pleased less often. The woman of a century ago could imagine
nothing more favourable to her than marriage; even marriage with a
fifth rate man was better than no marriage at all. This notion is
gradually feeling the opposition of a contrary notion. Women in
general may still prefer marriage, to work, but there is an increasing
minority which begins to realize that work may offer the greater
contentment, particularly if it be mellowed by a certain amount of
philandering.


There already appears in the world, indeed, a class of women, who,
while still not genuinely averse to marriage, are yet free from any
theory that it is necessary, or even invariably desirable. Among
these women are a goodman somewhat vociferous propagandists,
almost male in their violent earnestness; they range from the man
eating suffragettes to such preachers of free motherhood as Ellen
Key and such professional shockers of the bourgeoisie as the
American prophetess of birth-control, Margaret Sanger. But
among them are many more who wake the world with no such noisy
eloquence, but content themselves with carrying out their ideas in a
quiet and respectable manner. The number of such women is much
larger than is generally imagined, and that number tends to increase
steadily. They are women who, with their economic independence
assured, either by inheritance or by their own efforts, chiefly in the
arts and professions, do exactly as they please, and make no pother
about it. Naturally enough, their superiority to convention and the
common frenzy makes them extremely attractive to the better sort of
men, and so it is not uncommon for one of them to find herself
voluntarily sought in marriage, without any preliminary scheming by
herself--surely an experience that very few ordinary women ever