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WHAT A GIRL NEEDS
A fair correspondent writes :
"Your article 'Avoidable Misery1 seems to me to be in-
complete. Why should parents insist on marrying their daughters
and for that reason undergo nameless difficulties ? If parents were
to educate their daughters as they educate their sons, so as to
enable them to earn an independent living, they won't have to
worry themselves over the selection of husbands for their
daughters. My own experience is that when girls have had the
opportunity of developing their minds fairly and are able to
support themselves in a dignified manner, they have no difficulty,
when they are desirous of marrying in being suitably matched.
I must not be understood to be advocating what is called higher
education for our girls. I know it is not possible for thousands
of girls. What I plead for is a training of girls in useful knowledge
and some calling that would make them fully confident about
their ability to face the world and not feel dependent upon
parents or their future husbands. Indeed, I know some girls who,
having been deserted by their, husbands, are today living a digni-
fied life with their husbands, because during the period of their
desertion they had the good fortune to become self-dependent and
to receive a general training. I wish you could emphasize this
aspect of the question in considering the difficulties of parents
having on their hands daughters of marriageable age!!"
I heartily endorse the sentiments expressed by my
correspondent. Only I had to deal with the case of a parent
who had made himself miserable not because he had an
incompetent daughter but because he and perhaps even
his daughter wanted to restrict themselves, in the choice
of a husband, to their own little caste. The ' accomplish-
ment ' of the girl was itself a hindrance in this case. If the
girl was illiterate, she could have accommodated herself to
any young man. But being an accomplished girl, naturally
she would need an equally £ accomplished' husband. It is
our misfortune that the sordidness of exacting a price for
marrying a girl is not regarded as a decided disquali-
fication. An altogether artificial value is put upon English
collegiate education. It covers a multitude of sins. If the
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