on Unmarried Women.=--The social demand upon
women who are at work in any field of personal endeavor, whether that
be professional, clerical, manual or artistic, has been outlined
before in this treatment of the relation of the home to society in
general as involving sortie special consideration of family needs.
This may seem a negligible quantity to many women, unmarried, with
relatives all self-supporting or well-to-do. There is no reason why a
daughter should be called "undutiful" or "selfish" who is absorbed in
her own work than why a son should be so esteemed when there is no
special reason why other members of the family should hold that
daughter's time and effort at their disposal. The selfishness may be
on the other side, and often is where parents or near relatives within
the family bond try to burden the young woman with odds and ends of
family service, which others might as well assume, and leave her with
no ambition or opportunity for personal achievement. There are,
however, in this complicated life of ours many contingencies of family
experience which still demand from daughters a share in time and
strength which sons may more easily concentrate upon their own work.
This fact, often operating unconsciously, leads many young women to
choices of types of work which have fixed hours and easy adjustment to
frequent absences from work. These give little chance for rising in
wage or position and often give low wages from the start. This
tendency keeps many women from success in work and is often a reason
why men distrust and oppose their entrance into a new field of
industry.

The first essential of character, it must be insisted, is the power of
self-support, of self-direction, of self-achievement. This is, now
seen to be an essential for women as for men. The only adequate
solution of problems of commercialized prostitution includes for each
girl capable of that attainment the power of easy and complete
self-support. Hence, the family has no right to take from its members
some present advantage which will handicap potential workers, either
boys or girls, in their struggle to meet adult responsibilities of
economic life. Hence, again, the whole question of vocational
preparation for girls, as well as for boys, has right-of-way as
against any temporary or easily dispensed-with helping in family
emergencies which may seriously hamper the future wage-earner. This is
now being seen clearly; and the consequence is