ON OLD MAIDS
Different types of old maids--Many of them are undisguised
blessings--Few men are good enough for women--Old bachelors and old
maids.
Next to the mother-in-law, the stepmother, and the widow, it is the old
maid who comes in for the largest share of scorn and sarcasm, and this
is all the more mean that, nine times out of ten, she is not
responsible for her position. The more generous-minded call her
'unclaimed blessing,' but many are found, women amongst them, who
whisper 'Cat!' And all this is perhaps nothing compared to 'ancient
spinster.'
I cannot help thinking, however, that feelings of quite a different
nature ought to be entertained towards the old maid. If it is owing to
her bad looks or her poverty that her hand has not been sought, or if
she was once engaged to be married and then jilted and disgusted out of
all idea of ever marrying, she should be pitied. If she has had offers
of marriage and has declined them, she should be respected for not
having married a man she could not love. If she was once engaged, and
her lover died, she should be admired for wishing to remain faithful to
his memory. If she simply wished to remain free and independent and use
her fortune, as many old maids do, in philanthropic work, she should be
blessed. If she refused to accept matrimony as a means of livelihood
(the hardest and most thankless of all), her example should be
followed. And, finally, if there do exist old maids crabby, sulky,
peevish, selfish, and with all the other defects that are generally and
most ungenerously attributed to old maids, they should be thanked by a
grateful community for having spared men the risk of leading with them
a life of wretchedness and misery.
I am of opinion that old maids and widows should inspire nothing but
generous feelings of sympathy in the heart of man. Old maids are the
wallflowers of that great dancing-party which is called Life. Let men
who have overlooked them and women who have found partners be
charitable, and let men whom they declined to associate with in the
bonds of matrimony be gentlemanly, manly enough to take no mean revenge
by scorning them.
No doubt there are despicable old maids--women who shirk all their
duties in life, and on whom not even a dog or a parrot depends for its
happiness, but they are the great exception, and for selfishness and
self-indulgence I should decidedly feel inclined to give the palm to
old bachelors. Some old maids are the comfort of parents in their old
age, others are the devoted mothers of brothers' and sisters' children,
while others are the friends of the poor and the nurses of the sick.
A great prejudice on the subject of old maids is that they are poor
forlorn creatures, who spend their lives wailing and mourning over the
absence of that man who never proposed. There is nothing to mourn over
in that. It is no loss, nothing to regret; not more than one man out of
ten is worth having. Most old maids ought to spend their lives in glee
and gratitude for a narrow escape. I know very little about women, but
I am afraid I do a great deal about men, and it is my firm conviction,
and I will express it with all the frankness, all the brutality I am
capable of, that there are very few men indeed who are good enough for
women.
I know of nothing more pleasant than the company of a jolly,
broad-minded, intelligent old maid, who knows that she can let herself
'go' and be a good 'pal' to you, without running the risk of hearing
remarks passed of a more or less objectionable character. I know of
nothing more enjoyable than the pleasure of such an old maid's company.
I count old maids among my most cheerful and companionable friends.
The old bachelor is a social failure, a sort of rebellious outcast, who
ought to pay an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound. But the old
maid who is bright, clever, cheerful, generous, charitable, hospitable,
is an ornament to society and one of its most useful members.