'Why women don't marry? But they do--whenever they can!' the intelligent
reader will naturally exclaim. Not 'whenever they get the chance,' mark
you; no _intelligent_ reader would make this mistake, though it is a
common enough error among the non-comprehending. Most spinsters over
thirty must have winced at one time or another at the would-be genial
rallying of some elderly man relative: 'What! you not married yet? Well,
well, I wonder what all the young men are thinking of.' I write _some
man_ advisedly, for no woman, however cattishly inclined, however
desirous of planting arrows in a rival's breast, would utter this
peculiarly deadly form of insult, which, strangely enough, is always
intended as a high compliment by the masculine blunderer. The fact that
the unfortunate spinster thus assailed may have had a dozen offers, and
yet, for reasons of her own, prefer to remain single, seems entirely
beyond their range of comprehension.

But the main reason why women don't marry is obviously because men don't
ask them. Most women will accept when a sufficiently pleasing man offers
them a sufficiently congenial life. If the offers they receive fall
below a certain standard, then they prefer to remain single, wistfully
hoping, no doubt, that the right man may come along before it is too
late. The preservation of the imaginative faculty in women, to which I
have previously alluded, doubtless accounts for many spinsters. It must
also be remembered that the more educated women become, the less likely
they are to marry for marrying's sake as their grandmothers did.

Then there are a few women, quite a small section, who, unless they can
realise their ideal in its entirety, will not be content with second
best. By an irony of fate, it happens that these are often the noblest
of their sex. Yet another small section remain single from an honest
dislike of marriage and its duties. It is perhaps not too severe to say
that a woman who has absolutely no vocation for wifehood and motherhood
must be a degenerate, and so lacking in the best feminine instincts as
to deserve the reproach of being 'sexless.' This type is apparently
increasing! I shall deal with it further in Part IV.

Then there are those--I should not like to make a guess at their
number--who will marry _any_ man, however undesirable and uncongenial,
rather than be left 'withering on the stalk.' It is an acutely
humiliating fact that there exists no man too ugly, too foo