The Abandoned Spinster

THE abandoned spinster — is she more to be pitied or blamed? This is one of the few questions of fundamental importance which have probably never been used as subjects of public debate. Perhaps, even, this question has never been definitely formulated in these terms; I rather pride myself, in fact, on the word ‘abandoned,’ expressing, as it does, the view both of those compassionate ones who regard us with pity, as utterly abandoned and forsaken by the opposite sex, and of those others who consider us as abandoned wretches, deaf to the call of duty, and given over to a misguided search for selfish pleasures. If, however, the question has not been accurately formulated for debate, it has been taken up with sufficient vigor by individual writers — writers who have stood, as it were, before the cages in which we are confined, and bestowed on us gentle pats of pity, prodded us with harsh criticism, or gazed in wonder at the stoicism with which we endure captivity within these crippling bars of celibacy.

We are not supposed to reply to these comments on the unmarried females of our species, any more than do the monkeys and gorillas from their cages; and usually we do not, and merely feel, like them, inclined to grin! And it is not because the ‘ Bachelor ’ recently writing in the Atlantic is more irrational than others have been, but only because his voice, added to that of others, happens to make a discord which somewhat grates upon the nerves, that this particular specimen of the species seeks to formulate a reply — which, of course, represents the feeling of only one representative spinster. Still, even as, if any one monkey could express his views to the critical spectator, they would be found of interest to the zoölogist, these few remarks may serve to amuse — or possibly enlighten — some student of the female mind.

In the first place, what are the arguments to the effect that we should have been permitted to marry, and, being permitted, should have gleefully accepted the opportunity? First, to satisfy the natural mating instinct; second, to gain the right of motherhood; third, to secure either the greater joys of life to be found in a happy marriage, or the development of character to be gained by enduring the miseries of an unhappy one (for the purpose of argument, it seems to be immaterial which); and, fourth, stated recently in an article by a woman writer, there is ‘ duty, self-sacrifice, and service to the state’; she was not bestowing pity, but blame.

‘The natural mating instinct.’ — I agree that we have ignored this, so far as giving any explanation of it to young people is concerned, and that our silence has probably been a mistake. Many of them, poor things, yielding to its power as naturally and as ignorantly as ‘the birds in spring’ (always a pretty and poetic figure of speech), have been bewildered by its novelty and called the feeling Love; and it has led them into the early marriages which are being so highly commended by ‘reluctant bachelors.’ Later, they are not always indined to stick to each other like a faithful goose and gander — a far less poetic simile, but equally true, and suited to the prosaic nature of the married state. I believe that the facts of life should be explained to boys and girls, in order that they may recognize as counterfeit that which passes too often for love — not in order that t hey may accept it as a natural and inevitable passion, resistance to which is abnormal or futile. The Freudian conception, which emphasizes sex as the most important thing in life, a law of nature before which all should bow in meek submission, seems to conflict with Paul’s admonition to ‘keep the body under,’ or, as the small boy phrased it, ‘ the soul on top.’ Paul’s precept has come, in many cases, to be the unconscious rule of lifts so far as the physical appetites are concerned— interpreting the ‘soul’ as including all but the merely physical; and it is the ideal of most of us. We are not inclined, if we pause to think it out intelligently, to reverse the process, and allow the physical to dominate.

Then, the ‘right to motherhood’: a right the loss of which all women — at least all unmarried women—are supposed bitterly to regret. But just why do they think we suffer so much from this, unless from that perversity of human nature which impels mortals to desire the unattainable? For in the next article one reads will be found criticism of the married women of to-day for refusing the burden of motherhood, or being content at the most with two or three children.

Again, I could tell our bachelor friend (and if he doubts t he statement , let him ask the family physicians and nurses of his acquaintance) that an amazingly large number of supposedly happy wives and mothers would have been only too glad if the privilege of motherhood had not come to them — especially in the case of ignorant young victims of early marriages. In so many more cases that I am tempted to call it the majority, after, say, four children, as the utmost limit, the advent, of others is greeted with anger, resentment, grief, or stoical submission, according to the individual temperament. Not that the children are not loved after they come; but in poor or moderately well-to-do families (and wealthy families seldom do exceed the limit of four children), a large family means too much of heavy sacrifice, not only for the parents, but for theolder children. It would be interesting, all things considered, if a census could be taken (a skillful mind-reader would be required) which would show how many children come into the world in any given year because of a genuine wish for them on the part of their mothers. And yet, all spinsters are supposed to feel their loss keenly — or, when our critics cease to pity and turn to blame, we ought to feel it, and so be induced to marry and help prevent race-suicide.

My dear critics, we are too fond of babies for that — some of us, at least. An ancestor of my own, presumably of Puritan tendencies, married and had seven children, before his wife, still young, collapsed beneath her heavy burdens and laid them permanently down. He married again, — hastily, for a nurse was needed for the seven, — and enriched the world with twelve more. Many of the nineteen, naturally, died young — a detail probably not so much noticed, as there wore so many. The same thing happens in the lower orders of life, where a vast multitude are hatched, that a few of the strongest may survive. Our views have changed since the days of my great-grandfather — somewhat, but not enough, else there would be less talk of the ‘right of motherhood’ and more of the fitness for motherhood. The right of the child to intelligent care and training as well as to ignorant love; Ins right to decent hereditary influences; to a happy, harmonious home life — these are the rights to be emphasized, put in headlines, printed in red letters. And if a woman prates about her own life being dwarfed and narrowed by her lack of children; or if, like the heroines of certain ultra-advanced novels, she claims her ‘rights’ in defiance of law or convention, she is thinking of her own selfish desires, not of her child, and proves her unfitness to be a mother at all. There are children enough in the world. Heaven knows, who need mothering, if a woman has the maternal impulse — babies enough in homes unfit, for them, where conditions might be improved. What the world needs is not more mothers, but wiser ones; not more babies, but healthier, happier ones.

And yet our critics (when they are not pitying our unhappy state) are reproving us for not marrying, happily or otherwise! An old neighbor of my grandmother’s once recounted to her the tragedy of her life with a drunken husband, ending with the remark; ‘But a poor husband is better than nonedon’t you think so, Mrs. W—?' Grandmother remarked that she did n’t know, never having had experience with one; but she always smiled at the thought of this view of matrimony. It seems, however, that the woman was only in advance of her time. Arnold Bennett has somewhere made the same remark as Friend Bachelor, that ’an unhappy marriage is better than none.’ Is this idea generally prevalent, and does it help to account for the increasing number of divorces? For, although many people will readily accept the theory, and act upon it, few of them will stay in the bondage of an unhappy marriage, if they can avoid it, after the experiment has once been tried.

Here, you will say, is the weak spot: we ought, not only to marry, but to put up each with other; reform the erring spouse, if need be, and so make life endurable. The plan reminds one of Dickens’s serious family, who advertised for ‘Three serious footmen, cook, housemaid, and nursemaid; each female servant required to join the Little Bethel congregation three times every Sunday — with a serious footman. If the cook is more serious than the footman, she will be expected to improve the footman; if the footman is more serious than the cook, he will be expected to improve the cook.’ Unfortunately, the author never told us how this plan worked out; but in the matter of a life partner, I am inclined to agree with Tennyson, old-fashioned though he may be considered in these days, when he says: —

I purposely omitted the first line of the stanza, —

which would seem to make a stills! conger argument for our sex; for I believe it depends upon the relative standards, and the relative strength of character, as to which ‘drags down’ the other. One need not be a cynic to have learned that, human nature goes down more readily than up. The influence is mutual; husband and wife grow to resemble each other to some extent; but, it we imagine the wife to be rated at, say, eighty per cent in regard to character at her marriage, while the husband is only forty per cent (as sometimes happens), making an average of sixty per cent for both, will they keep up that average, by the wife’s standards lowering or by the husband’s rising? Far more likely that it sinks to fifty or less, if they remain together; the wife losing thirty to raise the husband ten. Of course, she may bear the trials of being unequally yoked in such saintly spirit as to be purified by suffering, and raised to almost one hundred percent, or perfection; but, in that event, she is certain to be snatched away to a more congenial sphere before her case can be put on record here on earth.

We do not choose to ‘win our way to perfectness’ in such wise — no one does. Does any man or woman marry from motives of ‘duty, self-sacrifice, and service to the state’? If so, one pities the other party to the contract, and the children of the pair! People marry with the idea of obtaining personal happiness, and — let us hope — conferring it upon the one other most concerned; not from a desire to benefit the world, or to improve their own characters by more strenuous and painful experience. We spinsters would marry also — if anybody asked us — if we could see happiness in it, for most of us are as ‘reluctant’ as Friend Bachelor; but, as civilization advances, it becomes increasingly difficult to marry satisfyingly. The cave-man who carried a wife off to his dwelling was probably satisfied with her, and she with him; their standards were the same; it was all near the animal level. Since then, in the words of Spencer’s definition, evolution has been progressing constantly from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity — which means that each of us has become more distinctly himself or herself, as differentiated from others, and harder to suit in a mate. A child’s square buildingblocks may be fitted together, any two of them, and match, like the cave-man and his wife; but with our varied tastes, habits, modes of thought, all the complexity of our modern age, we are more like a picture-puzzle of a thousand pieces: no two will exactly fit unless they are the right two.

A worthy man I once knew, of a practical turn of mind, after explaining to the lady of his choice the reasons for their marriage, ended with the remark: ‘But I should n’t have thought of marrying, after all, only that I took to you right away.’ Quaint phrase, but expressive of the necessary preliminary. We may not ask for romantic love, or the passionate thrills of which we read, and for which we yearned in our early youth; but we must, be able to ‘ take to ’ our life partner, in order to dare the hazardous adventure. An intelligent woman demands a husband who will be a congenial companion, or she will have none at all; for it is no longer necessary to have someone to take care of her.

An Englishwoman once told me how she and her sisters used to distress their widowed mother — who was supporting the family by means of her own education and ability — with speculations as to their futures. ‘But,’the girls would protest in reply to her shocked remonstrances, ‘we are n’t gifted like you — what can we do to earn much? You can’t always take care of us; what will become of us if we don’t marry?’ And so they married, at the first opportunity. Does a man like to be married in that, way, for economic reasons? It seems, from our standpoint, that he might be better pleased to know that these are ceasing to be an impelling motive, even though it results in fewer marriages.

Finally, regarding the ‘dwarfed and atrophied ’ life of old maids. Two people were one day discussing a certain gloomy and ill-tempered spinster, and one of them remarked that it was a pity she had n’t accepted one of the suitors of her youth. The other retorted that it, would only have meant, unhappiness for two — or more — instead of for one. I agreed with the statement; for, if a woman cannot keep sane, cheerful, and sweet-tempered in the comparatively independent and care-free state of maidenhood, she would have been unhappy, and would have made others so, under the cares, the friction, and the necessary adjustment of her own personality to a husband and family. Contrariwise, if a woman is happy and content as a spinster, she might have made a successful wife.

And judged by this standard, some of us think we could have done pretty well, if only (really our one reason for remaining single) we could have found the man we could ‘ take to.’ We are not asking for any pity on this account, or wasting any on ourselves; we need to expend our own compassion on most of our married friends! And, as a bright old lady in one of Ellen Glasgow’s novels once remarked, ‘After all, there are many things in life besides the love of a man!' Still, we do not feel that we deserve blame for the oversight of Fate, in failing to place the next bit of the human puzzle within our reach!