It was by no vagary of chance that the demand of women for the
higher education came simultaneously with the change from the old
industrial home to the new, more purely domestic home. (It may be
a higher, nobler type of home. We are not here discussing that
point.)
As the home ceased to provide its daughters with adequate
education and with adequate employment, what was their situation?
In the "working class" it was simply this: That they went into
factories and that their sweethearts married them somewhat later
than had previously been the case, because their share as wives
in the support of the family was increasingly smaller. But the
"working class" man soon reaches his maximum earning capacity in
his craft and stays there. His financial infancy is short,
compared with that of the "middle class" man. He therefore
marries younger.
In the "middle class," however, Science and System began to
lengthen the mental and financial infancy of the men to such an
extent that the "old maid" of twenty-three became common. What
were the girls in the "middle class" to do while the boys were
growing up to be men, in mind and in money?
The father of Frederick the Great used to go about his realm with
a stick, and when he saw a woman in the street he would shake the
stick at her and say "Go back into the house.
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