common theory is that this
is because she is grateful to her husband for rescuing her from social
outlawry; the truth is that she makes a good wife because she is a
shrewd woman, and has specialized professionally in masculine weakness,
and is thus extra-competent at the traditional business of her sex. Such
a woman often shows a truly magnificent sagacity. It is very
difficult to deceive her logically, and it is impossible to disarm her
emotionally. Her revolt against the pruderies and sentimentalities of
the world was evidence, to begin with, of her intellectual enterprise
and courage, and her success as a rebel is proof of her extraordinary
pertinacity, resourcefulness and acumen.

Even the most lowly prostitute is better off, in all worldly ways, than
the virtuous woman of her own station in life. She has less work to do,
it is less monotonous and dispiriting, she meets a far greater variety
of men, and they are of classes distinctly beyond her own. Nor is her
occupation hazardous and her ultimate fate tragic. A dozen or more years
ago I observed a some what amusing proof of this last. At that time
certain sentimental busybodies of the American city in which I lived
undertook an elaborate inquiry into prostitution therein, and some of
them came to me in advance, as a practical journalist, for advice as to
how to proceed. I found that all of them shared the common superstition
that the professional life of the average prostitute is only five years
long, and that she invariably ends in the gutter. They were enormously
amazed When they unearthed the truth. This truth was to the effect that
the average prostitute of that town ended her career, not in the morgue
but at the altar of God, and that those who remained unmarried often
continued in practice for ten, fifteen and even twenty years, and then
retired on competences. It was established, indeed, that fully eighty
per cent married, and that they almost always got husbands who would
have been far beyond their reach had they remained virtuous. For one
who married a cabman or petty pugilist there were a dozen who married
respectable mechanics, policemen, small shopkeepers and minor officials,
and at least two or three who married well-to-do tradesmen and
professional men. Among the thousands whose careers were studied
there was actually one who ended as the wife of the town's richest
banker--that is, one who bagged the best catch in the whole community.
This woman ha