nd Society must not permit her triumph to appear
desirable to the young. They must be made to understand what her
winnings have cost in lovely and desirable things. They must know that
the unrest which drove her to the attempt is not necessarily satisfied
by her triumph, that it is merely stifled and may break out at any
time in vagaries and follies. They must be made to realize the
essential barrenness of her triumph, its lack of the savor and tang of
life, the multitude of makeshifts she must practice to recompense her
for the lack of the great adventure of natural living.

And they see it, many of them, before they are out of college, and
their militancy falls off like the cloak it generally is. The girl
abandons her quest. In the early days she was likely to be treated as
an apostate if, instead of following the "life work" she had picked
out, she slipped back into matrimony. I can remember the dismay among
certain militant friends when Alice Freeman married. "Our first
college president," they groaned. "A woman who so vindicated the sex."
It was like the grieving of Miss Anthony that Mrs. Stanton wasted so
much time having babies!

The militant theory, as originally conceived, instead of increasing in
favor, has declined. There is little likelihood now that any great
number of women will ever regard it as a desirable working formula for
more than a short period of their lives. But I am not saying that this
theory is no longer influential. It is probable that in a modified
form it was never more influential than it is to-day. For, while the
Uneasy Woman has practically demonstrated that "making a man of
herself" does not solve her problem, she has by no means given up the
notion that the Business of Being a Woman is narrowing and
unsatisfying. Nor has she ceased to consider man's life more desirable
than woman's.

The present effort of the serious-minded to meet the case takes two
general directions, natural enough outgrowths of the original
militancy. The first of these is a frank advocacy of celibacy.
"_Celibacy is the aristocracy of the future_," is the preaching of one
European feminist. It is a modification of the scheme by which the
medieval woman sought to escape unrest. Four hundred years ago a woman
sought celibacy as an escape from sin; service and righteousness were
her aim. To-day she adopts it to escape inferiority and servitude;
superiority and freedom her aim.

The ranks of the woman celibates ar