176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the second place, a certain real lack of men to marry, here 

 and now, in certain classes of society, and those the classes that 

 lead thought, has made an exceptional number of able women at 

 present husbandless, and thus has added strength to the feeling 

 that women must and ought to earn their own living. How small 

 and local this cause is I shall hereafter try to show : but there can 

 be no doubt that it has much to do with the present discontents 

 among women. There is a feeling abroad that many women can't 

 get married ; and this feeling, bolstered up by erroneous statistics 

 and misunderstood facts, has greatly induced women to erect into 

 an ideal for all what is really a pis-aUer for a small fraction of 

 their body self-support in competition with men. 



But are there not seven hundred thousand more women than 

 men in the United Kingdom ? And must not these seven hundred 

 thousand be enabled to earn their own living ? That is the one 

 solid fact which the " advanced " women are always flinging at 

 our heads ; and that is the one fallacious bit of statistics which 

 seems at first sight to give some color of reasonableness to the 

 arguments in favor of the defeminization of women. 



As a matter of fact, the statistics are not true. There are not 

 seven hundred thousand more women than men, but seven hun- 

 dred thousand more females than males in the United Kingdom. 

 The people who say " seven hundred thousand women," picture to 

 themselves that vast body of marriageable girls, massed in a hol- 

 low square, and looking about them in vain, across wide leagues 

 of country, for non-existent husbands. But figures are things that 

 always require to be explained, and, above all, to be regarded in 

 their true proportions to one another. These seven hundred thou- 

 sand females include infants in arms, lunatics, sisters of charity, 

 unfortunates, and ladies of eighty. A large part of the excess is 

 due to the greater longevity of women ; and the number comprises 

 the great mass of widows, who have once in their lives possessed a 

 husband of their own, and have outlived him, partly because they 

 are, as a rule, younger, and partly by dint of their stronger con- 

 stitutions. Moreover, this total disparity of seven hundred thou- 

 sand, including babies, lunatics, and widows, is a disparity on a 

 gross population of something more than thirty-five millions. 

 Looking these figures straight in the face, we find the actual pro- 

 portion of the sexes to be as 172 males to 179 females. Speaking 

 very roughly, this makes about four females in every hundred, 

 including babies, widows, and so forth, who have not a comple- 

 mentary male found for them. This in itself is surely no very 

 terrible disproportion. It does not more than cover the relative 

 number of women who are naturally debarred from marriage, or 

 who under no circumstances would ever submit to be married. 

 Out of every hundred women, roughly speaking, ninety-six have 



