THE VICIOUS CIRCLE

THE modern world is full of false ideas, crystallised into axioms. It is these conglomerations of error which, more than anything else, frustrate every attempt to reach a satisfactory solution of the problem of the modern girl and her relation to society.

The moment one opens a discussion of this burning question one is met with the argument that England now contains an immense excess of women over men (largely a result of the war), and that, in consequence, it has become necessary to train the girls in the mass for independent careers. It is surprising how few people possess even the remotest knowledge of the actual statistical position.

The excess of women over men in the European lands is now much smaller than it was at almost any period during the last 500 or 600 years. In the fourteenth century the excess of women over men in Central Europe was about 15 per cent. For Frankfurt (Main) we have the following figures for the end of the century population, about 10,000; composed of 4600 men and 5500 women—a much larger proportion of women than is to be found in Frankfurt to-day.

In modern England (with Wales) we have 18,500,000 males and 20,000,000 females (a ratio of 100 to 108). In present-day Germany there are 30,000,000 males and 32,500,000 females.

These figures speak for themselves. They reduce to a sheer absurdity the oft-repeated contention that there is now such an abnormal ratio between the sexes that our previous ideas as to woman's social functions must be revolutionised. If anything further were needed to knock this fallacy on the head it is to be found in the fact that nowhere do women pursue masculine careers more ardently than in America, where there is an excess of men over women.

Let us, then, dismiss from our minds the idea that there is any connexion at all between the cult of independence and the pseudo-masculinism which, in practice, goes with it, and the numerical relationship between the sexes. As a matter of fact, the chief excess of women over men is to be found upon the

higher age levels of the population. Consider the following figures for England and Wales, 1926:

Here we see that under the age of twenty-five there is virtually no excess of females; there is, in fact, 'a lad for every lass'!

In view of the gross inaccuracy of popular opinion on this matter, it is well to give the sharpest emphasis to the real state of things. It is quite common to hear well-educated people express the view that there are two women for every man in England. I recently met a cultured Englishwoman who firmly believed that not more than one woman in three could possibly marry, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I could persuade her to accept the accuracy of the Governmental statistics;

In spite of the absurdity of these notions, there is no doubt whatever that they play a real part in determining the mental attitude of the nation towards the problem of the education of girls. The average person is fixed in the belief that, whereas 100 years ago it was possible for the great majority of women to marry, this is now out of the question, as there are not enough men to go round.' It is apparently held that all men are married, and the large body of unmarried women in our midst represent those who are 'left on the shelf.' Very few people know that there are some 2,500,000 unmarried men in the best marriageable ages.

The German statistics throw a vivid light on the situation, proving conclusively that feminine celibacy is not due mainly to the excess of women over men, but to the non-marriage of so many men. Population: 62,500,000; males 30,200,000 and females 32,300,000. Men from twenty to forty-five-10,900,000, of whom nearly 5,000,000 were unmarried. Women from twenty to forty-five-12,600,000. Of every 100 women, about 58 are married (or widows). If all men married, this proportion would be 92.

The really decisive matter is not the ratio of men and women

in the whole population, but the ratio during the marriageable ages. Consider the following figures for England and Wales (1926): Women of marriageable age (twenty to forty-five), about 7,900,000; men of marriageable age (twenty to fifty), about 8,000,000.

It is, of course, necessary to remember that men may, and often do, marry at a somewhat later age than women. In looking for a wife a man is practically confined to the age groups between twenty and forty (although, since a certain proportion of women over forty do marry, I have taken the groups up to forty-five into account); but a woman may very easily find a husband anywhere between twenty and fifty.

Now, in the light of these figures, let us consider the remarkable fact that there are in this country some 3,000,000 unmarried women of marriageable age-most of them thinking, no doubt, that they belong to the army of the 'superfluous.'

We must, of course, allow for the women who simply do not wish to marry, or who have not found any suitable partner; but even then we cannot possibly account for the prodigious discrepancy between the number of women who might marry and those who do, save by assuming that there are some very powerful and unusual factors at work.

What are these factors?

There cannot be the slightest doubt that the general tendency of the present-day education of girls is largely responsible for the immense army of unmarried women in our midst. We cannot possibly divorce education from the rest of our national life. A machine which grinds out year by year hundreds of thousands of young women equipped solely with a view to competing with men in industry and business must of necessity create social conditions highly unfavourable to marriage and home life. The struggle to earn a family wage or salary is thus made far more difficult for the average man. It would be impossible to form an estimate of the exact number of men who have been prevented from establishing homes of their own as a result of the competition of women, but it must be very large indeed. It is significant that the proportion of men amongst the unemployed should be so large (a short time ago there were some five unemployed men for every woman or girl). In the Outlook for April 14, 1928, I find the following passage:

Of nearly 10,000 cases [of persons drawing the 'dole '] enquired into [by the Ministry of Labour] it was found that while the proportion of men claiming the dole had increased, the proportion of women had decreased; and further that while fewer boys now start work before the age of fifteen than was the case four years ago, in the case of girls the reverse is true. The agreement of these two lines of enquiry means, and can only mean,

that women are tending to displace men in industry, and more particularly that young women are tending to displace young and presumably older

men.

Again, in the daily Press of the last month it was reported that hundreds of book-keepers, many of them married men, have quite recently been thrown into unemployment through their places being given to young girls who were content with a much lower salary.

Is there not a certain confusion of cause and effect in the argument that, given the existing economic conditions, we must train girls for the market-place and not for the home?

Suppose we were to assume that, from now onwards, the stream of feminine labour were to be cut down, and that girls were, at any rate in part, to return to domestic life, is it not clear that we should in the future see a great rise in the number of marriages? It is, to say the least of it, improbable that more than a fraction of the existing 3,000,000 spinsters are resolutely bent on remaining single. It would be something more than a wild guess to say that at least half are restrained from marriage because there are some 1,500,000 men who cannot afford to marry. The point is: How many of these men have been prevented from 'getting on,' or even thrown into unemployment, through the competition of the immense army of young women workers? If my assumption-now, of course, purely fancifulwere ever to come true, we should soon find that the army of our 3,000,000 spinsters had diminished to less than half its size. Strange as the idea may seem to an age dominated by masculine ideals, would it not be far more in the national interest to aim at reducing the mass of single women and building up the sinking domestic life of England, rather than go on with the present system, by which we deliberately train battalions of young women to intensify the struggle of life, not only for the men of the nation, but equally for their own sisters?

The real trouble is that we are hopelessly entangled in a vicious circle. Parents and educators feel compelled-even in the face of their own better judgment—to give up the idea of training girls for their most natural career, marriage, and to fit them first and foremost for economic independence. The chance of marriage is uncertain, the expense of keeping girls at home too great; and, above all, the modern girl has set her heart upon 'freedom.' It is usually argued that if a girl can stand on her own feet she need not feel compelled to marry merely for the sake of having a home, but can afford to wait until she meets the right man; and, further, that she will be all the better for a thorough training in some profession. I will not deny that there is a germ of truth in this point of view We do

not wish to return to the time when young ladies stayed at home doing fine embroidery until they could catch a man. But none of these arguments, however true, can alter the logic of the situation. The fact remains that it is the flooding of the labour market with young women that has, more than anything else, lowered the chance of marriage for the modern girl; so that whereas sixty years ago a middle-class daughter could reckon on an over 80 per cent. chance of marriage, the figure has now sunk to under 50 per cent. (in the case of university-trained women the marriage ratio is not more than some 30 per cent.). We keep on moving round and round. Girls must earn their living because they cannot marry. Why cannot they marry? Because there are so many girls earning their living.

My principal object in writing this article is to make it perfectly clear that the present state of things is not an act of God,' the result of an unavoidable disparity between the sexes, but a problem capable of solution. It lies in our own hands to find some way of escape from the squirrel's cage. The whole matter is essentially a question of ideals-in fact, like most other things, it depends upon our ultimate beliefs. To those who have been converted to the egocentric, utilitarian philosophy which reveals itself in much of the literature of feminism, everything I have just said will seem absurd. It will not move them in the least to know that some millions of girls have lost their chance of possessing a home of their own. Indeed, a wellknown representative of left-wing feminism recently expressed her joy at the decline of marriage, since she held that it would open the door for irregular sex relationships and thus assist in the 'liberation of women.'

On the other hand, to those who believe that marriage is the proper work of women, and that the sexes were intended to complement and aid each other, and not to cut each other's throats, it will seem of the very first importance to remedy a state of things which imposes celibacy upon millions of women (over and above the numerically'superfluous' women).

It is true that some feminists-especially those of the leftwing-have begun to realise that the economic emancipation of women is not all that was promised, that in practice it condemns masses of women to a drudgery no better than that from which they had thought to liberate themselves. Accordingly they have brought forward a remedy of their own-the union of marriage and professional life. It is proposed that wives and husbands should both pursue careers. In that way many of our bachelors, male and female, especially in the educated classes, will be able to marry.

There are a great many excellent arguments which might be