But there is this about some women, that
they suffice to themselves and can walk in a high and cold zone
without the countenance of any trousered being."
The celibate life is more possible for most of them by nature. If
it were not for that fact, the postponement of marriage would by
this time have demolished the ethical code.
Even as things stand, Mary was quite willing to admit, when she
saw it, that there are two kinds of women greatly increasing in
modern days. Both have always existed, but now they are
increasing very rapidly and in parallel lines of corresponding
development.
In one column is the enormous army of young women who remain
unmarried till twenty-five, till thirty, till thirty-five. Even
at that latter age, and beyond it, in a well-developed city like,
say, Providence, Rhode Island, in the age period from thirty-five
to forty-five, twenty out of every hundred women are still
single.
In the other column is the enormous army of young women who,
outside of the marriage relation altogether, lead a professional
sex life, venal, furtive, ignoble, and debasing; an army which
has existed since the beginning of time but which every
postponement of the age of marriage causes to increase in
relative numbers and to gain new strength for poisoning the blood
of life.
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