AUGUST 439 



most as mischievous single as married. Tlie type of 

 women that men often know most about was thus de- 

 scribed to me by a man. He gave it as his deliberate 

 opinion of women as he had found them : ' They are 

 curious creatures ; in religion they can believe fifty times 

 as much as any man. In love they only believe when 

 they see and hear you ; as soon as your back is turned 

 they scream and cry out you have abandoned them. 

 Before you come they want you, when you have gone 

 you have betrayed them, and they wonder that a man 

 cannot bear that sort of thing for ever. Do you call me 

 practical for speaking in this way? Very well, I am 

 practical — and tell you what I know.' 



To go back to our original text, ' The Marriage 

 Market.' The writers of all four articles seem to me 

 too much under the impression that marriages are de- 

 cided by the parents. So far as my experience goes, in 

 England this is not the case. The girls take their lives 

 in their own hands, though often with very insufficient 

 knowledge. I have known girls who distrust to such a 

 degree the feelings they may have for a man who is rich 

 that they have actually refused him for fear they should 

 be influenced by worldly reasons, everyone about them 

 taking it for granted that they could never be so foolish 

 as not to marry him. Many girls think of marriage 

 solely as a means of escaping home duties, and assume 

 that the duties will be lighter after marriage than 

 before. 



I hear many people condemn the girl who 'marries 

 for money'; and Marie Corelli vituperates against the 

 women who 'sell themselves,' as she calls it. This 

 seems to me unfair. Marriage and even love do not 

 alter a nature ; and if a girl knows herself, and^is quite 

 well aware that she cares most for the things that money 

 alone can give her, I think there is more of wickedness 



