BONE OF CONTENTION

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144328, 17 February 1914, Page 7

BONE OF CONTENTION

LIVES OF ADVANCED WOMEN. Does the emancipation of women make for married happiness? asks the London correspondent of the Australasian. Tho problem is too thorny to be discussed at length, but some interesting information, throwing light upon tho matter, has recently been published. In tho same connection, feminist circles have been discussing Mrs. Wentworth Stanley’s address at a recent Australian Church Congress. In this, Mrs. Stanley protested against tho literature on sex matters which suffragist agitators have been distributing oven to young girls. In tho same address, Mrs. Wentworth Stanley recalled that the Archbishop of Melbourne engaged a medical man to give four lectures in Melbourne Cathedral, one being on race suicide, and another upon iufant mortality. Mrs. Stanley’s comment was itrat tho possession of Parliamentary power had not made Australian women chock these evils, though they had had the vote for twelve years. English feminists- are so used to quoting tho Australian example, when urging the emancipation of women, that it has been rather a shock to road that the franchise has not brought in its train all tiro blessings womankind hid expected. The statistical information is of American origin, and is supplied by Mount Holyoake College, where American women lurve received higher education since 1840. Some 6000 circulars wore issued to the graduate®, asking the following questions;—“What is your present profession? How much do you earn ? Aro you married ? How. old were you at the time of your wedding? What is your husband’s business? How many children have you had? How have they been educated? What is their present .occupation?”

Some 3000 answers were received from tbe Mount Holyoake College, disclosing tho lamentable fact that the present tendency is for two-thirds of them to become old maids. Whereas girls who took degrees in the ’forties of tho last century married to the cxtcnt of 85 per cent., only 15 .in ©very hundred remained spinsters j tho present marriage rate is 24 per, cent., 76 in every hundred becoming old maids. The “sweot girl graduates” of the 20th_ocntury seem to have little desire for lifelong companionship with a man. Instead, they mostly become teachers. Eighty-two per cent, of the unmarried graduates of Mount Holyoake College earn their livings by education. Nor can it be said that the cinculare give evidence that tho marriages themselves are entirely successful. Of every hundred unions, 39 wore childless, whereas the proportion in the married imp illation generally is only 11 per cent. The birth-rate among those who became mothers during the first decade of the present century was no more than 1.5 children per marriage. It is true that the problem cannot be settled by statistics. the evidence given by the Mount Holyoake graduates is cogent enough to please those who dissent from the' snpor-edu-cation of women, holding that the primary duty of tho sex is to become wives and mothers.