“Let us indeed,” they said.
Chærephon and I then took our leave.
THE CURSE OF ADAM AND THE CURSE OF EVE
I
“The wide-spread change in thought and attitude of my sex towards yours,” which Anastasia Beauchamp announced to Adrian Savage in “Lucas Malet’s” novel of the latter name, affects marriage, of course, primarily. And it appears from Ida M. Tarbell, Making a Man of Herself (The American Magazine, February, 1912) that the leaders of Feminism have been trying for many years to dissuade their younger sisters from matrimony:
Man and marriage are a trap—that is the essence the young woman draws from the campaign for woman’s rights.... She will be a “free” individual, not one “tied” to a man. The “drudgery” of the household she will exchange for what she conceives to be the broad and inspiring work which men are doing. From the narrow life of the family she will escape to the excitement and triumph of a “career.” The Business of Being a Woman becomes something to be ashamed of, to be apologized for. All over the land there are women with children clamoring about them, apologizing for never having done anything. Women whose days are spent in trades and professions complacently congratulate themselves that they at least have lived. There were girls in the early days of the movement, as there no doubt are today, that prayed on their knees that they might escape the frightful isolation of marriage; might be free to “live,” and to “know,” and to “do.”
In another article she says:
“Celibacy is the aristocracy of the future,” is the preaching of one European Feminist.... The ranks of the women celibates are not full. Many a candidate falls out by the way, confronted by something she had not reckoned with—the eternal command that she be a woman. She compromises—grudgingly. She will be a woman on condition that she is guaranteed economic freedom, opportunity for self-expressive work, political recognition. What this amounts to is that she does not see in the woman’s life a satisfying and permanent end.