That marriage is the destination of the human race is a mistake that I
want to correct before I go further. There are multitudes who never
will marry, and still greater multitudes who are not fit to marry. In
Great Britain to-day there are nine hundred and forty-eight thousand
more women than men, and that, I understand, is about the ratio in
America. By mathematical and inexorable law, you see, millions of
women will never marry. The supply for matrimony is greater than the
demand, the first lesson of which is that every woman ought to prepare
to take care of herself if need be. Then there are thousands of men
who have no right to marry, because they have become so corrupt of
character that their offer of marriage is an insult to any good woman.
Society will have to be toned up and corrected on this subject, so
that it shall realize that if a woman who has sacrificed her honor is
unfitted for marriage, so is any man who has ever sacrificed his
purity. What right have _you, O masculine beast_! whose life has been
loose, to take under your care the spotlessness of a virgin reared in
the sanctity of a respectable home? Will a buzzard dare to court a
dove?