see how many of them tried marriage and failed at it before ever
they turned to religion. In Protestant lands very few women
adopt it as a profession at all, and among the few a secular impulse
is almost always visible. The girl who is suddenly overcome by a
desire to minister to the heathen in foreign lands is nearly invariably
found, on inspection, to be a girl harbouring a theory that it would
be agreeable to marry some heroic missionary. In point of fact, she
duly marries him. At home, perhaps, she has found it impossible to
get a husband, but in the remoter marches of China, Senegal and
Somaliland, with no white competition present, it is equally
impossible to fail.




40.


Piety as a Social Habit


What remains of the alleged piety of women is little more than a
social habit, reinforced in most communities by a paucity of other
and more inviting divertissements. If you have ever observed the
women of Spain and Italy at their devotions you need not be told
how much the worship of God may be a mere excuse for relaxation
and gossip. These women, in their daily lives, are surrounded by a
formidable network of mediaeval taboos; their normal human
desire for ease and freedom in intercourse is opposed by masculine
distrust and superstition; they meet no strangers; they see and hear