substi-
:ute. sJme spiritual and mental and
physical escape valve. Otherwise
:he pent volumes of feminine unrest
and energy will become as much of
menace to the country as a
damned mill race in flood time.
And the problem is how to find
his outlet.
j think 1t will be found in work.
md only in work. That is the one
panacca for grief, for disappoint-
nent and blighted hopes. for the
longing that eats the heart out in
inavailing regrets. That is the one
hing that makes the individual life
worth living. Men have long known
md applied the work cure to their
own soul sickness. Now let them
lrply 1t to women. In mercy to her.
Open every door of opportunity to
ser. Urge her to go into business
5tve her Worthwhile occupation
SiXe her work that will use up her
strength. Give her interesting work
hat will absorb her every thought.
5ive her the work that pays.
Let her use up her creative in
Jtinct In calling new policies of
iafesmanship, now ways of doing
:hings, new inventions into. being.
-et her mother. nurse, and coddle
Ter feeble business enterprises into
iealthy growth. Let her put into
nice management the feminine or
Ter and system and omniscience as
% where everything is. that she
you'd have put in keeping her
Iouse in apple-pie order.
In a word. let these millions of
women espouse careers instead of
husbands, and have business sue
esses instead of babies. Perhaps
he one may seem a poor substitute
or the other. but 1t Is a condition,
Ind not a theory, that confronts US,
md under the circumstances the
husbands and babies are an imposJ
fbility, where the business success
not. Even bread is not to be de-
pissed when there is no cake.
Nor is this Hobson's choice for.
, he superfiuous woman as bad as IL
lppears. Theoretically love is the
nly Incentive to marriage. In re-
lity girls marry for many things
'esides the grand passion. They
aarry to get emancipatio from the
city tyranny of their parents.
hey marry because they want a
tome of their OWE that they can
ursish as they please. They marry
,ecause they want an Individual
pcketbook. Most of all they marry
eeause they are bored with having
othing definite to do, and want to
e about the business of life.
All of these things the successful
msiness woman secures to herself
ar more than the married woman
yer realizes them and, as a plain
satter of fact, her life, Is fuller OF
appiness than that of any women
Except those who have drawn the
eadliner prizes in the matrimonial
pttery.
The truth is that we have thought