THE PRESENT POSITION OF WOMEN 101 



married woman with private means are both individuals 

 on whom we may rightly count to pay their debt to 

 society in public service and private enterprise. It is 

 difficult to estimate the immense amount of valuable 

 work, the ceaseless stream of good example and inspir- 

 ing influence that we, in England, owe to these two 

 classes of women. But let us never forget the far 

 greater, far deeper, far more permanent impress that 

 we have received from those members of society in 

 whose homes our men and women of thought, character 

 and action were bred and brought up. 



We cannot believe that it is a mere coincidence that 

 the women whose names are best known and most 

 distinguished for social, artistic or literary services 

 were for the most part unmarried or childless, so that 

 the special gifts by which they became famous have 

 died with them. Angelica Kaufmann, Jane Austen, 

 Christina Rossetti, Florence Nightingale, Harriet Mar- 

 tineau, Charlotte Bronte", Maria Edgeworth, Charlotte 

 Yonge, George Eliot leave no descendants. Elizabeth 

 Barrett Browning, Mary Somerville, Mrs Gaskell had 

 children, but not many, and there does not appear to 

 be a third generation. 



We shall probably always have unmarried and child- 

 less women of a high standard of character and ability 

 in our midst, but the danger of calling attention to 

 their services lies in the fact that people are thereby 

 inclined to regard them as our normal standard of 

 womanhood. To argue that because such people have 

 themselves leisure and energy for outside occupations, 

 it is therefore right and expedient to force the additional 

 duties of public life and political responsibility on the 



