Year: 1876

From time immemorial every pretty
satirist has had his fling at old maids, and
every shallow minded wife and mother has
added her little budget of contempt for
those Of her sisters who have not found, per-
haps who have not desired to find, the
right man with whom TO share their lives.
Nothing but religious conservation has
sanctified the celibacy Of woman in the
eyes Of world which is not celibate: and
the theory that some among them actually
prefer to remain unmarried, even when not
bound by vows nor restrained by superior
obligations, is as absurd to the majority as
that men should voluntarily drink water
when they could have their wine, or submit
themselves to pain when they might have
pleasure. According to them an old maid
IS an old maid because she cannot help it,
and has not been able to make herself a
wife. With this jibe is connected another
the utter unloveliness of old maids.
Sander and spite, narrowness of view and
poverty of soul, meanness and prying,
-ANNANN VI gOOliIJ otlASnlGSS as lugEdlIGu as
her sourress, affections rusted by disuse
and unable now to be stirred, the natural
sweetness of her womanhood turned to
gall by disappointment-and with some
perpetual curiosity on the life that has
been denied theln-and we have the
typical old maid of popular acceptance.
10 call a woman an old maid with sniff
IS to call her all these things in a breath
and so the world understands the phrase
OF which it makes such cruel use But
there are old maids and old maids; and all
are not cut after this pattern. Nature, SC
prodigal of her types, has given us more
than one of voluntary female celibates
and thought the starched and sour Miss
Prue is fact-more's the pity she is
only one among others, and her number,
by no means make up the tale of the
phalanx.


THE WOMAN s-RIGHTER.


She it is who declaims against men as the
tyrants and oppressors, not the protector
and guardians of women; she who shriek
aloud to a gaping sisterhood to shake of
the fetters which time and custom-mis
named nature-have laid on them; to ap,
the lives of men, and claim free warrer
in their special domain, no matter wha
that might include; she who bids .hen
affirm the absolute equality of and likenes
in power between the two sexes, and b,
virtue Of this equality, this likeness, t.
take on themselves the offices and habit
hitherto held distinctive to men she VIII
brings dissension into those married house
holds where the husband holds that tn
man should be master over himself ant
their joint lives, and where the wife, taugh
by her, claims mistresshood not only owe
herself and the things of her own sphere
but over the man, his name, his honor, ant
the things common to both; she VIII
teaches mothers to despise their maternit
and to find its duties both wearisome ant
degrading; she whose sole passion is 70
her own sex, and who measures her regar
for both men and women in exact propol
ton to the exaggerated esteem in whic
they hold these latter-unless indeed W
may add TO this questionable passion on
nearly as strong for dogs, to which SD
gives all the human virtues and some tina
are more than human; she who woul
upset the established order of life ever!
where to carry out her theory OF th
supremacy of woman all through, but wh'
for her own part, is unable to reason OF
one single question TO its ultimate, or
forecast the effects Of her own principles


put into action. This is the epicene oil
maid as seen in towns; and fearf'
evidence Of human perversity she is Sh
has wrought more evil in these latter da.
than can be set straight in one generation
and to her evil influences may be trace