Year: 1876

The Old Maid.


If the fact of being an old maid is
such an unfortunate circumstance as
many seem to suppose, one would natu-
rally think it were necessary to set the
poor creature in the pillory of our dis
dain for every low-minded passer to
pelt with hard words and contempt.
If it is such an enviable thing to marry
wiseIy-and we believe it is, In spite of
st. Paul's assurance that those who re-
frain do better-surely those fortunate
beings who have escaped the terrOrs of
single blessedness (by no grace Of their
own, perchance) should hasten to be-
stow tenderness and sympathy upon
the less lucky portion of the race rarh-
er than ridicule. The old maid has be-
come the Legitimate object of the most
whitening sarcasm in literature,
equally with the miser and the mother
in law. She is represented as always
angling for husband, rs sour tempered,
and possessed of a venomous spite
against younger and more attractive
members of her sex, as aping the airs
and attire of gidjy girlhood. She is al
ways lark and tall and awkward, with
corkscrew curls and Roman nose, and
hundred devices to conceal the rava-
ges of the traitor Time. There is small
doubt, however, that thanks are due to
the slight estimation in which the spin
ster Is held by the thousand and one
foolish marriages that occur in our
midst. Nobody wants to be laughing
stock; and there is many silly woman
who, indoctrinated with the popular
idea of an old maid, feels that her only
salvation lies in avoiding such fate !;
that her only hope of consideration
and dignity is in matrimony, and acts
accordingly. We do not pretend to say
that the caricature of the old maid is
not justified in some instances but why
should we exalt an exception into 4
rule, or judge class by an individual? !?
And would marriage correct all the fol-
lies of weak character, think you:
Would she not prove quite as ridiculous
as a matron? And have we not met
with many a wife with follies as strik-
ing and vanities as degrading as the
typical spinster to whose wisdom it
seems almost a cruelty TO int, ust the
rearing of children?


The small regard with which the
single woman is held is due to the pop
ular fallacy that marriage is the SUI
preme good this side of heaven, that she
who does not achieve it must be looked
upon as a social failure, and to the
equally mistaken notion that it is only
the attractive and lovable women who
attain it. There has come to be almost
as much of contempt in the term as in
that of the mountebank. A prim style
of dress, fastidiousaess in the use Of
language, repugnance to coarse allu
sions, are called sold mai1ish," as if
that was enough to frighten one into a
vulgar hoyden, while even the precise
and careful housekeeper earns the
compliment of having been ''cut
out for an old maid" Strange to
say, this is a misfortune which every
body feels privileged to crack his feeble
joke upon. and though it is. not very
customary to laugh at the miseries of
each other, yet the case of the old maid
is sdjudged before the witnesses are
called in; in fact, many love to cherish
the belief that her condition is not a
matter of choice but of grim necessity !;
that she has never wed because she was
never wooed. And, suppOsing this
were true, supposing she never did have
the highly desirable opportunity of
changing her estate, without which life
is mistake, failing which one had bet
ter never have been born, shall we who
sit in the high places, in the sunshine
of love and happiness, taunt her with
her infinite loss, when it may be that
she was moulded of clay too fine for
the perception or appreciation of the
men with whom she happened to be
thrown?


Did she choose 1t this single life!


Gossip. she saith not, and who can tel:


But many . mother and many Q wife


Draws . lot more lonely, we all know well.


And perhaps the old maid is the least
lonely person in all the world. For
more are the children of the desOlate
than of the married wife, who has her
own selfish interests, We know, her own
narrow, sphere, while all humanity Is
the home circle of the desolate old maid.