WILL THE EDUCATED WOMAN MARRY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5576, 13 July 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

WILL THE EDUCATED WOMAN MARRY.

In the April issue of the Statesman, a con

tributor signing , her namo Delia McCortlo essays to answer this important question after the following fashion :

In the (Irrtt place, in addition to mere intellectual culture, taking into account all tho developing forces of character which now exorcise their influence upon woman, we may say that shu [the educated woman] has attained, or may attain, if she wishes, economic independence. Therefore she need not. marry for the sake of being supported. Honor to the tunny of bravo women, in this or in other lands, who have made beautiful aud cultured homes for themselves. Thit j independence has added worth and dignity to womanhood ; independent toil in earth s quarries ha* wrought out, with silent skill, many a splendid monument of respected and eelf-respecting character. Again, the educated woman beholds this many-sided life in its world-wide relations. She had entered, or ie entering, upon her inheritance. Her own individual life begins to adjust itself to its larger relations. This tempestuous current of world life finds a responsivo rhythm in tho silent flow of her own inner life which has beon dumb for

Tho Bins and Borrows of tho time that has been, throw their shadow over her ; tho tromentloue interests of tho timo that is, hold her soul in thoir grand hands ; tho dim perhaps, of tho timo to bo, beckons her on to the solution of its mystery. It is hardly necessary to say that one, whoso outlook commands such a view of life as this, can not regard marriage, under its usual conditions, as tho Bummum bonuni of every woman's existence.

In the third place, the educated woman does not defy man, and fall down and worship him. For her ho is neither Princo Charming, nor knight errant, nor hero, but simply a human being of this common clay. Ami lie is to be judged by tho ordinary fitandnrd of every-day lifo and experience, and not by the drctims of the poet, the visions of tho theologian, or tho theories of the novelist. And woll it i* that he haa beon unidoalized, for in the unveiling many a poHßible joyless union haa been precluded. , Now, tor many reasons the educated woman is, of ull others, best prepared to miirry, tho question is, will flho t In tiow of the preceding facts, her economic independence, her estimate of her own individual life in relation to h.imanity, and common souse rational estimato of mun, there are some things that tho educated woman will not do in oaso of a proposition of marriage. She will not marry for money orpoftition. She willnot rushintomurriage, without considering first her duty to her own ideal of what her life is intended to be and to accomplish. And lastly, she will not murry :t fool. But right here, let it be said that the educated woman does not depreciate marriage. Tf she hesitated on its threshold, it id because she appreciates what it might bo, and divines what it ia.

If she shrinks from lightly assuming its burdens, it is because she has a solemn sense of what it involves, or because steadfastness to soiuo high ideal of separate and individual duty. You who believe in the proverbial eagerness of women to marriage may smile at the idea of hesitancy on the part of any woman. Doubtless, the silly, tho frivolous, the thoughtless, those ambitious for position, money, etc., will without diminution in narober, marry and be given in marriage on down to tho end of time, with the same disastrous results to themselves stnd society. But of these we are not speaking. This wide-spread discussion of marriage means something. The thoughtful, the educated minds of this ago demand that marriage bo eleyated and purified, lifted out of the miro of loveless union and be made the sacred thing that it ought to be. It is demanded that marriage he in tide a copartnership in every sense, and that the injustice of the laws toward woman, her children, and her property, remedied. It is demanded that tho same principles of morality and pergonal purity be applied to every humanbeingalike. Isit notto thewoll-being of the raco that these things tend ? Is it not to tho glory of an educated womanhood that it demands theso things ? If these high and right standards can be made the basis of the future marriage, the educated woman will bo as ready to marry as the educated man. And from this union of lives, fit to be united because responsive in intellect as well as heart, will spring the final flower of centuries of sowing , and reaping in tho fields of civilization. Every stage of that advancing civilization has been tested by tho condition of woman at that period. Surely the world does move. Humanity is climbing tho upward spaces to recoivo tho crown of ita striving from the hands of an educated womanhood.