This must mean on
the whole an injury to themselves as individuals, to their sex, and to
society. Both sexes demand a higher standard of living; the man spends
enough in alcohol and tobacco, as a rule, to support one or two
children, and then says he is too poor to marry. There is everything to
be said for the doctrine that people should be provident, and should
bring no more children into the world than they are able to support; but
before we accept this plea in any particular case, we should first
inquire how the available income is being spent. At present, every
indication goes to show that we are following in the track of all our
predecessors, spending upon individual indulgence that which ought to be
dedicated to the future, and thereby compromising the worth or the
possibility of any future at all.
In the light of these considerations and many more, some of which we
shall later consider, I deplore and protest against with all my heart,
as blind, ignorant, and destructive, the counsel of those women, some of
them conspicuous advocates of the cause of woman's suffrage--in which I
nevertheless believe--who advise women to delay in marriage, or who
publish opinions throwing contempt upon marriage altogether. Later, we
must deal in detail with marriage; here we are only concerned with the
marriage age. It will then be argued that the conditions of marriage
must sooner or later be modified in so far as they are at present
inacceptable to a certain number of women of the highest type.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220