ure.

The time will come, we hope, when women will be economically free, and
mentally and spiritually independent enough to refuse to have their
food paid for by men; when women will receive equal pay for equal work,
and have all avenues of activity open to them; and will be free to
choose their own mates, without shame, or indelicacy; when men will not
be afraid of marriage because of the financial burden, but free men and
free women will marry for love, and together work for the sustenance of
their families. It is not too ideal a thought. It is coming, and the
new movement among women who are crying out for a larger humanity, is
going to bring it about.

But there are many good men who view this with alarm. They are afraid
that if women were economically independent they would never marry.
But they would. Deeply rooted in almost every woman's heart is the
love of home and children; but independence is sweet and when marriage
means the loss of independence, there are women brave enough and strong
enough to turn away from it. "I will not marry for a living," many a
brave woman has said.

The world has taunted women into marrying. So odious has the term "old
maid" been in the past that many a woman has married rather than have
to bear it. That the term "old maid" has lost its odium is due to the
fact that unmarried women have made a place for themselves in the world
of business. They have become real people apart from their sex. The
"old maid" of the past was a sad, anemic creature, without any means of
support except the bounty of some relative. She had not married, so
she had failed utterly, and the world did not fail to rub it in. The
unmarried woman of today is the head saleslady in some big house,
drawing as big a salary as most men, and the world kowtows to her. The
world is beginning to see that a woman may achieve success in other
departments of life as well as marriage.

It speaks well for women that, even before this era, when "old maids"
were open to all kinds of insult, there were women brave enough to
refuse to barter their souls for the animal comforts of food and
shelter. Speaking about "old maids," by which term we mean now a prim,
fussy person, it is well to remember that there are male "old maids" as
well as female who remain so all through life; also that many "old
maids" marry, and are still old maids.

When women are free to marry or not as they will, and the financial
burden of ma