Those who did
not teach, unless they married and became mistresses of their own
_menage_, stayed at home until the parents died, and then went to live
with a brother or a married sister. What family would be without the
unmarried sister, the universal aunt? Sometimes, perhaps, she became a
mere unpaid household servant, who could not give notice. But one
would fain hope that these were rare cases.
Now, however, all is changed. The doors are thrown wide open. With a
few exceptions--to be sure, the Church, the Law, and Engineering are
important exceptions--a woman can enter upon any career she pleases.
The average woman, specially trained, should do at any intellectual
work nearly as well as the average man. The old prejudice against the
work of women is practically extinct. Love of independence and the
newly awakened impatience of the old shackles, in addition to the
forces already mentioned, are everywhere driving girls to take up
professional lives.
Not only are the doors of the old avenues thrown open: we have created
new ways for the women who work. Literature offers a hundred paths,
each one with stimulating examples of feminine success. There is
journalism, into which women are only now beginning to enter by ones
and twos.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26